May 2019 Newsletter
Principal’s New – May 2019
We’ve all heard that too much salt is not good for us, but here’s a twist that might actually change your salt habit. Consuming large quantities of salt each day, requires our kidneys to work over time to process and rid our body of it. Excess salt is stored in the blood, which then causes water retention and an increase in blood volume. All this “extra” makes your heart have to work harder. The harder your heart has to work, the more calories it needs to sustain the effort. Thus, you tend to eat more when you are choosing to eat a high sodium diet. You may find that not only is a low sodium diet good for your cardiovascular health, but also you could lose some weight (swimsuit season is just around the corner).
Happy Spring!
Our students are surrounded and immersed in media at school and at home. How can we help our students to use critical thinking skills to be media literate? Here are 5 questions that we can ask to promote media literacy.
5 Essential Media Literacy Questions:
1. Who created the message?
2. Why was it made?
3. Who is paying for it?
4. How is the message trying to get my attention?
5. Who is represented in the message and who is missing?
Confidence is rooted in competence. Children can’t gain genuine confidence without experiencing their own competence. They have to manage challenges to know they are to succeed. Only then will they be truly confident. Real confidence, as opposed to self-esteem, fosters resilience because it results from demonstrated, proven competence. A child knows in his bones that he has mastered a task, so he believes in his ability and is truly confident. Adults can certainly nurture this confidence by teaching problem-solving skills and providing safe opportunities to practice those skills. We can recognize children’s assets and help them use those strengths to overcome difficulty and bound back. It is not enough simply to tell them they’re terrific or dress them in “I am special” T-shirts. Ginsburg, K.R (2015). Building Resilience in Children and Teens.
Calendar items:
April 29-May 3 Screen Savvy Week
May 3 6pm-8pm Screen Savvy Reward activity
May 6-May 10 Teacher Appreciation Week
May 8 10am PTA meeting
May 20 6:30pm-8:00pm STEAM night
May 27 No School
Internet Safety 2019
In the online world, social networking sites have become a predominant forum for kids to present themselves, seek approval, and describe their interests. One of the defining features of most social networking pages is the visual and audio clutter; these sites often look like over-decorated high school yearbooks or scrapbooks. Teens use these pages as a place to feature everything in their heads and hearts that they want people to know about. The central feature of these sites is the ability to connect with people and share information.
The link below has a collection of Parent’s Guides to different social media apps and sites yours children may be using.
Social Skills March 2019
Today’s Social Skills Lesson
Today, your child was presented a social skills class coordinated by our counseling team.
We began with a review of our school wide theme of “GRRR”: Granite Grizzlies are Responsible, Respectful and Ready to learn! The social skills classes each month will provide the skills to “GRRR”!
- We participated in a mindfulness breathing and relaxing exercise.
- We also reviewed “If you don’t show it, they won’t know it!”
- Today’s topics:
- Perseverance/Grit: Not quitting, being “ok” with working hard.
- Trying something new: How does that feel? How do we ask for help?
- When things are easy, how do we respond to others struggling with the same task?
Please discuss with your child what he/she has learned from this lesson. It can provide a wonderful form of reinforcement of essential interpersonal skills