During the week of Feb. 10, Chagrin Falls Middle School Principal’s and Guidance advisory councils led a Kindness Week for the students.
CFMS Holds Kindness Week
During the week of Feb. 10, Chagrin Falls Middle School Principal’s and Guidance advisory councils led a Kindness Week for the students. The week began with each student receiving a truffle and each flavor offered a different message of kindness to remember and put into action.
Milk chocolate’s message was that kindness is simple, so just smile. Dark chocolate’s message was to exemplify the opposite of dark and brighten someone’s day. Sea salt flavor told the student not to be salty. Caramel truffles encouraged students to stick with their friends, and the orange truffles reminded students to show their Tiger pride.
Every day was an opportunity for students to show that others matter, and a small act of kindness can change someone’s day. The idea led the school to have a theme each day of Kindness Week to encourage students to extend acts of kindness to certain people in their lives. Monday was students, Tuesday was staff, Wednesday was family and Thursday was for the students themselves.
The students recorded their acts of kindness on tickets within the school and submitted them for a chance to attend a future special volunteer trip during school.
Principal Laila Discenza said, “We will continue to teach students how they can make a positive difference to others.”
Spanish Game Boards
Christopher Englehart, the Spanish teacher at Gurney Elementary School, has been teaching his students the Spanish words for locations around the school like the library, cafeteria and playground using a game board he designed.
“Once I designed this board with Google Drawings to best fit our specific vocabulary, Dave Kimball, makerspace implementer of technology in the Innovation Lab, helped make the game board. I can’t wait to try more student-led projects that result in a product from the lab in the near future.”
Students Create Human Chain to Reinforce Math Lesson
Second-grade students in Shelly Zdolshek’s class at Gurney Elementary School worked together to make a chain of 1,000 clips, investigating multiples of 10 and multiples of 100 as they created sections of 10, then sections of 100, and finally one long chain.
“We predicted how long our chain would stretch and then we measured how many clips long our class was in all,” said Zdolshek. “My students thought it was a lot of fun.”
8th-Grade Students and Parents To Read Books on Holocaust,
Engage in Conversations about Literacy and Empathy
On Feb. 27, eighth-grade students at Chagrin Falls Middle School met a Holocaust survivor at a “Face to Face” presentation at the Congregation Shaarey Tikvah. The speaker shared an engaging and powerful personal story while inspiring students to value one another.
“At Chagrin Falls Middle School, we are proactive and focus on having a positive culture. We work to be aware and accepting of diversity, therefore we get involved with programs that expose students to opportunities that reaffirm this value,” said Principal Laila Discenza. “Visiting Congregation Shaarey Tikvah will have a lasting impact on our school beyond that of a lesson or team activity.”
The school is extending this learning to families as well. A parent book club, led by media specialist Angie Jameson, will take place in March. Eighth-grade parents are encouraged to read the book, “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” by Heather Morris. Jameson will help provide guiding questions so that families can have discussions pertaining to what they are learning about in English and social studies, as they are studying World War II and the Holocaust while reading “A Boy in the Striped Pajamas” or “Parallel Journeys.”
The two parent book club meeting dates are March 3 and March 17 at 10 a.m. in the Innovation Center. Any questions can be emailed to Angie.Jameson@chagrinschools.org.
