Holiday Break
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enjoy much deserved time off with family and friends this holiday season! See you in 2019! Please remember that we will be closed from Thursday, December 20, 2018, through Tuesday, January 1, 2019, with classes resuming on Wednesday, January 2, 2019.
Spirit Night at Boys Varsity Basketball Game - January 25th
The Howell High School Boys Basketball program has planned an exciting Spirit Night for our school on Friday, January 25th when Howell takes on Plymouth. Students from Three Fires and Voyager are invited to attend, and the school that has the most students in attendance will receive a “Most Spirited” trophy to display. All students who attend will receive a fan appreciation gift and be entered to win a raffle prize. Admission to the game is $5.00 per person for (K-62), seniors and staff with ID are admitted free. Please consider attending this game and helping our Timberwolves win the trophy!Click here for more information on this event.
Vacancies at Three Fires - Join the Pack!
For those of you who have not heard, Ms. Karen Keaton, Special Education Resource Room Teacher, has decided to retire from Howell Public Schools. Please join us in congratulating Karen on a happy and healthy retirement and best wishes on her next chapter! Karen’s last day was yesterday. If you know of anyone interested in a Special Education Teacher position, please share the following link with information on the vacancy and directions on how to apply for this position.
Elementary Special Education Teacher
We also have multiple Special Needs Paraprofessional vacancies (29.5 hours per week) at Three Fires. Click here to view job qualifications, responsibilities, and the application process information. We also anticipate having multiple Playground/Cafeteria General Aide vacancies open up after the Holiday Break.
Design Time: Jill Cain, Technology Teacher
The 4th and 5th grade students recently completed an archery lesson. The students learned the safety rules of National Archery School Program, how to find your eye dominance, and 11 steps to archery success of NASP. We went through the design thinking process using the LAUNCH Cycle. Each class worked in teams to build a bow and one arrow. The students learned the whistle commands and have an opportunity to have target practice in the makerspace. This assignment helped the kids to learn the 4 Cs of the 21st Century Learning Skills, which include Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking and Creativity.
The 3rd graders helped design landscapes including a road traveling through it to display our “Values” bulletin boards from passiton.com. This assignment allowed their creativity to shine. If you would like to view their work, check out the posters outside of the the Design Time Lab.
For the remainder of 2018, the Upper Elementary Students will be learning and creating their own coding game, digital story, or PSA in iMovie.
1st and 2nd graders have been using an app called Codespark Academy. This app helps teach the basic algorithms of coding. Students are excited to learn how to create sequences and use loops to program their pets and people. This has helped them to learn how critical thinking is important to accomplish a task.
Kindergarten and Begindergarten have learned the art of AR (Augmented Reality) in a lego app. They are building ships and dragons and their creations are sailing around the computer lab. They have also used their creativity to color a Christmas tree and bring it to life with the Quiver app. Giggles could be heard throughout our hall as the children noticed Santa showing up for a visit or their gingerbread house became a snow globe to shake and watch the snow.
Robotics: Jill Cain, Robotics Advisor
Our Robotics season has come to an end. The students and coaches enjoyed their Orbit Events. Together we learned about programing, core values, and how to research to solve a real world problem. Most importantly, students learned to work as a team. Many teams went on some fantastic field trips and had informative guest speakers. Thank you students and coaches, we couldn’t have done this without you! On Thursday, December 6th, some students shared their experience with Mr. MacGregor, our superintendent, and Mr Lui, our curriculum director. Both were impressed with our students’ knowledge and motivation. The end of our season activity was on Wednesday, December 12th. All 9 teams were together to help make a difference in our local community. We made blankets with Fleece and Thank You. The blankets, along with a video message from the robotic students, will be sent to children in the hospital. We wrote cards of encouragement to place in care packages for our troops to help out Military Missions Volunteers. After our community service projects, we had a potluck dinner and celebrated a great first season of Three Fires Robotics Club! If you would like your child to be part of this program next year - let Mrs. Cain know and also look for a recruiting event during the month of May.
Teaching Empathy Through Kindness: Jeanie Nemeth, School Counselor
We all hope that are children will grow up feeling loved and cared for and able to show love and care to others. We as adults model and teach this through our actions, words, and expressions. Caring for others is expressed through empathy. Empathy, once nurtured and fostered, will grow as our children grow.
It takes time for empathy to develop. We first have to teach our children to be able to identify their own feelings and then how to recognize those feelings in others. When they are young, we start by showing them pictures of people expressing different emotions. You might even have to help them label their own emotions. This can then be taught and transferred to identify the emotions of others.
We can further help children understand how others are feeling by asking questions. What are they feeling? What might they do? How can we help? This can be practiced by talking about what the characters in books or a TV show are feeling or by role-playing. It can also be taught by talking about the child’s experiences.
It could be beneficial to set up situations that give a child successful opportunities to help teach empathy. For example, if a brother or sister loses a favorite toy, remind them how they felt when they lost something. Then, encourage them to offer to help to find it. Highlight their show of kindness and emphasize how kindness can benefit everyone involved.
As we head into the Holiday Break, remember that our kiddos are always watching and observing our emotions and actions. The Holidays can be filled with ups and downs. How we handle them can be a learning experience for our children.
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