Buzz-tastic Reminders!
Greetings Parents and community members!
Entering into week 7 of virtual learning comes with many updates. I want to give a special shout out to ALL of our Morris Brandon students for reading over 500,000 minutes in our annual Read-A-Thon and raising over $50,000 for our school! Big props to our grade level winners who are featured below. I can’t wait to celebrate our winners when we return. All prizes will be mailed or given out when we return and our Fur Bus winners will be riding with me in the Spring!
We are also so excited to be welcoming our rising Kindergarten students in the fall (hopefully 170 of them!). We want nothing more than to bring our Kindergarten students together prior to the start of the school year. In last week’s Beemail, I mentioned cancelling our HIVE summer program which also encompassed our rising Kindergarten camp. I have reached out to the APS Office of Early Learning in hopes of possibly being able to have a new camp set for the end of July. This would be a great way to ease back into our building and welcome our newest students. Our amazing Kindergarten teachers and Media Specialists also put together a RISING KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS tab on our virtual learning hub HERE. Check it out for great activities to help prepare our future Bee’s for day one.
Our second Flex Friday brought a new wave of innovation to our virtual learning! There were so many submissions using #MBflex that it was hard to keep track. Remember that Fridays are now reserved for flex activities. The goal of this initiative is get our students away from the computer, to have less parent involvement and to incorporate more hands on learning. We’ve posted two new activities in the drive that we would love our students to participate in. Everyone knows that our graduating 5th graders deserve a great send off. I’d love to keep the tradition alive of sharing letters from students to our departing 5th grade class. Anyone at Brandon can write a letter and share it with a 5th grader! All you need to do is post your submission and we do the rest. We also need our 5th graders to post some videos of their favorite moments at Brandon. We love pulling all of these Flex Friday activities and putting them on our AM announcements. Remember, you can always access our daily announcements and view archives HERE.
The final month of school will also bring a wave of exciting activities, after all, we still need to keep EVERYONE engaged until May 22. I’m excited to announce that our FUN RUN is still happening! Starting Friday 5/1 and ending Friday 5/8, students will be encouraged to run a mile for Morris Brandon. Stay tuned for a motivational video from Coach Wyman and instructions on how to share your run.
I also want to share two save the dates. On Friday, May 8, I will be hosting my final Coffee Talk of the year. I will be holding a virtual zoom session that will be recorded and shared, and answering as many previously submitted questions as I can. See below for information on how to submit a question. And lastly, we are excited to bring you THE HIVE DRIVE! Yes, you guessed it, on Thursday May 21, our teachers will drive through our Morris Brandon neighborhoods for one last summer send off. We encourage all students and families that are able to join us on the route if we are not passing your home. There will also be a special surprise at the end for our 5th graders. Much more info on this to follow!
As you can see, finishing the school year on a high note is important to me. I completely understand that it hasn’t been easy. That some virtual learning experiences differed exponentially than others. My goal is that all students, regardless of their homerooms, can have a great end of year experience during a time they will most likely remember for life.
Until next week!
j