WHAT A WONDERFUL WINTER AT LONGFELLOW!

ADOPT-A-FAMILY 2011

Adopt-A-Family was a big success this year because many Longfellow families worked together to “adopt” 6 families from the Longfellow herd!

When a family is “adopted” they are able to anonymously send a wish list of items they may need or want over the holidays.  The “adoptive” families work together to collect these items so that I can deliver the items before winter break.

Even though the families involved do not know who the “adopted” families were– I hope they know that they made a positive impact this year…

Thank you to the families who participated!

Always Continuing to Celebrate Diversity!

This school year feels like it is going so fast!  I haven’t even had a chance to update you all on our CELEBRATING DIVERSITY MONTH (which was in October)!  

Celebrating Diversity Month was all about encouraging students to learn about themselves and others.  Diversity is defined as being different or varied.  Our school is very diverse.  Sometimes you might feel uncomfortable when someone is very different from you.  It is important to learn more about people who are different from you so you can understand them and get along.  We should be careful not to make judgments about a person until we get to know them better.  Sometimes it helps to get to know someone by finding things you have in common.  Our school is diverse – but we still have many similarities!  We are all Longfellow Longhorns!

Another part of celebrating diversity month is helping students to think about their culture as well as cultures of others!  Culture can include things like: traditions, family members, race, gender, religion, disabilities, beliefs, and more.

All classes participated in activities and listened to stories related to celebrating diversity.  The 3/4 graders got to attend a presentation by Marcio (a Longfellow parent)!  We all appreciated him taking the time to talk to us about his culture (see video).  The 5/6 graders got to learn about Autism Spectrum Disorder presented by Taresa Fetzer (our autism consultant from Grant Wood AEA). 

On October 18^th, Longfellow joined schools across the nation by participating in MIX-IT-UP-AT-LUNCH.  On this day students were assigned seats during lunch in order to play a game to get to know each other better.  Each class discussed how they felt about MIX-IT-UP-AT-LUNCH day and most students felt like it helped them to get to know someone they might not have given a chance before.  Other students felt uncomfortable at first, but could understand how this is helpful for students who often feel left out.  Thank you to our “MIX IT UP MONKEYS” and our Longfellow parent volunteers for making MIX-IT-UP-AT-LUNCH day possible!

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”