"Summer Slide"
5/19/2019
As we approach the end to this school year, students are looking forward to a break from school and sun-filled days full of fun and play. Alaska offers a bounty of amazing things to do in the summer and students need this time to get outdoors, enjoy the fresh air and experience different adventures. Time spent with family and time for kids to just be kids are vital to a child's growth and wellbeing. However, we don't want them to lose the gains they have made this year in their academic work, especially in reading. "Summer slide" is a real thing. This infographic from Oxford Learning illustrates the issues associated with "summer slide." In an article entitled "Three Ways to Prevent Summer Slide", the Scholastic Parent Staff offer three simple ways to incorporate daily reading into a summer routine. 1. Six books to summer success: Research shows that reading just six "just right" books during the summer may keep a struggling reader from regressing and creating opportunities for flourishing readers to continue to strengthen their skills. An easy way to do this is to take advantage of our local library. They also offer a fun reading program that helps to provide just that right amount of structure to have a consistent reading plan for the summer. You can access the reading program for the Loussac Library here. You can also check out grade level book lists from Scholastic (book lists) or the Loussac Library (Summer Reading Suggestions by Grade booklists). 2. Read something every day: Encourage your child to take advantage of every opportunity to read. Find them throughout the day: Whether it's reading the cereal box at breakfast in the morning, to reading signs as you are driving around town, to dedicated sit down time in the evening, make sure reading is a part of every day. 3. Keep reading aloud: Reading aloud benefits all children and teens, especially those who struggle. There are many benefits in reading aloud, even to fluent readers. However, for struggling readers, they will continue to build comprehension skills, expand vocabulary and have exposure to fluent and expressive reading. Here are also some websites and apps that students can utilize to help keep their reading skills sharp this summer. Epic (www.getepic.com/) - This app is full of high-interest and varied books on a multitude of reading levels. Popular titles and an easy-to-use format allow students to navigate and read with ease. You can also keep track of the number of minutes students are reading and what books they have interacted with. Playkidsgames.com – Helps your students build and retain reading comprehension skills through interactive games. Opposite Ocean – The Opposite Ocean is a great app to improve student vocabulary and reading comprehension on the go. www.abcya.com/ - This website has interactive games on language arts, math and a multitude of other subject areas. Let's make sure that the only "summer slides" our students are experiencing this summer are the playground ones!Birchwood Camp 2019
5/11/2019
Spring Trips are a much anticipated tradition at PNA. From our youngest students to our world ready 8th graders, students of all ages take a culminating field trip at the end of each year ranging in distance and duration. While these trips are designed to tie into curricular topics students have been studying this year, the real benefit are the other gains that students make. Students are practicing independence and pushing personal boundaries and comfort zones. They are treated to valuable experiences and meet and interact with new and amazing people. Teamwork activities and community building are always a part of these trips and students strengthen the bonds with their classmates that they have been cultivating all year long. And of course, there is always a lot of fun thrown in! The mission of our school plays a huge part in the design and implementation of these trips, as it does in every day at PNA. Having the courage, vision and integrity to not only participate, but to really experience all that spring trips have to offer is the culmination of a great year as part of the PNA community. Here are some glimpses into what the first and second graders experienced on this year's overnight spring trip to Birchwood Camp. Lots of playground research, nature exploration, journal reflections, art activities, teambuilding...the list goes on and on! To be resilient...
5/5/2019
Merriam-Webster defines resilience as "the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” While this is the actual definition, it doesn't take into account what else is actually entailed by one who is resilient. People who can bounce back from mistakes and successfully adjust to change have a different mindset. They know that they have the power to do what is needed to not only take what life throws at them but also to use that as an opportunity to grow, learn and succeed. This week students and teachers at PNA were given the opportunity to exercise their resiliency. Due to a sharing of common spaces with an outside group, some classes were temporarily relocated to other rooms. Teachers and students were both put to the test to put their growth mindsets to work. When a challenge popped up, whether it was where to eat lunch, how to send groups of kids to where they needed to go, or how to access things that we were used to having right at our fingertips in our own classrooms, critical thinking, problem solving and a positive attitude rose above the challenge. These solutions came from not only the teachers but the students as well. Kindergarten took advantage of having an extra large room and utilized the space for their endangered animal museum. Second grade took advantage of being in the MS science lab to do some fun science experiments. And everyone pitched in somewhere - helping to man the front doors, offer to take extra duties, help to move furniture and classroom supplies, revamping lesson plans to utilize the spaces we were able to go, and more.
Since we as a school practice and expect this growth mindset, it has become second nature to not only the staff but the students as well to meet each challenge head-on with the knowledge that it's ok to make mistakes or deal with challenges and that we are going to come out better for it. |
Marcella HitchcockMs. Hitchcock teaches second grade, is a mom of two, an avid reader, lifelong learner, and a seeker of sunshine! Archives
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