As we take the time to give thanks for the many blessings in our lives, we are grateful for each and every one of your families.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving Feast is tomorrow - don't forget to send $3.50 per K-8th student to the office if you haven't already done so.   Thank you!

Have you seen any of the buttons?  Mady Cook, a student in 6th grade, along with her mom, Renee Cook, and great friend Melaney are the masterminds behind this project.   I interviewed Mady for more details. 

Why Buttons?

We noticed that we weren't doing a theme t-shirt this year.  I really wanted something to remember this year by, and then my mom and I noticed my Camp Gilead buttons.  So, we adopted the idea for MCS. 

How many button designs have you produced?

29 buttons to date!  Next, we are working on a Dora Dirkson Show button. 

Where do you get your ideas for new buttons?

Some buttons are to celebrate the activities that students are participating in, like the soccer buttons.  When our team made the playoff, we needed a button for that, too.  Some buttons are for specific events such as the Holiday Bazaar button.  If you wanted that button, you needed to attend the bazaar.  Some buttons are for everyone, like the classroom buttons, Spirit Week, and the MCS shield button with 2018-2019.  

Where can I get extra buttons?

If it is a button you earned, you will get it passed out to you, i.e., Soccer buttons or winners of the Spirit Week.

Godly Character buttons will be passed out by Mrs. Obbink as she sees students exhibiting the KNIGHTS learner goals.

Soon, we will be setting up a button stand for students.  We will only sell the buttons that can't be earned.  They will be 25 cents.  Lanyards will also be available for a $1.00 just in case you need to get another one to hold all your buttons.  (Because everyone needs a Popcorn Wednesday button and a Pizza Friday button.)  

Will there be a Button Club?

We are working on setting up a Button Cclub.  It would be at my house for about an hour once a week, and we would make the buttons together.  More details to follow.  The button making process has a lot of steps: design the button on the computer, print the design, circle punch the design, and then use the button maker.   

Thank you, TAPP, for the purchase of a water bottle filling station in the elementary hall!  

To everyone who came out and supported the Holiday Bazaar.  Well done Missy Hughes and Carrie Cox!  Thank you to all the vendors who came out and shared their talents with our community.  

Thank you, Sara Peterson and team, for providing a wonderful Thanksgiving feast for our students.  It is a wonderful tradition and a time of bonding and celebrating at our school.  We all have fond memories of this event and look forward to making more this year!  

Meg and Brian VandenHeuvel and Riley and Larry Anderson for designing our new Knights Apparel along with Autumn from Spotlight Creations.

Sometimes, teachers delay consequences, conversations, and outcomes so that they can respond to their students with more wisdom and compassion.
 
Sometimes, parents let kids know that their "energy has been drained" and they will have to do something about their kids' misbehavior later.
 
Sometimes, adults exercise self-control and remember to respond with patience and kindness instead of anger and wrath.
 
And sadly, onlookers sometimes interpret these skills and actions as weakness. These onlookers conclude that the Love and Logic adults are "just being too nice."
 
So, what do we do when people think we're being too nice/weak?
 

*	Remember our goal is to raise wonderful human beings - not impress the "judges" who may be holding up 2s, 3s, and 3.5s at our "performance."
*	Remember kids learn best when their brains are feeling safe and calm. Anything we do to be scary to kids is creating the opposite of a good learning situation for that young brain.
*	Remember self-control is a strength and the failure to control our emotions can be a dangerous weakness - one that can cause us to harm others and say and do things we don't mean.

 
When criticisms fly, some Love and Logic adults use "one-liners" similar to those we teach to kids for occasions when their peers make obnoxious observations:
 

	"Thanks for noticing."
	"I always appreciate hearing different viewpoints."
	"Appreciate the feedback."

 
Or, some adults decide to say nothing at all to the critics and just focus on doing their best to raise thoughtful, kind, responsible young people.
 
There are a lot worse things than kids learning to be really nice by watching us.
 
Thanks for reading! Our goal is to help as many families as possible.
 
Jedd Hafer