Brignac's Brightest: Weekly Update: End of January-February 2nd

Things to Know:

WINTER FAMILY FUN NIGHT: Looking for a fun family activity for this weekend? Winter family fun night is TOMORROW (Saturday) from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Somerset!

KINDNESS DAY: On February 14th, we will be spreading kindness in many ways. One of these ways is through partnering with The Sandwich Project. First grade students will be working with the organization to prepare hundreds of sandwiches to deliver to various shelters around the Twin Cities. Students will learn about how a simple act can make a huge impact in our communities!

VALENTINE'S DAY: Please read the following note from Mrs. Huettl...

This year Somerset is taking a different approach to Valentine’s Day. Rather than focusing on store bought cards and candy we will take the opportunity to involve the students more authentically. Sometime during the day, children will be involved in a classroom project which will allow them the opportunity to share compliments and other positive comments with one another and/or prepare an act of kindness to be sent out in our community.

Celebrating student friendships, practicing empathy and building a stronger school community are all goals we can work toward with these activities which are also supported by our whole school Somerset STAR Behavior practices. Thank you for your continued support as we work toward these important goals.

We ask that you do not send any Valentine cards or candy to school with your child. We will accept any unaddressed valentines for donations to Neighbors, Inc., which serves families in northern Dakota County.

We are very excited about the opportunities for our students and trust that it will be a fun and meaningful day of celebrating our wonderful Somerset Star Students!

100TH DAY OF SCHOOL: Our 100th day of school will be on Wednesday, February 21st. To celebrate, students are invited to dress like they are 100 years old! Here are some photos of past first graders to help with costume ideas. (Please do not feel the need to buy anything new. A little creativity can go a long way here!)

WINTER OLYMPICS: Somersetters will be helping kick-off the Winter Olympics on February 9th at 8:30 a.m. The fabulous Tracy Westman has helped organize a month-long celebration where each classroom will be representing a country participating in the winter games. Our class will be representing Switzerland! If you have any artifacts or stories from the European country that you would like to share, please let me know!

SNACK: With our bustling school schedule, we only have approximately 10 minutes to eat snack each day. Keeping that in mind, please send your child to school with a modestly sized, healthy snack that is easy to open and consume. Here are some examples:

Yogurt and fruit
Small bag of pretzels
Clementine
One banana
One granola bar

We are having some issues of students bringing either too much of a snack or snacks that are difficult to open. I often read aloud stories to students during snack time, and we lose much of our reading time by opening snack containers or cleaning up spills. Likewise, if a student has several snack items to consume, he/she may spend too much time eating and miss out on important lessons. (On a side note: to avoid messy spills in our carpeted classroom, please refrain from sending juice or soda with your child during snack time. Thanks for your understanding!)

WATER BOTTLES: While we do have a drinking fountain in the classroom, it isn't working as well as it did in the past. If you wish, your child is welcome to bring a water bottle with an easy to open, spill-proof cap to stay hydrated during the day.

PROJECT FAIR: We had a great turnout for the project fair! Thanks to all of the families that participated. They turned out great! Here's a sampling of some amazing projects from our class:

LOST AND FOUND: Whenever you are in the building, please pop by our lost and found shelf to see if your child has anything missing. Time to track down that one stray mitten! :-)