Shifting Lunch and Recess Schedules

We are excited to make some changes (starting Monday, 3/31) to our lunch/recess schedule!

The kindergarten and first grade lunch/recess times were able to remain, for the most part, unaltered. Second through fifth grades had to rearrange some of the things that they teach so that everything still fit into their day. We believe that these changes will have a positive impact on our students. As a result, some of the highlights are:

• Providing increased adult supervision during transitions (to and from lunch and recess)
• Providing increased consistency and supervision at recess
• Four adults instead of three adults on the playground
• No longer taking away staff to bring-in classes while other students remain at recess
• Benefit of recess before lunch for the upper grades
• A longer gap between lunch recess and afternoon recess for the upper grades
• No longer a need for lunch helpers from the upper grades to be pulled away from the classroom during instructional time
• It will reduce the amount of student traffic flow in and out of our locked front entry way over the lunch hour

We are going to try this for the last two months of the school year. We are open to making adjustments as we go.

Our School is Worth a Pot of Gold

One of the things that I love about Riverside Elementary School is how so many different people possess different leadership traits that allow us to thrive. On any given day, any given person will take the initiative to get something accomplished. Each staff member is a leader.

Maybe you have noticed the visually appealing rainbow, the four leaf clover border, or the pot of gold that contains staff and students reasoning as to why our school is worth a pot of gold written on the posted gold coins. That is the product that a group of teachers took charge to organize and create. They have displayed a platform that shares the positive things and success stories of our school for everyone entering our building to see. What resulted is described and pictured below.

Our school is worth a pot of gold because...
...of our pride in what we do and the respect, responsibility, and caring of our people
...we all work hard
...our teachers are understanding
...we all show the Huskie way
...we are Huskies that like to learn
...we are respectful, responsible, and caring
...we have really good teachers and students
...everybody is caring to each other
...the teachers are making school fun for the students
...we are all kind and proud to be a Huskie
...data is showing growth
...we have teachers and students who are always learning
...there is a lot of good people
...we have teachers who help everyone
...everybody is so nice to each other
...everyday the teachers are teaching us a lot and we learn everyday
...it is safe for children
...everyone is friendly
...we do fun things
...we have good friends and good teachers

Take a look at the bulletin board the next time that you are in our school. It should make you smile.
In fact, I encourage you to take a gold coin (look for blank coins to be clipped (and labeled) on the bulletin board later this week) or comment at the end of this blog to share your thoughts as to why you think our school is worth a pot of gold.