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Welcome to the 20-21 school year!
I can share that this has been the most unique start to a school year in all 17 years of my career! I am assuming most of you are feeling the same. Even with the uniqueness, families, students, and educators have been flexible and problem-solved together. I appreciate all that you are doing to support your students to be successful and maintain a consistent routine.
I am also excited about our transition to a K-8 program and getting to know our new families. It has been refreshing to see our returning students as well.
I am going to be sending newsletters every other week detailing what we have been working on in each class group as well as any updates that are helpful to share. Please reach out at any time if you have additional questions or comments!
Your Partner in Learning,
Sarah Walker
swalker@nwresd.k12.or.us
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Emotion Regulation with Dr. Reynolds:
It was wonderful to have familiar faces in the classroom with some amazing new additions! The connection with your students is a treasure I have missed over the summer and I am overjoyed to be back in the classroom with them again daily.
Last week, we reintroduced our lessons on connecting feelings with behaviors. The students have been working out of their Interoception workbooks to build upon the skills they learned last year. For our new students, this has been a way to help them build confidence with the independence of changing how they feel. Over the course of the year, we will focus on different sensations throughout the body and how students can diversely change their feelings independently.
Some helpful learning tips for comprehensive distance learning:
So many of our students thrive when provided a visual schedule. Each teacher has built these within their online learning environment. Families are welcome to print them off or create a schedule for home that can be posted visually to be referenced throughout the day. Additionally, we have seen headphones to be tremendously helpful when there are distractions in the home. If you need a pair, please contact the school directly. Lastly, please know we are here to help support your student. If it is a rough day, that is okay. If it is an energetic day, we will help manage the energy. If your student needs individual assistance, please don't hesitate to let me know. I have Friday slots open for all students and families to meet individually.
Dr. Olivia Reynolds
oreynolds@nwresd.k12.or.us
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This week we learned who our break out room teachers are. We had show and tell. Mr. Saltveit had a really weird looking pear from his pear tree. We talked about what we did over the summer. We learned Damien has a birthday this month. We did some getting to know each other conversations in our break out rooms and by the end of the week we started on our schoolwork.
Mr. Hatchel
nhatchel@nwresd.k12.or.us
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Last Monday was our first day and, despite many tech issues, we all were able to do some intros, play icebreaker games, and get to know each other!
We have had outstanding attendance! Every day this week we had 7 of 8 kids that were able to log on and actively participate. We worked through continuous tech issues and now all students have access to canvas and other materials. The parents love the dashboard feature of Canvas!
As a group, we read through the first 5 chapters of Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and had some great discussions.
Connor M. will celebrate his 12th birthday this month and we all sang Happy Birthday for him.
Emotion Regulation classes with Dr. Reynolds have gone well with most of the students actively participating.
We have closed class each Friday with a great lesson and discussion about Hispanic Heritage month. We also discussed the rising racial issues going on in the country and how we can encourage change and promote equity.
Mr. Dickey
sdickey@nwresd.k12.or.us
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 Columbia Academy Web Page
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