WILLOW CREST NEWS
December 2023
PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
Hello Willow Crest Families,
We are approaching three uninterrupted weeks of instruction for your child. In support of our school goal of improving attendance, we want to encourage you to make sure your child is here at school each and every day until Winter break.
As we prepare for the winter break, I would like to stress the importance of your child reading every day, even during the break. They can read to a sibling, relative, pet, or even stuffed animal! Reading every day sets your child up for success for years to come!
Sincerely,
Ray Marshall, Principal
mClass Winter Benchmarks
Next week we start our Winter Benchmarks for our Kindergarten - 6th grade students. One of our school goals is to increase our reading scores by 10%. As your child's first teacher, you are an intricate part of their success. One way you can support them in doing their best on these testing dates is to insure they have proper sleep and a breakfast that includes protein (eggs, cheese, or meat) and complex carbohydrates (ex: cheerios, oatmeal, English muffin with peanut butter).
On December 21, we will our annual Books and Blankets. We will also be having our Winter concerts in the morning. More details will be emailed or Robo called.
As Mr. Marshall mentioned, reading during our winter break is essential to reading improvement. As an incentive for students, we will be starting a contest. Students who spend 15 minutes a day on Boost (K-5) will be put in a drawing for a prize. Each 15 minutes gains 1 ticket. Sixth graders will get a ticket for 15 minutes of i-Ready each day. Contest starts December 22, 2023 and ends
January 7, 2024.
COUNSELOR'S MESSAGE
In our counselor lessons this month, we focused on friendships and apologies! With the younger students, we talked about what makes an apology great. It’s important to say we’re sorry when we make a mistake or hurt someone else, whether we meant to or not! We say we are sorry, and we say what we are sorry for. After that, it’s important that we try really hard not to make the same mistakes again. With the older students, we talked about friendships! We talked about the important ingredients in a good friendship: respect, joy, apologies, and trust. We learned a little bit about our friendship styles and how we can work on communication with those that we have relationships with. We learned that we shouldn’t try to control our friends, and that everyone gets to choose who they are friends with.
As always, please reach out with any questions or concerns. I’m at school on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 8:30am-2:45pm.
Lindsay Hibbert
School Counselor
Willow Crest Elementary School -- 907-742-1006
Wednesday -- Friday 8:30am -- 2:45pm
