Dear Families,
Welcome back from the Winter Break and Happy New Year! I hope that you and your family had a very restful break. I know the break and holidays can be filled with moments of happiness, nostalgia, sometimes sadness, and everything in between. As a community, we are here to help support one another in finding our own pace and rhythm to do our very best. Please don’t hesitate to ask us for assistance. We are excited about the year ahead of us and we want everyone to succeed.
If you’re like me and needed a quiet break from the holidays, the library is an excellent place to unwind, escape, and learn something new. It’s a place more than just to pick up a book; it’s a place to explore and celebrate the joys of reading. Trust me, the more you go, the more you’ll find yourself happy that you went. Another outstanding practice is to read to your child or, even better, have them read a book to you. This provides valuable insight into your child’s literacy skills, conveys the added bonus of reading together, and is a great way to connect with each other. Plus, this can take as little as 10-15 minutes a night! I truly believe that setting these habits at home can go a long way in building life-long readers with our students.
A couple of well-deserved kudos:
Thank you to the many parent chaperones, our teachers, and students for such an enjoyable visit to the Museum of Science on December 22nd. Every single grade visited the museum, and together we watched “National Parks Adventure IMAX” in the Mugar Omni Theater. It was an educational and memorable shared experience for all of us.
Thank you to Mr. Piper, Ms. Hicks-Gyewu, Ms. Lively, and all the parent volunteers and those that participated in our “Light Up the Night Lantern Walk”. This was a fun and artistic opportunity to celebrate the holiday season as a school community.
Looking ahead:
On Thursday, January 19th, Jazz musicians Akili Jamal Haynes and choral group, The Kuumba Singers, will be performing in our auditorium at 6PM. We will have a pot luck that evening. Our MLK Assembly is on Friday, January 20th starting at 8:30AM in our auditorium. I am really excited about these events and I hope you can join us!
Please make sure that your child has appropriately warm clothing and accessories (mittens, hats, scarfs). Classes are expected to go outside twice a day for recess. If you are in need of any assistance, please contact either your child’s teacher or our family liaison, Ms. Hicks-Gyewu, at 617.349.6454.
Finally, thank you for completing the King Family Engagement Surveys. We had about 89 responses with equal representation from Ni Hao and Chinese Immersion families. Our School Council met last Wednesday to review the results. We look forward to seeing you at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration later this month.
Here’s to a good start in 2017!
Yours truly,
Gerald Yung, Principal