Month: September 2017

Dear Saklan Community,

This week, we had our first Family Group session of the year. Our ten Family Groups are made up of 7 or 8 students ranging from 1^st to 8^th graders. Each group is led by one or two 8^th grade students, who are responsible for running the group activity for the session. The Family Group activity presents a wonderful leadership opportunity for our senior students, helps to build a cohesive school community, and is a vehicle to promote the themes of our SEL program. In this session, the activity was focused on self-regulation, which for students is defined as recognizing or identifying that you need to help yourself to achieve a goal, task, assignment, or being able to get yourself back on track. The Family Groups did a number of activities around this theme and each group produced a poster with suggestions and tools on how to handle a variety of common issues that students are confronted with in school.

Please have a look at these posters that are displayed on the bulletin board in the entrance way. Here are some samples of what our students came up with:

If you have problems with focus – have a good night’s sleep.

If you have problems with stress – meditate.

If you have problems with silliness – take a deep breath.

If you have problems with anger – walk away and talk with a friend.

If you have problems with giggles – relax and drink some water.

If you have problems with regulation – stop and count to ten.

I was able to visit many of the Family Groups and was highly impressed by the leadership abilities of our 8^th grade students. Part of the activity involved taking the Family Group through a tour of the Moraga Community Gardens which is located just down the street from us. Our 8^th grade leaders did an outstanding job in describing the organization of the gardens and showing good communication and leadership skills.

This was a great way to start our SEL program for the year. Compliments go to Vickie Obenchain, who is our Family Group Coordinator, and all the teachers who supervised the Family Groups. Our next theme is perseverance and I look forward to seeing how this theme is presented over the next month.

Have a great long weekend!

Peter

Dear Saklan Community,

Last weekend, we again participated in the Walnut Creek Twilight Parade. On what turned out to be a beautiful warm late summer evening, we had a good showing of parents, staff and friends marching with the Saklan contingent and showing our great community spirit. A particularly big thank you to Christine Kuckuk, our Director of Marketing, for organizing this event and for offering each participant a free Saklan t-shirt. For those who were not able to attend, the t-shirts will be available for purchase starting next week. We will be sending home a flyer and order form soon.

This Saturday we will have a booth at the Moraga Pear Festival which takes place at Moraga Commons. We will also have a group of students participating in the Moraga Got Chalked Event. If you are at the Pear Festival don’t forget to drop by our booth.

Have a great weekend!

Peter