Dear EVCS students,

Thanks to everyone who came to FleaVCS on Saturday!  It was a beautiful day and we had a great time rummaging through the clothes and finding treasures, enjoying treats from the bake sale, fixing up our bicycles, listening to the EVCS drum line and a special performance by the giant puppet making team.  This event, which we hope to make an annual tradition, was organized in the spirit of taking care of our environment and upcycling – which is a word that means repurposing or reusing old things instead of throwing them out.

And this morning many of us met up at the North or South ends of our district to ride our bicycles to school together in a show of support for a dedicated bike lane on Avenue B. Our core value is social action and this is what it looks like!

Who else thought that today’s sing along song choices were especially good?  Well, they were chosen by a very important person – our Principal for the Day, 1st Grader Kairos Yoon!  Principal for the Day will actually take place next week on Tuesday – but I wanted to introduce you to Kairos today and let him to tell you all about his special rules for the day next Tuesday.
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Dear EVCS students,

First, let’s all officially welcome Terry back to school!    

What a great time we had at the Multicultural Share on Friday night!   The delicious food representing so many of our families’ cultures and traditions shared with our whole community, and the excellent performances make it one of my favorite EVCS events year after year.  Thanks again to everyone who brought food to share, to the brave kids who shared their talents, and to all of you who were such an encouraging and supportive audience. I thought this year’s was one of the best one we have had in a long time.

This Friday is the Notes in Motion Poetry Carnival!  At 5pm families can sign in and grab some dinner in the cafeteria.  Then from 5:30 until 7:00 the fun begins. We’ll be dancing and moving along with the Amanda Selwyn Dance Company, to the poetry of well-known poets as well as our EVCS Poetry contest winners!  So many of our classes have been reading and writing poetry over the last month, and this Friday we’ll be celebrating poetry together through dance. I hope you can join us!

One final announcement. We have been noticing that the newly plants bushes and shrubs in the schoolyard along the fence have been getting really damaged, with lots of broken branches.  PLEASE be careful not step on those bushes or break the branches off. Let’s take care of our school environment!

Thanks as always to the SWMM House Band, and thanks to everyone who sang loud and proud this morning.   

Have a great day and a great week.

Love,

Bradley  

Dear EVCS students,

Our core value is Joy of Learning – and one of the places that we see this core value on display regularly is in chess class with Stephanie and Yuri.  

We love chess because it’s not only fun, but it helps us exercise our brains in really important ways.  When we play chess we have to start with a plan for how we are going to move the pieces, but then depending on how our opponent moves we need to update our plan throughout the game.  This is complex problem solving, because the information is constantly changing.

Chess is also really great practice with persistence, because we need to stay focused throughout the game, sometimes for a long time.  And it’s a great way to practice good sportsmanship. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you don’t! As long as you tried your best and had fun you can feel proud.  

We just finished our second ever EVCS chess tournament, and I am happy to say that almost twice as many kids participated this year than last year!  We were so impressed with the intelligence, sportsmanship, and heart our kids demonstrated throughout the tournament.  And now to tell us more about the tournament and officially announce the results is our PE teacher and chess tournament organizer, Coach Eric.

Congratulations again to all the chess tournament participants.  Thanks to the 3rd grade for hosting SWMM today, thanks as always to the SWMM House Band, and thanks to everyone who sang loud and proud this morning.   

Have a great day and a great week.

Love,

Bradley