May Village Distance Learning

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yxslW9Cdf7pznG2eRoaRc8BC4L3sq0XK/view?usp=sharing

The 6th Grade team is working on a virtual 6th grade graduation celebration with more details to follow in the coming weeks. We know it won't be a traditional graduation but we are planning to make it as special as it can be virtually.

Hello Village Families. With extra time at home, many students are curling up with a book. Now that students can take AR quizzes at home, we can see just how much they are reading. I want to give a few shout outs to some of our amazing readers. I am looking at the word count from Spring Break until now.

To our 1st graders, Village has never seen 1st graders read this much! You have read almost 200,000 words since Spring Break! Wow!

A big shout out to our 4th and 5th graders who have read a combined 10 million words! There are 6 students in those grades who have read over half a million words each! Incredible!

As a school we have read over 13 million words since Spring Break! Way to go Village!!!!

Tune in next week to find out how many words each grade level has read this entire school year and to hear an update about our AR TOP 10 Word Challenge!

As I always say, "The more you read, the better you get!"

Enjoy a good book this week! If you don't have any books at home, try epic.com.

You will do the following:

• Drive up
• Hand over instrument through car window
• Wait to have instrument inspected
• Sign a receipt that instrument was returned in good shape
• Wave goodbye!

Mrs. Barber will be distributing yearbooks on Friday, May 22nd. Please drive up, stay in your car, present the receipt from the email through the window and the yearbook will be given to you. If you don't have the confirmation information from the email, please email Mrs. Barber at ebarber@rvusd.org and she will help you so that we can make the traffic flow go smoother.

Kindergarten: 1:00-1:30

1st Grade 12:00-12:30

2nd Grade 2:00-2:30

3rd Grade 9:00-9:30

4th Grade 10:00-10:30

5th Grade. 11:00-11:30

Check with your child's teacher for the zoom link on Seesaw or Google Classroom. Or you can contact: tvalencia@rvusd.org, or ldisanto@rvusd.org. for more information.

Please also drop off your jerseys in the box provided so we are ready with jerseys for next year. These can be dropped off at the same time as your music drop off times. Thank you for having them laundered and ready for next year!

May 22nd will be the last day of Distance Learning. This will give teachers the last week of school to get ready for the new year. We thank everyone for being the best they could be with Distance Learning. We know it was hard on everyone!

May 28th

8:00-9:30. Kindergarten

10:00 to 11:30 1st Grade

12:30 to 2:00 2nd Grade

2:00 to 3:30 3rd Grade

May 29th

8:00-9:30 4th Grade

10:00-11:30 5th Grade

12:30-2:00 6th Grade

Teachers will be there at these times to give students their personal materials from their desks. Please only plan to come during your scheduled time above.

Chromebooks will also be returned at these same times and you will hand over the chromebook and your name will be checked off the list.

I hope this finds you and your family well. I know that you and your children are dealing with many adjustments and big emotions during this time, and I want to remind you that I am here to help however I can. Please reach out to me via email at ccorwonski@rvusd.org if you or your child need an individual check-in or if you would like resources or support with a particular topic. I have also created a website where I am constantly adding resources, www.villagecounselingcorner.com. Below you can find some tipsheets where I have included suggestions for dealing with topics and concerns I have been hearing about from parents and students alike. I hope they are helpful. Stay well and be kind to one another!

• Know that fear and sadness can often look like other emotions. Below is a graphic that shows just some of the ways your child’s sadness might manifest.

• Check in with your child about how they are feeling frequently; daily or even more often if you feel your child needs it. Often a child won’t share on their own that they are worried, anxious, or sad, but if asked directly, they will share more. Make it clear that you are available to answer their questions and talk through their worries or concerns. Let them know it is ok to express any emotion they are feeling, including anger. Help them find positive ways to channel or calm their emotions but remind them no emotion is bad; it’s just important we deal with them in a way that is safe and kind. Model this for your kids. For example, if you were working at your computer and become frustrated with something, you could say, “Wow, this work assignment is really frustrating me. I’m having a hard time figuring it out. I’m going to take a deep breath and go walk around outside for a minute to calm down. Would you like to come with me?” This shows them that all feelings are ok and that if we name our feelings, we can then deal with them appropriately.

