October 18, 2007

Notes from the Principal

Dear Families,

Octoberfest last Saturday was a wonderful celebration of our school community! The weather was PERFECT! It was a bright, sunny, crisp fall day! The park was filled all day with families, teachers, school board members, community friends, and… lots and lots of very happy children! I will be working to put these pictures on our school website. Be sure to visit it soon!

The LER website is a work in progress!! If you ever have any suggestions on how to make it better please let me know.

We have another assembly coming up soon. It will take place on October 25th at 2:15-2:45. We are trying to alternate morning and afternoon assemblies so that the afternoon four year olds get a chance to participate too! Mrs. Malcolm and Miss Whitman’s classes will present to us on that day! We welcome parents to join us!

Next week is also bus driver appreciation week. We will recognize our drivers for all they do to bring our children to school and home again safely. Please encourage your children to thank their drivers next week!

As always if you ever have a question, concern, or suggestion, please stop by and chat or call me at 582-3612.

Yours in the service of children,
Mrs. Moody, Principal

Upcoming Events

October

22nd - 26th: Bus Driver Appreciation Week
22nd: Picture day for Pre-K
23rd: Walking School Bus @ 7:55
25th: School Assembly in the LER gym,2:15 - 2:45
26th: Pre-K Family Fun Day, 9:00 - 11:00 in the LER gym
30th: Walking School Bus @ 7:55

November

6th: Walking School Bus @ 7:55
6th: GEPTA meeting, 6:00 @ LER
12th: No school - Veterans Day observed
13th: Walking School Bus @ 7:55
13th: LER Parent-Teacher conferences,4:00 - 7:00
15th: Scholastic Book Fair begins
20th: Walking School Bus @ 7:55
21st - 23rd: No school for students
27th: Walking School Bus @ 7:55
28th: Picture re-take day

For safety reasons,please do not drop your child off at school before 8:10. There is no supervision inside or on the playground until then.

We have a few “Lost & Found” items from Octoberfest, as well as bake sale dishes that were left behind. Please stop by our office if you are missing anything!

Early Release Days
Our next Early Release Day will be Wednesday,December 19th.
Elementary school students are dismissed at 12:30.

Walking School Bus
Our walking school bus takes place every Tuesday at 7:55, weather permitting. Join us at the Common and walk to school together! Parents are always welcome to join us.
GEPTA Meeting

GEPTA monthly meeting
November 6th, 6:00 at LER.Child care is available.

GEPTA News
Our next meeting will be November 6th at 6:00 pm at LER.

We are forming a playground committee - if interested please email geptanews@gmail.com or call Helen at 582-6492. River View’s plaground is in need of updating.

The Scholastic Book-Fair is coming! The dates are: River View - November 8th - 13th, LER - November 15th - December 6th. If you would like to help out, please email geptanews@gmail.com

Parent - Teacher Conferences
Parent-Teacher conferences will take place from 4:00 - 7:00 on November 13th. Your child’s teacher will be contacting you soon to set up an appointment. This is a great time to meet with your child’s teacher, to hear about how your child is progressing at school, and to build a strong home-school connection.

Box Tops for Education
LER will be holding monthly Box Top collection contests. Have you filled the scarecrow and pumpkin sheet that came home with your student for this month’s contest? Each Box Top for Education symbol is worth 10 cents to our school. Students are encouraged to fill as many sheets as they can, and return completed sheets to the collection box in each classroom. Each grade level classroom collecting the most Box Tops each month will win a prize!

Campbell’s Labels for Education
Please remember to collect UPC codes and logos instead of front labels from Campbell’s products as well as many other products with the “Labels for Education” logo. Campbell’s no longer accepts the front labels for redemption. Please send us only the new UPC code and logo, as shown.

Class of 2008 4th Annual Holiday Craft Fair
Saturday, November 3rd
9:00 am to 2:00 pm
Gardiner Area High School Cafeteria
Crafts, Bake Sale, Concession
Admission Donation $1.00
Proceeds will benefit Project Graduation
To rent a table, or for more information, please contact Valerie Hanscom at 582-8182

Health News
We have cases of Strep Throat in our school. Please talk with your child about washing hands frequently, not putting things in his or her mouth, and covering his or her mouth when sneezing or coughing.

Symptoms of Strep Throat may include sore throat, skin infections, fever, and ear infections. We recommend that children complaining of any of these symptoms by examined by their health care provider. Please notify the school if your child is diagnosed with a Strep infection.

A Reminder to Families of Pre-K & Kindergarten Students
The State of Maine requires that schools have an up-dated pre-school physical and immunization record or letter of exemption on all students for the child to stay in school. If you have a student in our kindergarten or Pre-K we would appreciate you getting the up-dated copies to the school as soon as possible if you have not already done so.

