School Newsletter: November 2022

Fall Assessments and Family Conferences

During the fall, teachers assess children in social, cognitive, and physical domains as required by the state of Ohio.  These assessments provide a snapshot of your child’s development and help the school to plan and implement curriculum and activities targeted to each child’s individual goals and strengths.  Be on the lookout for communication from your child’s teachers about arranging a family conference in November to discuss your child’s education and daily experiences at school.  Reviewing these assessments and screenings are one part of conferences; discussing school friendships, learning and setting educational goals together are important parts of the discussion.  We look forward to meeting with you! 

JP Morgan Chase Library at ASR

After a break in operations due to the pandemic, the ASR Library is preparing to offer programming and check in-out services to ASR families! We are pleased to announce that Sarah Simpson has joined our staff as our Family Education Literacy Specialist. She has already been conducting storytimes in the library with classrooms and will be offering family storytimes beginning this month! We hope you will spend the next couple of weeks getting to know Sarah and the programming and books available through our library! 

Hi families! My name is Sarah Simpson and I am the new Family Education and Literacy Specialist at the Schoenbaum Family Center. You may have noticed me moving around books in the library at the entrance of the building, and I’m excited to announce that the library will be opening for families to borrow books as of November 7th. 

How does check out work at the library? Families will use their child’s school ID number as their patron ID to check out books. This is a four-digit number assigned through the ChildPlus database; we’ll have lists of the IDs ready for your convenience as we begin to check out and return books.  Books will check out for 30 days and can be renewed once for an additional 30 days, just so other families get a chance to borrow them. Books can be returned in the Book Drop bin in the library. 

The library hours will be 9:00 am – 5:30 pm, Monday through Friday. Those hours may be adjusted slightly as we add in family programs so stay tuned for updates. 

We will also be having Family Storytime at 4:45 pm on Tuesdays beginning November 8th. The SFC Book Club will be back in action in November, so look for those to arrive in your child’s mailbox in mid-November. 

I’m delighted to be here at the SFC! !’ve already worked with your kiddos in their classroom and in library storytime (Mondays for I/T visits and Wednesdays for PreK visits). I am eager to meet their grownups either at Family Storytime or by stopping by the library! 

Ohio State University School Psychology Partnership 

ASR is happy to share a partnership in our college with the Educational Studies Department to support School Psychology graduate students.  We are fortunate to have. Kyanna Johnson and Marcel Jacobs joining us for the school year.  Kyanna and Marcel will work with school administrators and teachers to devise curricular and learning supports for children and classrooms, collect classroom observations and interventions, and support the preschool prosocial curriculum implementation and coaching.  Learn more about Kyanna below and look for Marcel’s biography in the December newsletter! 

Kyanna Johnson is a 4th year PhD candidate studying School Psychology at Ohio State University. As a School Psychology intern, Kyanna is trained in implementing evidence-based interventions for students to help with academic and behavioral concerns. She has also received training on providing cognitive and academic assessments for students. Before beginning her doctoral studies, Kyanna has worked as a preschool assistant teacher in various sites across New York City. Kyanna currently works as a graduate research associate at OSU’s Center on Education and Training for Employment, where she engages in equity-based research focused on family engagement within special education. 

PreK Prosocial Curriculum Updates for November 

This year, on Friday mornings, our Couple and Family Therapy Intern, Annie, will be working with students in each classroom on a prosocial curriculum developed by Second Step Elementary. Second Step Elementary is a leading research-based social emotional curriculum. The Second Step Prosocial Curriculum is designed to teach young learners self-regulation and social-emotional skills to set students up for success in Kindergarten. Each week there is a new lesson that includes activities, readings, and mentally stimulating games that help children to implement the new skills that they have learned.  

Over the month of November, the prosocial curriculum will cover several important lessons.  

• Children will learn about identifying feelings by looking for clues about how other’s feel. This lesson focuses on how to tell how other’s feel by looking at their faces and bodies for clues. More specifically, children will begin identifying when someone feels happy or sad. 
• Children will learn that focusing their attention on what is happening, or the situation, can help them tell how someone is feeling. In this lesson, children will build skills to recognize when someone is surprised or scared.  

• Children will learn how to identify anger. This lesson will cover that everyone feels angry sometimes. Children will learn that it is not ok to be mean or hurt others when you feel angry.  

Parents can access materials for the prosocial curriculum through the classrooms’  

weekly communication and link. Each prosocial curriculum lesson comes with a flyer that parents can use at home to keep the learning process consistent for children across home and school environments. If you have questions about how to adapt these lessons to your home setting, feel free to reach out to our Couple and Family Therapy Intern, Annie. Annie can be reached via phone at 614-247-7007 or via email at schoenbaumtherapy@gmail.com.  

Featured Project

In this months featured project, infants and toddlers tend to their garden. Check it out!

Thanksgiving Holiday Resources

Free Thanksgiving Dinner

The Columbus Dream Center has programs available right now, including Thanksgiving meals and baskets.

If you or someone you know is in need of a Thanksgiving dinner, below are the hours that free Thanksgiving dinner will be served. Thanksgiving baskets are delivered into the neighborhoods that the Columbus Dream Center serves every week. There is no sign-up for these.

Nov. 24 at 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the Columbus Dream Center 
38 West Greenwood Ave. 
No reservations required 

Meals

The Dream Center also provides programming for students, free of charge, throughout the school year and summer. Here are the breakfast and dinners from the Dream Center that are served from outside of the Columbus Location in the Short North at 38 West Greenwood Ave. Meals are free for all, everyone is welcome and no reservations are required.   

Breakfast 

Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays 

9:30 a.m. – 10 a.m.

 
Dinner 

Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays 

7 – 7:30 p.m.

Neighborhood Services, Inc Food Pantry 

Open to all Franklin County Zip Codes 

Monday through Friday 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. 

1950 N Fourth Street Columbus, Ohio 43201 

No appointment necessary