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I am happy to introduce this blog that hopefully will help you to get a better picture of day to day happenings at Bel Aire Park.  With our new theme of communication and media, I wanted to stretch my own learning using a communication tool that is new to me.  My hope is to capture meaningful moments during our days at school that will give parents and community members a taste of the wonderful things our students are doing and saying as they learn and discover their world.

Our theme this year is Find your voice; Tell your story so I will attempt to give voice to our students' stories.  One of my favorite poets is Langston Hughes and I will share his poem again that I shared at Back to School Night: 

Final Curve

When you turn the corner
And run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left.

I think that to really become who we are meant to be, we have to keep turning new corners and finding new things to discover.  This is my goal for our learning this year.  More to come....

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Telling our Community Story

This year at Bel Aire Park our theme has been finding our voice and telling our story.  In thinking about our annual World's Fair last week, it occurred to me that this event is an important way that we share our story as a school community.  We've held this event for several years now as a way to come together with kids and families for a fun, relaxed time where we can enjoy being together.  While also trying to celebrate a little bit of culture from around the world in keeping with our International Baccalaureate program.   It requires a lot of work to put this event together and this year especially I was reflecting about all the people that have their hand in making it successful.  We have members of our staff, leaders from our Family Faculty Club, volunteers from our ELAC group, community support from organizations like 4-H and community partners like Cooke Orthodontics and Umpqua Bank all contributing ideas, time, or resources to help us have an enjoyable time together. 
We had such a fun time today at our annual Great Zucchini Race!  We had about 40 students enter a zucchini car that they built and decorated in some really unique ways.  In addition to being a great community builder, this race gives students the opportunity to use their creativity and critical thinking skills to design a racer using simple physics and engineering. But my favorite part is seeing evidence that families worked together on a hands-on project.  Some of the most memorable and happy times for our kids is when we create and play together.  Thanks to all those that participated and those that came out to cheer on the kids!

Season of Giving

I'm always grateful when the holiday season approaches each year.  It helps me put things in perspective.  Although all of us have challenges and stresses in our lives, it is good to think about things we are grateful for.  As a staff at Bel Aire this past month, we have been trying to practice starting the day with something we appreciate.  It can be something as simple as the sunshine or water.  Then, each time we notice the thing we appreciate, it gives us an opportunity to pause and experience for a moment the feeling of gratitude and appreciation.  I have been reflecting on and appreciating all those helpers that come forward when there's a crisis or tragedy.  We see it often in our own community and have seen it with the recent wildfires again in California.   We also had helpers in our own school community, inspired by their IB unit about how taking action is part of what it means to be human.  All the 3rd and 4th grade classes, chose and researched an area of need and