December Newsletter

December 13, 2021

Dear Members of the J. Turner Hood School Community,

I hope you all are doing well and staying safe. The rest of December will be a quick two weeks before the start of winter break! The last day of school prior to winter break will be Thursday, December 23rd. Classes will resume on Monday, January 3rd. 

I have been able to observe a multitude of amazing classroom lessons and school wide events. It is my hope to highlight some of them here. Throughout this period, we have focused on strong instructional practices, including: social-emotional well-being and kindness, while continuing to work on our school-wide mission to develop everyone's capacity to be safe, responsible and respectful members of our school community. Looking through my lens, all of the members of our community are functioning at a high level and are absolutely demonstrating growth in all areas.

In the classrooms, I am observing highly engaged students and staff working on amazing lessons. I would like to ask that everyone take some time this month to reflect on the great things we have going on here at the Hood School. We have many staff and students who give of themselves daily to make the Hood School an incredible place to learn. Our staff members are exceptional and we are very fortunate to have such dedicated individuals amongst us.

Additionally, we have been fortunate to host several great student teachers from a range of colleges. They have made an impact on our larger school community while helping us focus our instructional practices and meeting the needs of our students. I have had the pleasure to watch them grow and improve their skills. Watching them working with our students is always a joy. Our teachers and students are always welcoming and it is such a great opportunity to share our amazing learning environment with the teachers of the future.

Furthermore, a special thank you to our dedicated team of individuals who hosted our STEAM Night. Mrs. Cleary (our science leader) is always exceptional in her role and she was able to help us “return to normalcy” as we brought back this tradition to rave reviews. Mrs. Cleary and her excellent team provided a forum for students and families to experience our STEAM curriculum while engaging in a multitude of hands-on activities in masterful fashion. This STEAM night was also followed up strongly by our internal Maker Day where all students were provided an opportunity to learn about Jane Goodall and utilize the design and engineering process to complete a Maker challenge. Our internal Maker Study group did an outstanding job with this lesson!

The Kindness Challenge kept us engaged throughout the past several months and allowed us to focus on what really matters. The activities provided us with daily reminders to practice kindness in school and in our larger community. Mrs. Mayuski provided a strong leadership role and her efforts were much appreciated and contributed to the larger good of the school community. 

Another fantastic event that allowed for fundraising, was the Fun Run. Our Hood School Parents Association always hits a home run! In this case they hit a grand slam! Our school community was buzzing with excitement around this activity. The day prior to Thanksgiving break was a delight. Our students were able to raise funds but more importantly they were able to experience an event along with their families that will go down in history as one of our most successful events that we’ve ever participated in!! Thank you to all of the individuals that made this event possible. 

Instructional technology continues to be a focus area for improvement. We are very well-equipped to deliver instruction utilizing technology; however, it is important to maintain and improve our hardware. Recently, we have been upgrading our Smart devices and we have installed several new Smartboards in our classrooms. The students love engaging with technology and it is great to observe our professionals embracing these devices as a means to deliver high-quality instruction. 

Our fifth grade team has been very busy supporting Lazarus House and competing in the Young Writers "Ridiculous Writers” contest. For this assignment, each student was given a ridiculous character that was created from combining a noun with an adjective. For example: the grumpy chef, the rock star unicorn, or the singing clown. The students had to take that character and write a ridiculous mini saga of 100 words or less. Their mini saga still had to have a beginning, middle, and end. The students were encouraged to be as creative as possible. We worked on the writings for a week in ELA. Two examples are highlighted on the following link:

https://jthoodschool.blogspot.com/2021/11/ridiculous-writing-contest-rud...

Lastly, our Toys for Tots collection was a huge success. Thank you to all who donated and to Mrs. Sherman for coordinating this year's efforts. Well done Hound Dogs!

Please remember to check the J. Turner Hood School calendar linked directly on our website and please follow the J. Turner Hood Twitter account at: https://twitter.com/jthoodelemen. This twitter handle provides followers with frequent updates of “Hound Dog Happenings” and retweets of other professionals within our community’s tweets.