Skip to main content

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 took action together.  With the help of our technology instructional coach, Ms. Burns, they put together this video that details some of their action.




The best thing is that this has created an outpouring of desire from so many students to do something for someone else.  One of my favorite things is to meet with students who come to me with an idea for a project or a way to show kindness to others.  This has inspired me to think of ways that I can be of service to those around me during this holiday season.   The mission of our school is to use education to create a better, more peaceful world.  I can't think of a better way to spread peace than to give of ourselves and enjoy that feeling that comes from helping others.  I wish you all a happy season of giving!

Comments

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...
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...
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.  Thi...