Hard to believe we are so quickly approaching the holiday season! Thank you all for a very successful fall so far. I hope you enjoyed the Conscious Discipline PD as much as I did! I will try to find and include some reminders or suggestions in each of my updates!

To start, here is the website. There is a TON of information and resources. If you go to the FREE resources tab and scroll down you'll see many options. If you click on Schubert's School, then on the left hand side go to Sophie's classroom. This is what Amy was referring to with great resources and examples from classroom. If you go to number 11, Greeting Ritual, then click on examples you can see videos of different ways to do greetings. I know I shared this in the meeting, but this is something that I feel is VERY important for each child to be greeted individually and intentionally---as well as the teachers to gauge how that child is coming in for the day.

The other one I looked at so far which I LOVE is the Safekeeper Ritual. If you go to number 17, then the examples, you see a video of the ritual again (also with a cool blast off breathing!) Let me know if you need help navigating the site!

Main Conscious Discipline Site



I have LOVED seeing everyone in their studies! Having so much fun with projects, play and learning. 😍

Shout out to our teachers who were part of the VQB5 observations recently! These scores get published for the first time this year and they did really well. Nothing was rated in the low category and there were plenty of high category ratings!! Overall, we are working on Quality Feedback and Language modeling. If you did not have a chance to refer to my previous email it had many tips on this.



Our lead teachers are working so hard on learning a million new things and making changes for the better in our classrooms. If you're ever wondering what they're doing during their plannings, ask them :) But right now the focus is on preparing for conferences and making sure we have evidence and assessment data collected for each student. This is getting entered in to our online system called GOLD where we track students progress across MANY objectives. This is a tedious task, so the teachers do need a lot of time for this. To help them enter and also learn more about the process, we are working on getting sub coverage this week for a longer amount of time for them to work. Dee, Rebeca and Katia will have their work time this week on the 16th, Brittany and Caroline will have theirs on the 17th.

Conference Days have been scheduled for each classroom. A sign up genius was sent out for parents to sign up. They will be IN PERSON unless a parent really cannot attend and needs Zoom. Dates are below.

Emergency Preparedness

I've been talking with Leads about Emergency plans and drills and it's important that everyone has an understanding of these. The graphics above help to explain. It appears that maybe in the past you've treated shelter in place and a lockdown the same, but they are VERY different.

SECURE the building--This is a threat outside the building or in the area. Think about a suspect on the run and the police call here to say they think suspect could be near us. We lock doors and stay inside, but continue our day as usual.

LOCKDOWN- This is the one we never want to have, but have to be prepared for unfortunately. This means there is an imminent threat inside our building. Immediately lock doors, close blinds, hide, etc.

EVACUATE- If we have to leave the church for safety, our evacuation location is the Baptist church down the road on the corner of Franconia.

SHELTER in place- This is an outside, environmental hazard. If it's a Tornado, our safe zone is in the hallway. If it's an atmospheric concern, like a chemical explosion, our plan right now is to gather in the Butterflies so we have access to the kitchen.

PLEASE READ OVER THESE. We will get some of these printed out for you as well. We also need to make sure we LOCK the doors at all times and we have our walkies with us!

We are going to practice a LOCKDOWN this week on Thursday morning. We DO NOT tell children at this age that we are worried about a shooter. We talk about practicing drills to keep us safe. Like hide and seek. If you have a persistent child questioning, we used to tell our KG students it was in case an animal got in the building.....:)

PLEASE update your annual professional development training log and get it back to Kari for your files. It's important that we stay up to date on our requirements!

We have some holiday changes coming up for you to be aware of when planning. The ECEC used to do a Thanksgiving meal with families. After listening to feedback from the leads, we are going to postpone that and move to doing something in December with families. We are going to a small program on December 22nd with families at 11:00am in the sanctuary since we close at noon that day. Families will leave after our program and then we will have our staff holiday party after that! It should have all of you out of here on that Friday and ready for the holiday by 3:00 at the latest.

Friendsgiving classroom celebrations coming up on the 20th though. Wear your comfy PJs!

Upcoming Dates

• November 16th- LockDown Drill
• November 16th, KK, CC, BB work day (10:30-3:30)
• November 17th- Pandas work day (Time TBD)
• December 12th- Conference Day Butterflies and Koalas
• December 13th- Conference Day Pandas
• December 14th- Conference Day Caterpillars

So excited to have a fundraiser event for our school! We need to have $400 in sales to get 25% back of the purchases. Easy dinner option for your family after work on the 21st!

https://www.sjlc.com/ecec | 703-971-3581