Thrive
April 20, 2020
SOARING WITH CREATION
On Friday, we introduced our last element of our S.O.A.R. theme with a focus on creation. I hope you have been taking advantage of our beautiful weather this past week amongst the business of life and overseeing our offsite learning program at home. A reminder that the choice boards are only three of the seven elements we desire EC students to experience on a daily basis. Free Play, Faith Building, Service and Physical Activity are just as important for nurturing a student’s mind, body and soul. What does it gain a person if they inherit the entire academic world only to lose their soul and humanity?

As you have the opportunity, please encourage your children to connect with creation. Model this for them and participate with them. Connecting with creation brings health in self-isolation and mitigates the risk of eyesight difficulties that can come with prolonged use of screens. More importantly, it allows for awe and wonder, expanding our perspective and giving us a glimpse of the world through the eyes of the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

May you find life and restoration, just like the blooming cherry blossoms and tulips, in the creative, artistic and inspiring playground of God’s Creation this week.
PARENT SURVEY
On Friday, you received a Parent Survey in regards to your experiences so far with our Off-site Learning Program. One of our commitments to families is to stay connected and support them and the learning journey of their children. Your responses are helpful as we want to ensure that the program we have designed is working for your family. The deadline for submitting the parent survey is Tuesday, April 21 st . Thank you for your time.
FLEXIBILITY AND CHOICE BOARDS
At the Elementary Campus, we want to assure you that we understand that every family is unique and is experiencing this pandemic uniquely. The Choice Boards are there to give flexibility and help guide families to make the best decisions for their individualized situations and abilities. We desire to give students the opportunity for meaningful learning experiences but some weeks it may not be possible to get through all of the “To Do’s” on the Choice Boards.

Rest assured that our third term report card will look very different from previous years. Students that have not completed work from the “To Do’s” will not be penalized on the report card, nor will specific references be made to the number of assignments completed. The report card will give feedback related to completed work. Our first goal is to support the health and safety of our families and students. Second to that, we desire for students to be engaged in learning and continue to grow in a healthy level of challenge.

To create more flexibility, we are having our Choice Boards completed for Saturday morning. The benefit of this is that parents will be able to look, plan and schedule their week better before Monday when the official school day begins. As mentioned previously, we desire to have all elements from the Daily 7 incorporated into families’ lives. Having the Choice Boards ready for Saturday should not increase or give students more time to work on the Choice Boards. With every family having different needs and schedules, this flexibility is to help families prepare and better organize. If a problem is noticed or occurs on the weekend, please be aware that teachers will not respond to emails until Monday as we want teachers to achieve balance in this blended environment of work and home life.
RCS PRE-SCHOOL AND OFF-SITE LEARNING
I wanted to share with our community that, over Easter weekend, the RCS Preschool delivered Easter gifts to 55 of our Pre-School students. It was so encouraging to see families who were touched by this act of love. The entire experience was over 6.5 hours of time. I am so thankful for our dedicated Preschool staff led by Mrs. Sharon Low. Their willingness to go above and beyond to practically reach out to their students beautifully models the RCS mission of equipping all students to joyfully serve Christ in all aspects of life. 
INTO THE UNKNOWN
Two of our EC teachers - inspired by our Whole New World parody - decided to creatively work out their fears and share with our staff a new parody from one of the songs featured in the Messenger of Love video. This parody is aptly named RCS Elementary Campus into the Unknown . We hope you enjoy the great singing and fun they had with our off-site learning.
TEACHING CREATIVELY at the EC
We have amazing teachers and staff that continue to impress me with their care and support for students. You may be curious about what some of the other grades have been doing and what learning options exist in other grades during off-site learning. Here are some highlights for you to explore from a few grades!
Spring is Here
Kindergarten
How Many Shoes
Grade 1
Bread
Grade 4
THE MIGHTY TECH TEAM
As you can imagine, the off-site learning environment has stretched us all to grow in our knowledge and skills of online teaching tools. Staff, parents and students have required support to navigate Zoom and Microsoft Teams along with a host of other tools. Mr. Matt Przybylski, Mr. Steve Lai, and Mrs. Laura Huber have had to adjust some of their traditional teaching responsibilities in order to be our ‘Tech Leads’ during this time. We thank them for the great work they have done to quickly learn tools themselves and then support our school community with their knowledge...and patience! (If you look closely at the superhero picture, you’ll see each of them there!)

Mrs. Teodoro misses seeing all your friendly faces and hearing about your day.
Mrs. Pang looks forward to being back on campus where she can greet new families in person.