School Newsletter: March 2023

Family Volunteer Opportunity in the School Gardens

Please join us during the following dates and times to help prepare our school gardens for the spring and summer! Adult family volunteers can join Chef Mark for some or all the dates/times below and help to establish and plan our courtyard gardens. Dress for the dirt! 

ASR School featured in Statewide Early Learning Standards Document and Trainings

All schoolteachers and classrooms participated in filming and photography with the Ohio Department of Education for training on best practices. Photos from ASR School will be on the cover of ODE’s newly revised Early Learning and Development Standards, and video from classrooms will be used in online training across the state as examples of best practices. Thousands of copies of the standards, resource guides and training materials featuring the school and teachers will be printed and shipped to schools throughout the state by ODE. We are so proud to be a model demonstration site for this important work! 

Family Engagement

In celebration of Black History Month, ASR welcomed Haitian-American children’s and young adult author Debbie Rigaud who shared Haitian stories and songs with our families. One such story featured the tap-tap, a vividly painted Haitian bus, that transports folks around island villages and towns. Many thanks to Debbie Rigaud for her visit and to all of the families who attended that event! 

Library Update

If your family would like to share aspects of your family’s culture or identity in celebration of upcoming Heritage Months, please reach out to Family Engagement and Literacy Specialist Sarah in the library or by email at Simpson.962@osu.edu.  

Prosocial curriculum update

Over the month of March, our Couple and Family Therapy Intern will continue the prosocial curriculum lessons in each classroom on Friday mornings. This prosocial curriculum was developed by Second Step Elementary, a leading research-based social emotional curriculum. The Second Step Prosocial Curriculum is designed to teach young learners about self-regulation and social-emotional skills to prepare for 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.  

In March, the prosocial curriculum will cover several important lessons in classrooms: 

• Children will learn about joining in with play. This involves building skills around noticing what other children are playing and that offering ideas for play can help them to join in as well. Children will build confidence around identifying positive ways to join in and include themselves. 
• Children will learn about the importance of calming down and naming a problem before attempting to solve the problem at hand.  
• The third lesson is all about thinking of solutions. In this lesson, children will learn how to generate positive and safe solutions for a given problem.
• The final lesson in the month of March is about learning how to speak up assertively. Children will learn that if someone treats you in unsafe or unkind ways, speaking up assertively is a respectful day to deal with this issue.

Parents can access materials for the prosocial curriculum through the teacher’s weekly link in with curriculum guides. 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.  

Kass Book Club  

March’s book club books are Today by Julie Morstad and Global Baby Playtime by Maya Ajmera.

Special Storytime

Penelope Rex (a costumed character) from We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins will be visiting for a special family storytime on March 21 at 4:45 p.m. There will be stories, songs, and crafts in Town Square for this dino-sized storytime! 

Featured project

The March featured project includes the infant and toddler classrooms learning motor skills.

Vision Screening for Pre-K Children

The morning of Thursday, March 9

OSU College of Optometry will be conducting vision screenings for children in preschool classrooms on the morning of March 9.  Children must be age three or above and have a completed permission form signed by a parent/guardian to be screened.  Look for permission forms in mailboxes and return to the box at the front desk prior to March 9.   

OSU College of Optometry students and instructors will screen children with games to indicate any issues with vision or color blindness and provide a report to families with recommendations or referrals.