Anderson Elementary Update

Anderson Families,

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Thanks to all of you for partnering with us on your children's education! There are lots of great pictures in this update-Enjoy!!

Alanna Denton, Principal

Anderson Elementary

dentona@bronsonschools.org

The weather has taken a turn. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you to make sure your children wear coats, hats, gloves/mittens, snow pants, and boots. Also, if you send your child in boots please make sure they have shoes in their bags to wear during the day. We try to go outside for recess whenever we can and it is important that students are dressed for the winter weather. If you are having trouble getting your child the necessities, please reach out and we will see what we can do. Thanks for working with us on this!

School attendance is very important. We do understand sometimes kids do get sick, but it is important that when a child is healthy he or she come to school. When students must miss, please give us a call and let us know what is going on. Just a few additional things to keep in mind for when a child is sick:

• Students with fevers must be fever free without medication for 24 hours before they can return to school
• Students who vomit during the night or in the morning before school probably should not come to school
• Students who have diarrhea during the night or in the morning before school probably should not come to school

Our December assembly had a being kind focus. Our Counselor has been sponsoring a Kindness Challenge and has been encouraging our students to do many kind things. The bulletin board outside of the office is tracking their "acts of kindness." Be sure to check it out the next time you are in the building.

Thanks to all of you for your generosity. Our students have packed the boxes with all of the goodies you have sent in and will be sending out their care packages this week. What an exciting lesson for our students to learn!!!!

We have completed our "Attitude is Gratitude" program and are excited to begin our "Season of Kindness!" This month, we are exploring how small acts of kindness can have a big impact. Each class is taking part in a Kindness Challenge, finding ways to show kindness through actions like helping friends, sharing kind words, and including others. To celebrate, each grade level is decorating a kindness tree with ornaments that represent the kind deeds they are completing. Our lessons this month will focus on being kind to ourselves, our friends, and our families.

To help spread the holiday cheer, here are some fun ways families can practice kindness at home and in the community:

• Leave festive kind notes for loved ones.
• Surprise someone by doing a household chore for them.
• Share smiles and holiday greetings with others.
• Create thank you cards for teachers, neighbors, or community helpers.
• Paint kindness rocks with cheerful messages and hide them for others to find.
• Donate gently used items to those in need.
• Help neighbors with tasks like shoveling snow or carrying groceries.
• Call loved ones to wish them a happy holiday season.
• Organize a family walk to clean up your neighborhood or a local park.
• Share daily gratitude during December as a family tradition.

These simple acts can make the Christmas season brighter and more meaningful for everyone!

Just in time for Thanksgiving our kitchen was finally finished. Our cafeteria was able to bake all of the gingerbread cookies for family literacy night and we are now offering multiple options at lunch! We appreciate all of our patience and all of the hard work our cafeteria employees put into providing nutritious meals for our students.

Our Family Literacy Night was a huge success!!!! So many of you took the time to come and participate in our gingerbread hunt. We are so grateful to all of you who attended this event. It was so great that we are considering making it a yearly tradition. We drew names for copies of the book, There Is a Gingerbread Loose In Our School. Gracie Barnett and Ivan Mason were the winners. We have some really exciting things planned for Math Night (coming in the new year) so there will be additional opportunities for our students and their families to come to school.

We continue to recognize students who are being leaders. We are excited about this program and hope to recognize all of our students who demonstrate leadership qualities throughout the year.

Responsibility Room is a program we use to help students rethink some of the behaviors that have gotten them into trouble. We run it during part of our recess. Students who are referred to the responsibility room will spend time in restorative practices and rethinking their choices. We are excited about this program and hopeful that it will help our students make sound choices.

Our teachers will be using Seesaw to communicate with families. Please make sure that you sign up for a Seesaw account. Your child's teacher should be able to help you with this.

December 20-Half Day

December 21-January 6-No School