Whew - last week was a flurry of activity at Horace Mann! We had tons of fun with Spirit Week (Friday's Hat Day was my personal favorite). Thank you parents for helping kids participate in our theme days.
PTA was very busy setting up the Book Fair and Doughnuts with Dudes - two of our favorite things, right? Seriously, though, all of us at The Mann so appreciate parents giving their time to put on and participate in our family engagement opportunities (special thanks to committee chairs Kristy Gibbons, Amanda Whaples and Katie Steinmuller). A shout out to Donut Pantry for partnering with us for the delicious bakery to start our day sweetly 🍩
We topped the whole thing off with Star Student of the Month announcements and positive behavior focused assemblies on Friday. The Sandy Hook Promise is a program developed to foster inclusivity in schools. The elementary version is called Start With Hello, and has three steps: 1) See someone alone, 2) Reach out & help, 3) Start with Hello. We engaged students in mixed grade socializing through pairing 5th grade with 1st and Pre-K, 4th grade with kindergarten and 2nd grade with 3rd. The turn-and-talk opportunities to practice conversational icebreakers were priceless 🙂 Kids were encouraged to ask "Why?" when a new friend indicated a favorite thing, as the best way to keep the conversation going and find commonalities. Sincere appreciation goes to Intervention Specialists Jessica Farmer, Jennifer Frank and Heather Woods for leading the assemblies.
Weeks like this show the amazing balance that happens at our school. We work hard on academics, we attend to social-emotional growth, and we have a good time. Thank you for joining us in this journey of growth we are on together!
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