Gill Principal Newsletter

Friday, February 11, 2022

February 11, 2022 Newsletter

Dates to Remember:

  • February 16- Half Day-Students released at 11:50
  • February 16- School Council
  • February 21-25- February Recess- NO SCHOOL

Dear Gill Families, Caregivers, and Staff,

We want your child to be successful in school and that means supporting and encouraging their whole development. While excelling in academic classes is important, children also need skills to take on learning challenges, make good decisions, manage strong emotions, and get along with others. Teachers have been trained and have begun to use Second Step® Elementary, a research-based social-emotional learning program designed to improve children’s social-emotional skills in grades K-6. Second Step skills and concepts are designed to help children both in and out of school.

Four units will cover the following:

  • Growth Mindset & Goal-Setting: Children learn how to pay attention and manage distractions, develop a growth mindset, and apply goal-setting strategies to their social and academic lives.
  • Emotion Management: Children learn how to identify and label emotions and use emotion management strategies—including stress management for older students—to calm strong feelings.
  • Empathy & Kindness: Children learn how to recognize kindness and act kindly, have empathy for others and take others’ perspectives, and recognize kind acts and empathy as important elements of building and maintaining relationships.
  • Problem-Solving: Children learn how to identify and state a problem, recognize if a problem is an accident, and use the STEP problem-solving process:

S: Say the problem

T: Think of solutions

E: Explore the outcomes

P: Pick a solution

Here are some updates and reminders to be aware of:

  • We’ve had a lot of wet children this week, but not enough dry socks, pants, or other items to replace the wet clothing. Your children play very hard in the snow, but they’re coming in wet with no change of clothes. Please send in a set of dry clothes for them!
  • The recent Penny Wars blast raised over $2,200 dollars! See the pictures below to get an idea of the amount of coins.

Have a great weekend.
Sincerely, Lisa Desjarlais