Halloween Downtown
Wednesday, October 31st
3:00-5:00 PM
Trick or treat downtown! Luminaries will identify participating businesses. Check out the storefront decorating, FREE photos of kids at State Farm, pumpkin decorating contest, and PRIZES for most original, scariest and cutest costumes! Bring the kids and/or your decorated pumpkins to the McKay Park between Henny Penny's and Corniche by 3:45 to be elibible for judging. Parade line-up starts at 3:55 and the sidewalk parade to McKay Park begins at 4:00 outside A1 To Go. For more information, call Gardiner Main Street at 582-3100.
(This is not an MSAD 11 sponsored event)

Spare Clothing
It would be helpful for each student to have a complete change of clothing to be kept at school or in his/her backpack. It is sometimes not convenient for parents to bring clothing in if a child spills a snack, falls in a puddle, or needs extra clothing during the school day for any reason.

Notes from the Office
If your child will be absent from school, please call the office to let us know or e-mail the secretary at shoudlette@msad11.org. If your child arrives to school late, be sure to sign them in in at the office so that they are not marked absent for the day.

If your child will be leaving school at the end of the day other than in their usual manner, please send in a note or call the office. Please note that we can only release students to the people you have listed on the blue emergency contact form.

Thank you for respecting our learning time by not dismissing your child early unless it is an emergency!

Pittston PTG Crop Fest
Join the Pittston PTG at their Second Annual CropFest on Saturday, October 20th, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at the Gardiner Area High School Cafeteria. Go to www.msad11.org/pit for more information.

The following ideas were taken from
Teaching Children Respect
by Pam Leo

"Children have never been very good at listening to
their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."
- James Baldwin

Children are mirrors; they reflect back to us everything we say and do. We now know that 95% of everything children learn, they learn from what is modeled for them. Only 5% of all they learn is from direct instruction. Human beings are like tape recorders. Every word we hear, everything we experience, is permanently recorded in our subconscious. Whenever adults speak, we are being role models for the children in our presence. What we speak is what we teach. Children record every word we ever say to them or in front of them. The language children grow up hearing is the language they will speak.

We often make the mistake of thinking that since children are smaller than we are and have less information and experience than we do, that they don't have all the same feelings we do. But they do. The same kind of treatment that would embarrass, humiliate or hurt us, embarrasses, humiliates and hurts children. When human beings are being hurt emotionally, our thinking shuts down. When our thinking is shut down we cannot learn, we can only record. When adults try to "teach" children by criticizing, lecturing, shaming, ridiculing, giving orders, screaming, threatening and hitting, it shuts down their thinking so they can't learn what the adult intended to teach them to do or not to do; they can only record what is being modeled.

The most common criticism I hear of young people these days is, "they don't treat anyone or anything with respect." Ironically, adults often try to teach children to be respectful by treating them disrespectfully. Children learn respect or disrespect from how we treat them and how we treat each other. When children live with disrespect, they learn disrespect. We can teach respect only by modeling treating each other with respect and by giving children the same respect we expect.

Learning to treat children with respect will require a change of heart, that can come only from a major shift in consciousness of how we view children and how we define respect. Children are born with human dignity. To treat a person with respect is to acknowledge and preserve their human dignity. To treat a person with disrespect is to attack their human dignity.

How can we expect children to understand and practice the Golden Rule if we treat them with less respect than we give our peers? In saying that children deserve the same respect we would give our friends, I am not saying we should treat children like adults or that we should never get angry. I'm saying that there is nothing we ever have to say to a child that we need to say in a disrespectful way.

In my parenting class on treating children with respect, we read a brilliant piece by Erma Bombeck, titled ,"Treat Friends, Kids The Same." She imagines having friends over for dinner and saying to them all those things that most of us heard growing up and therefore, say to children. "Shut the door. Were you born in a barn?" "I didn't work over a hot stove all day to have you nibble like some bird." "Sit up straight or your spine will grow that way." Most parents roar with laughter at the thought of speaking to their friends that way, then realize it is just as disrespectful to say those things to children.

We don't say, "What do you say?" or "What's the magic word?" to our friends but children hear it all the time. If we expect children to always say please and thank- you, we must always say please and thank you to them and to each other, otherwise we are modeling that sometimes you say it and sometimes you don't. Children imitate what we do. If we expect children to have manners, to share, to apologize, to be honest, kind, respectful, and loving, we must do and be those things so they will have that model to imitate.

Children imitate parents, family members, friends, caregivers, teachers, and television. The more children are out in the world, the more models they will be exposed to. While we can't keep children from ever seeing models of the kind of behavior we don't want them to imitate, we can be more selective of what models we expose them to, especially television. Since parents are the primary models in the early years, we must work on modeling the behavior we expect and not modeling behavior we don't want to see in them.

We can train ourselves to stop and think before we speak, by remembering that everything we say will be recorded and imitated. We can stop or at least interrupt those old recordings and intentionally model the kind of behavior we expect and will accept from our children. When we give children the same respect we expect, we teach children respect. How we treat them is what we teach them.

Taken from
“Teaching Children Respect”
by Pam Leo, PLP & Company
www.connectionparenting.com