From the Principal’s Desk
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Dear Blossom Hill Families,
On Monday evening, Superintendent Johnson proposed a recommendation which was approved by the LGUSD Board of Trustees to remain in a virtual classroom learning model until at least January 2021. While this pandemic and the year 2020 continues to present hurdles, I have learned that our community of stakeholders can unite and engage in difficult and respectful conversations to benefit all students. When considering the polarizing topic of reopening schools amidst a pandemic, I want to assure you that the many stakeholder meetings have incorporated and taken into consideration the perspectives of a wide range of individuals. Our journey to transition back to in-person learning is rooted in the following guiding principles which were used to frame the analysis and decision to remain in virtual classrooms:
Physical Health & Safety
Educational Quality
Social-emotional Learning/Wellbeing
Educational Consistency
As we navigate the coming months together, I urge us to proceed with grace. I challenge us to continue to collaborate and assume best intentions. I am grateful to you and our staff for your support and positive mindset. Our children are watching our every move. In ten years from now, my greatest hope is that our students will reflect back to the year 2020 and remember how the trusted adults in their lives rallied together to care for them. I have no doubt that we will continue to rise to the occasion.
In education together,
Lisa Reynolds
Principal, Blossom Hill School
Phone: 408.335.2100
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October/November
- 10/15 - LGUSD Board Meeting, 6:30-8:30pm (online)
- 10/26 - 10/30 - Red Ribbon Week
- 10/29 - School Site Council (SSC) Meeting, 2:45-3:45pm (online)
- 11/1 - Daylight Savings Time Ends
- 11/2 - 11/6 - Conference Week*
- 11/4 - H&SC Board Meeting, 8-9:30am (online)
- 11/4 - 11/11 - Yearbook Cover Contest Entries Due*
- 11/11 - Veteran's Day - No School
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*Scroll down for more details on these events.
**See details above "From the Principal's Desk"
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IMPORTANT SCHOOL CONTACT INFORMATION
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Office:
408-335-2100
Attendance:
408-335-2145
Office Hours:
7:30 am - 3:30 pm
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Faster than the speed of your broadband!
More powerful than a face mask!
Able to reach growing minds with a single click!
Look! Up on your screen!
It’s a Google classroom master.
It’s a Zoom star.
It’s the Blossom Hill teachers and staff!
Yes, it's the Blossom Hill staff – amazing professionals from out of this world who came to school with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal instructors. The Blossom Hill Staff – defenders of learning opportunities. Champions of growth mindsets. Valiant, courageous fighters against the forces of the summer slide. They are disguised as mild mannered, everyday people. But to our students, they’re Superheroes!
Fall Conference Week is November 2-6, 2020. The H&SC is excited to continue our long-standing tradition of hosting daily lunches for our “Superhero” staff during conference week. This is a great opportunity to show gratitude and support to all members of the Blossom Hill Staff. As with everything, Conference Week Lunches will be done a little differently this year. Instead of potluck style, we will deliver fully catered box lunches and treats throughout the week. Instead of decorating the Staff Lounge, Staff and teachers will receive a box with desk decorations and tokens of appreciation.
Support the Superheroes at school daily by making cash donations for catering and other expenses.
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Please contact Kristin Hutchinson if you have any questions at staffappreciation@blossomhill.org. Thank you for showing our amazing teachers and staff how much we appreciate them!
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Kudos Korner - Virtual Math Games Night
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The Blossom Hill Home & School Club would like to thank Math Night Chairperson Francine Shore and our wonderful math specialist Fran Mastrioanni as well as Mathnasium, breakout room monitors Melissa Crow, Kristin Hutchinson, Ting Engelman, Jennifer Shapiro, Cris Bray, and Lisa Reynolds, and our amazing Fisher Middle School volunteers, Ryan Madsen, Steven Cox, Noam Ramon, Ryan LeRoy, Medha Sarkar, Yonatan Ramon, Vivek Sarkar and Ashir Rao, for a super fun virtual math night. Students played Sum Up/Sum Down, Sticky Note Fractions, Math Trivia, Function Machine, 24 Game, and Number Detective. Everyone was impressed with the math talents of all the students from grades K through 5 as the games were made continuously more challenging to keep up with the students. We greatly appreciate Mathnasium continuing to team with the Home & School Club to keep our Math Night tradition going strong.
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Keep Your Bucket Full Series from Parenting Continuum
Part Three
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Welcome back! In part 1, you learned about mental-emotional well-being as a bucket and why it may feel lower than usual. In part 2, you explored strategies to “drain less” and “fill more” such as focusing on your circle of influence, reframing your self-talk, boosting the happiness chemicals in your brain, and gratitude exercises. Now it is time to GROW your bucket!
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What do I need to do, so that within one year
I can say this current situation is the
best thing that could have ever happened to me/us?
At first glance, this might feel like an impossible or even ridiculous question. A famous author once said, “life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it”. How might you reimagine the next 3, 6, or even 12 months?
Here are the hidden learnings and gifts that my clients discovered as they explored this question.
· “Turn off the devices and use the time to really get to know my kids”
· “Rally my employees to innovate a new business opportunity”
· “Model self-care for my employees and family”
· “Take an hour each week for my development – webinars, reading, and a coach”
Shift out of survival mode into thriving mode with these 4 growth strategies.