• Make sure they have someone to ask their questions and talk about their worries during the day, whether it is a parent, teacher, or a counselor. This is particularly helpful if they are having nightmares. The more they process during the day, the less they may have to process at night. Also, explain to your child that a nightmare is our brain working on or processing a concern or problem. If they know that the reason they are having the nightmare is because their brain is processing something, it can make the nightmare seem less scary and more within their control.

• Limit your child’s exposure to news about what’s going on. You need to check in once in a while to know what’s happening, but constantly talking/reading about the virus in the presence of your child will only increase their anxiety. Be careful what you discuss or watch in their presence. Even though it may seem like they are not paying attention, they are taking everything in and especially now they may be hyper-vigilant due to anxiety.

• Help your child focus on what we can control. We can’t make the virus magically go away or change the fact that we all have to stay at home. But we can control our mindset around what is happening and control what we can. Remind your child that the fact that we are staying home is helping to control the virus and make sure fewer people get it. We can stay home, wash our hands, etc. Knowing that we are doing what we can gives us more of a sense of control and focusing on that keeps us from dwelling on what we can’t control.

• Mindfulness and relaxation exercises like the ones I have posted and that are available on GoNoodle.com, MindYeti.com, Calm.com, Cosmickids.com, etc. are great. You child can do these exercises whenever they feel anxious but especially right before bed.

• Help your child keep a routine as much as possible, even though we aren’t in school. They may stay up later and get up later, but still stay in a routine where they get at least 8-10 hours of sleep.

• Don’t allow your child to be on screens too much, especially right before bedtime. Have them get up, move around, read a book or listen to an audio book, get outside to breath fresh air even if just for a few minutes.

• Keep a routine as much as possible. It is understandable that it may work for your family to adjust bedtime and wake up time a little to account for your needs and schedule and your child’s natural clock, but try to maintain a consistent schedule that allows plenty of time for your child to get the rest they need. A chart with recommended hours of sleep for children by age can be found below. Studies have shown that not only do students need a consistent number of hours of sleep each night, but that going to bed at approximately the same time each night is also important.

• Have your student engage in some exercise or physical activity about 20 minutes before sitting down to a class meeting or to do SeeSaw, Google Classroom, or other assignments. This could be an active GoNoodle video, going outside, doing jumping jacks or dancing to music, whatever you agree on and that your child will enjoy.

• After getting the wiggles out of their body, they could do a mindfulness or relaxation exercise to help them transition to focusing on schoolwork. You can find these for free online. Great sources are mindyeti.com, calm.com, cosmickids.com, and gonoodle.com. I have been posting relaxation exercises on my Google Counseling Classroom and pushing them out to teachers to share with students. I am also building a section on my website where you can find some as well. They are brief (usually one to three minutes) exercises where they lie or sit still and focus on their breathing and body. This will calm their brain and body to be ready to focus.

• As much as possible, have students attend class meetings and work on assignments somewhere with fewer distractions and where they will have to sit up and pay attention, just like at their desk at school. Sitting up at the kitchen or dining room table is good. Stay away from beds, couches, or rooms that have their toys in them, like their bedroom or a playroom.

• Remember that even at school, students don't sit for long periods of time where they have to sustain attention. They get breaks for recess, snack, lunch, etc. I've attached a recommended schedule for how long kids should spend in distance learning or homeschooling activities by age. This time should include the time they spend in class meetings.

• Let them earn play/free time. Ten minutes or so spent on work earns ten minutes of free time. You can adjust this based on your child’s age. Childhood development experts generally say that a reasonable attention span to expect of a child is two to five minutes per year of their age, so 10 – 25 minutes for a five year-old, 14 – 35 minutes for a seven year-old, etc. You will obviously have the best sense of how long your child will be able to pay attention to schoolwork without becoming frustrated. Using a kitchen timer or timer on a phone that they can look at to remind them they are working toward something fun and that it will be done soon helps.

• Limit screen time as much as you can. While obviously during distance learning students need to be on computers or tablets for a good amount of their work, take advantage of opportunities to have your students engage in learning that doesn’t require a screen. I have posted some suggestions on my website on the Resources page under Shelter in Place resources. When it comes to video games, have students earn time with them, and require time doing outside or active play to earn time on video games, computers, or phones.