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The Diener School
What A Year It Has Been!
Summer 2008
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www.TheDienerSchool.Org
301.299.4602
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Dear Friends of Diener,
All I can say is WOW! What a wonderful year it has been. All of us; students, parents, and staff have learned so much! As I reflect on the year, I think back to September when we opened our doors with only 5 students. We have grown to 11 and as we open the doors in the 08-09 school year, we will have many more.. Curious? Please keep reading and you will see all the new additions to Diener below!
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Highlights of 2007-2008 Year!
An interesting fall...
September~We started school September 3rd! We enjoyed getting to know each other, building community and our first field trip to the fire station.
October~We enjoyed a hay ride at Butler's Orchard and visiting our first solar powered farm, not to mention our sensory Halloween Party!
November~We loved our Thanksgiving Feast and field trip to the Personal Pony farm where we learned how to care for ponies and feed sheep.
A fabulous winter...
December~We were joined by Parents and Grandparents to celebrate our "roots" and sharing our cultures through pictures, delicious food and special projects. We celebrated December birthdays and enjoyed our holiday party @ Sunny Dyes making Tie Dyes!
January~We visited the Natural History Museum to culminate our unit on pre-historic animals. We spent the month seeing, feeling, hearing, excavating, adding, subtracting and even tasting dinosaurs!
February~We visted Dr. August's dental office as we learned about health and our bodies, making collages for our food pyramids, and participating in our first community service project. We sang love songs to the residents at The Hebrew Home of Greater Washington.
A spectacular spring...
March~We learned all about air, space and water. We visited the Dulles Air and Space Museum, created a mobile on the solar system, and researched and presented information about the planets!
April~ We learned how to reuse, recycle, and preserve our Earth. We did a clean up at Hadley's Park for our community service project.
May~ It was fun examining how things grow and work. We planted flowers and lima beans and observed as our caterpillars turned into butterflies. We explored levers and pulleys and used the Internet to research simple machines.
June~We visited the Recycling Center to culiminate our unit on The Earth! Our End of the year celebration was enjoyed by staff, students and parents. Ms. Frankie, the drama teacher, helped us create a play from the story, Oh The Places You'll Go. We tearfully said goodbye after a wonderful 07-08 year.
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| Enjoy these pictures from our end of year performance of "Oh The Places You'll Go!" |
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Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
We want to take a moment to thank our community as we are overwhelmed by your participation and support. We had over 200 people attend our auction and raised over $75,000. Our Grandparents/Grandfriends Day was well attended and both students, Grandparents and Grandriends participated in several Diener activities. Our Art Show was fabulous, colorful and inspiring. Our Winter Parent Training Series was educational and empowering. And my favorite was our trip to the Hebrew Home on Valentines Day! We sang love songs to the residents and shared valentines treats! Thank you, friends of Diener, for sharing our first year with us! We are making a difference in the lives of every Diener student and family. Thank you.
We would also like to thank all of our visitors. We had over 150 people through the doors this year. If you haven't seen Diener in action, please come visit. Our upcoming tours and open houses will be posted on our website. Please join us to see our kids, our new space (we have our own floor in the building!), and our smiles!
With much Gratitude and Heartfelt Thanks,
Jillian Copeland, Director,
The Diener School
www.TheDienerSchool.Org
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Looking Ahead!
Our school is growing and our program evolving. We look forward to our 08-09 school year. We currently have 26 students enrolled! We will be adding several programs to meet the needs of every student enrolled @ Diener. We are thrilled to announce that next year we will have our own Diener School social skills curriculum. This curriculum involves our virtues program which focuses on character development. Weaved into this program is our motivational Diener dollars. This new and improved curriculum consists of 3 key themes: self, family, and community. Within these themes, we facilitate lessons, role playing, puppetry and other fabulous activities to help our students think socially.
We will also be complementing our math units with the Calvert Math program. Calvert Math introduces, reviews and enriches math skills.
We will be introducing a new school wide language arts block. Students will be grouped homogeneously during their "LA" block where they will participate in reading, writing and spelling activities. Our staff has been trained in sounds and syllables and many teachers are proficient in other reading and spelling programs. Our " reading toolbox" is growing so we can pick and choose the best programs for each child and group.
In addition to our language arts groups we are looking forward to using technology to enhance our reading and writing skills. We will be using the Kurzweil technology program to engage students in reading. For many of our students, this multi-sensory approach to reading keeps them engaged and stimulated. This program breaks stories into parts and builds comprehension strategies. For writing concepts we will be using kidspiration and inspiration. These programs help students generate and organize ideas, thus enriching each child in developing skills through each step of the writing process.
Balance is critical for our Diener student which is why we will continue to participate in brain gym, yoga, large motor groups, fine motor circuits, fitness for health, drama, music, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and art. These programs help build neural pathways and connect and strengthen both hemispheres of the brain. These enriching and creative activities nourish creativity and movement and encourage our kids to feel great about their many accomplishments!
Great Summer "Special Needs Reads"!
How the Brain Changes Itself by Norman Doidge,M.D.
The Out of Sync Child Has Fun by Carol Kranowitz which offers great sensory activities for home and school!
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News around town...
Check out SI Focus magazine as they will highlight The Diener School in the next edition! http://www.sifocus.com/
Be on the lookout for a Washington Post Article on Sensory Processing which should run in late July!
Want to feel empowered, tune in to Rich Weinfeld and Michelle Davis' radio show and hear current educational topics.
www.voiceamerica.com
7th wave network
12:00-1:00pm Fridays
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