1) Time Travel – Consider a time in past that felt devastating at the time. What are your gifts and lessons now 10, 20, 30+ years later? For me, I think about not getting into Georgetown University for International Relations at 18 and how crushing that felt. But if I had not experienced that disappointment, I would have never found the career I love and better yet my soulmate and husband, Jeff. The same is true for this moment in time as challenging as it may feel. Imagine your future self, 20 years from now, what advice would you give your present self?
2) Bring a Growth Mindset – Growth mindset is the belief that talent can be developed. It is when you believe challenges help you grow, feedback is constructive, and learning is everywhere. Here is a 6 minute overview of growth mindset. (Or you might enjoy the ClassDojo version like my 7 year old daughter.) A simple strategy to put growth mindset into action is to become a YET person. “We haven’t figured out the best schedule as a family… YET.” Simply adding this word shifts your brain from disappointment to discovery. What have you not quite mastered YET?
3) Find (and Scale) Bright Spots – Watch this 4 min video on bright spots. Look for something that is working well at home, in school, or at work. Study it. What makes that successful? How might you scale that? Example: Maybe your kids have better quality or focus on homework after a bike ride. Perhaps taking a break to play a game together during lunch improves the mood throughout the rest of the day. Maybe packing your lunches the night before saves you heartache and drama mid-day. How might you scale what is working?
4) Grow Your Mental Fitness – In times of great change, our minds can go negative and sabotage our likelihood of success. You need to be in a calm and positive state to innovate, adapt, and navigate. In part 1, you took a Positive Intelligence (PQ) assessment. To build your PQ, you need to calm your mind, quiet the inner critics, and take action as the best version of yourself. Learn more about Mental Fitness (6 min) and a simple technique called a PQ rep.
Make this the best year yet.
Drain less, fill more, and grow your bucket.
About the Author: Erin McAuley leads Be Change Coach with the mission to unleash change capacity in leaders, teams, and organizations. She and her husband Jeff live in Monte Sereno with their 2nd and 3rd graders attending Daves Elementary. You can enroll in her 6-week Mental Fitness Reboot program or email Erin directly at erin@bechange.coachfor 1-on-1 coaching or corporate engagements. “We have three choices for any situation – accept it, change it, or convert it to a gift. What choice will you make?”
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Project Cornerstone
Lesson #1 - The Invisible Boy
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Theme: We All Belong –
No One is Invisible Here
Social and Emotional Learning
(Relationship Skills and Social Awareness)
This book discusses the importance of making everyone feel welcome and included. It helps students develop the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with a variety of people. Moreover, it allows them to see the perspective of others even if their views, experiences, or culture is different. This story provides an opportunity for children to get to know themselves better in order to empathize with others whose behavior, needs, and self-expression are different than their own.
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The goals for this lesson are:
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Students will invite, include, and make everyone feel welcome.
- Students will behave and speak in an empathetic manner.
- Students will understand the importance of each individual in a group.
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Students will practice inclusive behaviors to create a caring school climate where every voice is heard.
The following questions go along with the Cornerstone video:
Pause 1:
- What do you notice is different between Brian, and Nathan and Sophie? (Brian is quiet, and Nathan and Sophie are really loud and big. Brian is in black and white, Nathan and Sophie are in color.)
- What do you think the author means when she says that Brian doesn’t take up a lot of space? (answers will vary)
Pause 2:
- When Madison says, “I’m so glad you guys had fun!” was she talking to everyone at the table? (thumbs up yes, thumbs down no)
- Was everyone invited to her party? (thumbs up yes, thumbs down no)
- How do you think Brian is feeling? (sad, lonely, left out)
Pause 3:
- How do you think Brian is feeling while he is drawing? (happy, content, calm)
- How do you know? (he is smiling, he looks happy, etc. answers will vary)
Pause 4:
- What did Brian do to make Justin feel welcome? (he wrote him a note)
- What did Justin do to show Brian he noticed him and wanted to be friends? (he talked to him at recess, he included him in the group project)
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Box Tops for Education is a great No Cost Giving program that supports Blossom Hill Elementary School. Our lifetime earnings is $19,283. Don't forget to scan your receipts or if you shop online using a service such as InstaCart, follow the directions below to submit your receipts. If you have clipped box tops, we will be collecting them at the materials pick ups this month. Please put your box tops in a ziploc bag or envelope with your teacher's name on the bag/envelope. There will be a place at each teacher's table for you to drop them off. Thank you!
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Blossom Hill Vision Statement
(Abilities and skills we expect our students to acquire and take-out into the world)
All students will have the necessary skills to become enthusiastic, life-long learners and productive, empathetic, respectful members of society.
Blossom Hill Mission Statement
(What we need to do as a school community to ensure this happens)
The Blossom Hill School community takes pride in providing an enriched standards-based curriculum in a safe, nurturing environment. We strive to appreciate an awareness of students’ developmental needs to help them progress towards independence.
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Blossom Hill Elementary School
16400 Blossom Hill Road, Los Gatos, CA 95032
Phone: 408-335-2100 | Fax: 408-356-0887 | Attendance Line: 408-335-2145
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Blossom Hill Home & School Club
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*The Beehive newsletter is approved by Principal Lisa Reynolds and the H&SC Board and is written exclusively to provide the Blossom Hill community with pertinent, weekly school information. Articles, information, calendars, etc. may not be duplicated or re-printed in any manner without the permission of the Home & School Club or the Blossom Hill school administration.
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Submissions can be made to The Beehive editor, Jennifer Shapiro,
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