Skip to main content
So, I have a new favorite thing to do every Sunday evening.  Since school started, at about 5:00pm on Sunday nights, I get an email from Seesaw giving me a report about the latest news and posts that have happened during the week at school.  I always thought I had a pretty good sense of what was happening each day, but I am having so much fun catching up with student's work, their activities, the recordings of their thinking, etc.  I get to see everything that's been posted during the week.  We have such amazing students!!  Some highlights from this last week - 5th graders at the MOMA in San Francisco, pictures from all the action field trips of our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, 1st grade published writing (with student voices recorded!) and 2nd graders sharing their thinking about global learners.

But what makes me smile the most is reading the comments back from parents giving encouragement, comments, or just love notes back to their student.   Can't wait for next week..... :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Something Old, Something New

One of the things we're discovering as we attempt to define what it means to be a Communications and Media school along with our IB theme, is that communication is everywhere and takes us in interesting directions.  Sometimes those directions take us to the past and sometimes to the future.  This idea struck me this month as I saw our kids take part in and watch a performance of The Comedy of Errors by San Francisco Shakespeare festival and I watched students using our newly complete media room to begin their research for our Level Up Village project.  I personally love all things Shakespeare and have a great appreciation for the universal themes we find in his plays, but it's always remarkable to me that despite the Elizabethan language, the multiple characters and costume changes, and the intricate plot, our students watch in fascination and laugh uproariously at all the slapstick comedy.  After the play students asked thoughtful questions about what it t...
Post a Comment
Read more

My 10th Anniversary Story

As I shared last week at Back to School Night, our theme for this school year is Our Stories Matter .  This theme was inspired by an author and speaker,  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who explains that stories help us to humanize and empower those around us when we take time to learn them. Fall 2009 school gathering  So, I will take the liberty of sharing a bit of my story as it relates to our school.  It was ten years ago this August that I made the move across town to become the principal at Bel Aire Park.  At the time, there were two schools on one campus and because of very restrictive policies that were in place in California at that time, there was a huge disparity in what the schools were allowed to provide for students.  Our staff, parents, and students came together as one new magnet school and began implementing the Primary Years Program of the International Baccalaureate Organization.  At the time, this was a huge change for everyone and ...
Post a Comment
Read more
One of the best kept secrets at Bel Aire is our working clay studio under the direction of our very own Pam Imbach.  Pam taught at Bel Aire many years ago and after a very interesting journey into several career paths she came back to Bel Aire as our IB Coordinator to help us bring IB to our school.  She retired a few years ago but now she is back teaching our kids to develop their artistic talents and communicate through the use of clay.  Pam, herself a potter and artist, wanted to give our kids the experience of working with clay as a medium for expression.  She combines her knowledge of the elements of our IB program with her skills in pottery.  So when kids visit her studio in Room 32, they get a real hands-on experience with concepts like change, perspective, and causation that connect their learning to the unit they are working on in their classroom.  Parents are welcome to come and visit the studio and see what the kids are creating. We are truly g...
Post a Comment
Read more