Principal Madden’s Weekly Update—Week of March 23, 2020
It is hard to believe that we’ve only been out of school for one week. It feels like weeks have passed since I have seen your children. I miss them and our regular school routine. I hope you are all doing O.K. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me at school (587-1550) or via email if you need anything.
Our partners, Mr. Ted at the Hitchcock Center and Grow Food Northampton have passed along ways to be engaged in the outdoors.
And idea From Mr. Ted (other than just getting outside as much as possible):
“There is an online platform for taking images of organisms that folks see in nature. It is called iNaturalist. https://www.inaturalist.org/ You have to have a smartphone that takes photos. After you open an account, then you can upload your images to the iNat site and you can either identify it yourself…or they have experts who log in every so often and they can identify stuff for you if you don’t know what it is. The smartphone has to have gps capability to show the location of what it is that you are photographing. I don’t know how to use it myself, but I know a lot of naturalists, who are more tech savvy than me, do use it.”
And From Grow Food Northampton:
Here is our first blog post with ideas to bring Grow Food Kids activities home. Many Northampton and Easthampton students will recognize these themes, songs, and recipes from our field trips and workshops. Please share widely with your students and families, and let us know if this is a helpful resource, and what else we can do to help enhance your home curriculums in the coming weeks.
You can follow us for updates on Facebook, Instagram, and our new district-wide Farm to School instagram account @freshhampton.
Photos
This week’s photos show our empty playground (very sad!) and the birds and magnolia blossoms in our courtyard (very hopeful). Hopefully, our school will be bustling with laughter and activity again before too long.
Stay up to date with all of our school activities on our School Website’s Calendar!
I hope that all families feel welcome, comfortable, and valued at our school. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Sarah Madden, Principal