Nourish to Flourish!

Each year, our Longfellow Wellness Committee sponsors monthly "Nourish to Flourish" themes.  Our Nourish to Flourish themes for January are adequate sleep and a healthy breakfast.  Friday, January 25th is Pajama Day!  Students are invited to wear (school-appropriate) pajamas all day to school.  In addition, students are welcome to bring a healthy breakfast to school that we'll eat first thing.  Healthy breakfast suggestions include: a fruit cup, low-sugar cereal, whole wheat toast or bagel, or a hard boiled egg.  Please bring any bowls, utensils, etc you might need to eat your breakfast.  Just think of all the extra sleep you can get when you don't have to get dressed or eat breakfast that morning!

100th Day of School

Thursday, January 31st is our 100th day of school, so we'll have several special activities to celebrate the day.  If you'd like to bring in a collection of 100 "things," please feel free to do so.  Starting thinking now of something fun!  It might be 100 Legos, paperclips, pennies, buttons, stickers, or something I haven't thought of yet!  Please make sure your collection fits in your backpack.  You can bring it in anytime that week of January 28th.  If you have any questions, just let me know!

Volunteering

If anyone is willing and available to come into the classroom on Monday or Tuesday mornings, please let me know.  We'd love to have you as a regular guest at the writing center.  We are becoming great writers!  However, many students could use a little help choosing a topic, giving details, sounding out, or checking their words to make sure they make sense.  We have workshop at 9:45 on Mondays and at 9:20 on Tuesdays.  Please let me know if you can commit about an hour each week at either of these times.  In the past, I've also had parents pair up and take every other week, as that was more convenient for their schedules.  Thanks in advance!

Health Curriculum

Longfellow's two psychology interns, Mrs. Schumacher and Ms. Jenny, have been coming in to teach our health curriculum.  I think they are great lessons with very age-appropriate language.  I just thought I'd let you know that students are learning about safe touches.  We've reviewed that the only people who touch your private areas do so to keep you clean and healthy.  Wednesday we'll talk about what to do if someone breaks the safe touching rule: tell them to stop, get away, and tell a trusted adult.  If you have any questions, please let me know.

A Message from Mrs. Patterson

Our gym is rather warm and, given the time of year, kids wear a lot of warm clothes.  Please make sure your child wears a short sleeved T-shirt with layers over it on days with Physical Education (Mondays and Fridays.)  We keep the students very active.  Please also be sure to pack gym shoes on those days.  This can be a little harder to remember on snowy days with winter boots.  Thank you.