April 2024
Updates and Announcements
📚 Special Olympics practices have begun! The Culminating Event will take place on May 28th at Central Middle School. I want to give a BIG shout-out to our wonderful coaches for volunteering their time to make this happen! Thank you to Nora McIntosh, Peg Hammer, Megan Locke, Leslie Mannion, Amanda Carberry, Meghan Coleman, Meaghan Waterous, Linda Blaeser, Katie Roe, Colleen Cushing, Cindy Roman, Katie Sutherland, Emily O'leary!
📚 Neurodiversity Week will be celebrated April 22nd-26th! Students will be learning about what neurodiversity is, which will help create and foster a more inclusive environment for our students. Neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; there is no one "right" way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits.
📚 The next DELT (District Equity Leadership Team) meeting will take place May 16th, 2024 from 8:30-11am in the District Office. The DELT members will plan ahead for the start of the 2024-2025 school year!
Diversity Month
April is Diversity Month, which started in 2004 to recognize and honor the diversity surrounding us all. By celebrating differences and similarities during this month, organizers hope that people will get a deeper understanding of each other. Embracing a World of Differences
April is Diversity Month, which started in 2004 to recognize and honor the diversity surrounding us all. By celebrating differences and similarities during this month, organizers hope that people will get a deeper understanding of each other. Embracing a World of Differences
🫱🏼🫲🏿 Here are the April 2024 Celebration Slides: Celebration Slides! Use these slides to celebrate April's significant days with your students.
🫱🏼🫲🏿 Celebrate Diversity Month with picture books! The Diverse BookFinder is a comprehensive collection of children's picture books featuring Black and Indigenous people and People of Color (BIPOC). They've cataloged and analyzed trade picture books fitting this criteria, published since 2002, to surface and create: depictions of BIPOC characters, searchable database, conversations and connections.
🫱🏼🫲🏿 Learning for Justice provides teaching strategies that can help students read, critically think, and respond to text about race, gender equity and more! Check out their 70 teaching strategies that are categorized by grade level HERE.
“Many of my colleagues believe our fourth-graders are too young to hold discussions around issues of race, place, class and gender equity. Asking open-ended, higher-order, standards-based questions around these topics is much easier thanks to your work!”
♾️ Diversity Month also celebrates Neurodiversity! What is Neurodiversity? Learn more here.
♾️ Autism Acceptance Awareness Coloring Pages: Activity
♾️ Neurodiversity Read-Aloud Picture Books
🌎 Earth Day is April 22nd! Here are some resources: explore live and recorded habitat cams, virtual room, & conversation podcasts PK-12 grade
🎉 Free Resources 🎉
EVERFI
Looking for a resource to help teach students about financial literacy? Check out EVERFI - it is a way to prepare students for their financial future. They offer lessons for elementary, middle, and high school; their online financial education curriculum, training, and support are completely free to K-12 educators. Check them out today: EVERFI
Edtomorrow
Do you need a quick activity to do with your students at the beginning or end of class? Check out Edtomorrow to help build classroom connections daily. An email with 18+ new activities to foster connections and belonging is sent to you every day.
Check them out: The First Five
You can also check out this Google Slides to get ideas of ways to start and end class: Creating Connections
Summer Tech Toolkit
Wondering what students can do during Spring and Summer break to remain engaged with their curiosities? Check out this Summer Teach Toolkit that provides different resources for students. They can spend their time learning, engaging, and having fun so they are ready to hop back into school-mode when they come back. Check it out and share this resource with students and parents: English or Spanish
Staff Shout-Outs!
Let's celebrate all the hard work our staff does to provide an equitable and inclusive education for our students👏🏼
Thank you to Ms. Sarah Heflin and her students for creating Special Olympics artwork to encourage athletes to sign up and to help advertise for the program. This artwork can be found at Central! Thank you for your support, Ms.Heflin!
Ms. Linda Blaeser created a video of her class singing their good morning song in 4 languages! The students focused on Swahili for Black History Month. How awesome!
Video_1.movMrs. Amanda Ferrell shared over 100 Women in History slides with SW staff, and for each person it includes a short video or digital storybook about that person. Staff were able to honor a woman a day with their students in such a fun and easy way!
