Mrs. Burt's musings.....

This year at our school meetings we’ve been listening to stories that help us think about the attributes of our learner profile.  In keeping with our school theme this year Our Stories Matter, stories are a great way to teach values and give examples for us to follow.    As I was preparing for our December meeting to talk about Caring , I was reflecting on something I notice about our students and even adults sometimes.  In general, kids love to help. They give of their time enthusiastically to take action like picking up trash or helping Clara, our custodian.  They are easily inspired to want to help those in need by collecting things on their behalf or making and selling things to benefit a cause. They feel passionately about people that are suffering or in need.  But, sometimes they don’t recognize that every day actions and how we treat people is really what caring is mostly about.  Sometimes a kind word, a smile, standing up for someone that ...

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 ...

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 enjoy...

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...

After 3 weeks away for the holidays, we were able to start 2019 with a great event.   Our 4th and 5th grade students were invited to spend the day at New Tech High School for a joint project sponsored by Adobe software.  The high school students worked with our kids to design an art piece to be used at the upcoming display for the Napa Lantern Parade (Friday, Jan. 18).  Our students were able to document the process using their brand new 1:1 iPads (courtesy of our magnet grant).   Our hosts at New Tech planned a busy day of collaboration and creativity.  It's always amazing to see what kids can come up with when we get out of their way and let them use their skills and talents to create.  The high school students were patient and encouraging with their elementary buddies and allowed them to use their ideas to add to the project. Our students took pictures and video to tell their "story" of the day using Adobe spark software....

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,...

As I was returning this week from a visit to an IB school in another state, I was reflecting on my experiences with the International Baccalaureate Organization that I was introduced to more than 13 years ago.  In my early days as a school administrator, my colleagues and I were looking for something that would give our students something more, something longer lasting, than a traditional education. Of course, we wanted our students to read, write, and calculate well, but we also wanted to instill in them a love of learning and help them find purpose in their school life.  We had all experienced what it was like to be in a classroom where we didn't feel that what we were doing had any relevance to our future lives.   I was one of those students that worked hard to memorize my spelling words or my times tables or a set of facts, so that I could get 100% on the test, but those things did not make school interesting or compelling for me. Nor were they particularly u...

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...

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 w...

It was a special day at Bel Aire today.  We celebrated the opening of our new labyrinth as a place of peace surrounded by our beautiful redwood trees at the back of our campus.  The labyrinth will be a way for students to practice mindfulness and reflection.  A labyrinth may be new to some of you, but they have actually been around for thousands of years.  It is not a puzzle or a maze with dead ends and choices but a pathway that is laid out in a circular pattern to take the walker on a journey to the center.  As you walk along the path, it is a time to reflect, find calm when you're in conflict, and appreciate the joys of life. The labyrinth was a perfect setting for our celebration of peace.  We talked about the 50th anniversary of our International Baccalaureate Organization.  The IB began 50 years ago in the aftermath of a war torn Europe from the International School of Geneva.  That insightful group of educators had a vision that children ...

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!

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...