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First Week of School! August 28-30, 2018

Tonight I opened my email to find a wonderful message from one of our students that describes the same feeling that I have about the this year:  “Dear Mrs. Reagan, I’m so excited for this year!”  I replied back: “ME, TOO!”

We are ready for your beautiful children…. from the length of the grass and the shine on the hallway floors (thank you Mr. Rob and team) to the locker tags, student folders, teacher blog messages and every single individual student learning/welcome item.  Our staff, like many others, works hard to make sure all of your children feel welcome.

Hydration…It’s going to be a warm school year kick off.  Please dress your kids in summer like clothing and SEND an individual water bottle with their first/last name.  Hydration is the key to regulating fatigue and emotions.  Most kids (and adults) do not know when their bodies are getting de-hydrated.  They are going to be warm and tired this week, and we want to prompt them to drink their water!

Nutrition…pack snacks…plenty of snacks.  We’ll provide the snack breaks.  We want to make sure kids eat a healthy snack because the first few days in the lunchroom = more talk than eating.  We will monitor the kids and prompt them to eat — especially our precious cargo (K and first).  Don’t panic if your child doesn’t eat all their lunch. However, if this continues into week 3, please let your child’s teacher know so we can start monitoring more closely.

Fatigue… all the kids will come home tired.  ALL THE STAFF will go home tired.  It’s exciting and exhausting to start the new school year routine — so please be prepared to give out extra hugs and assurances that their brains and bodies will get used to this new routine.

Communication…is KEY!  If you sense that your child is confused or concerned about the expectations or schedule or ANYTHING…contact the teacher!  When you email or call the teacher, keep in mind that they are TEACHING all DAY so they might not get back to you until after the kids are on the bus.  Every teacher has a planning period of 50 minutes……and they try to check their emails, voice mails.  However, they are also preparing the next lessons for the day during this time so sometimes do not get to this during planning.  The reality is this, Georgetown teacher are KIDS FIRST all day and they spend the bulk of their evenings taking care of their own families and then doing school work afterward — and this includes catching up on communication.  If you don’t hear back in 24 hours, reach out again knowing that you aren’t being ignored– the teacher is simply focused on your kids.  (This is why they are so good at what they do!)

I could go on and on with advice…but I am going to refrain from sharing all my wisdom in the first post.  I would like to close with this:  Thank you for sharing your children with us.  We promise to do our very best caring for each little (and tall) one you send to us.

Enjoy your weekend…and as Lily said in her email to me, I have to tell you again, I am so excited for this year!

Mrs. Reagan

PS…I almost forgot the most important piece of advice:  If you are SAD or NERVOUS about your child starting school, please FAKE EXCITEMENT next week…and then again the following TUESDAY.  We give out bonus parent points for those who can fake it so that we can get the children to break free from you and come into school!

A calendar snapshot of the week is below.  The calendar also runs along the right side of this blog.

 

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