Five For Friday: First Week of School Edition

Five Highlights from Our First Week of School

5. Superb Staff - It was fun to connect on Monday in professional development. I was wicked impressed by the level of discourse and collection of talent among the staff here. It's going to be a great year. It was great to collaborate on PBIS with Mrs Sikkema, and I enjoyed seeing Mrs. Keizer and Mrs. DeWitt present on Reading Street!

4. LINKing Up -  I was able to catch portions of Mrs Shipley doing a wonderful job presenting the LINKS program to classes during my classroom visits this week. What an awesome opportunity to unite leadership and inclusive practices.

3. Talking in Circles - During my visits I saw a whole host of exceptional relationship building activities as teachers prioritized getting to know their students on the first day of school. Pictured here Mrs. Sikkema is playing a fun game to get students learning each other's names. Honestly this could be a whole separate post as I saw exceptional connections in all classrooms! Relationships with students is definitely a focus at Page.

2. Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar - I was able to see Mr. Wissink and his students utilizing the nature preserve beside Page to look for Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars. Great use of the surrounding environment to engage students in science.

1. Knight Moves for Laying Down the Law - It was a privilege to get to lead an assembly with Mary Holwerda and our staff which continued and expanded an exceptional program, Love Your People, that Mike Gelmi and the staff started last year. Even better was getting to watch Mrs. Knight and Mrs. Lawson absolutely STEAL THE SHOW when they demonstrated conflict resolution by playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. They were fantastic. STOP-WALK-TALK was also a great conflict resolution strategy too.