Dear Bobcat Community,

Our Student Leadership team met today to brainstorm ways to increase school spirit. Among our ideas, we identified the next few Spirit Days! Our next Spirit Day will be Friday, February 27th and it is Backwards Day! Students can wear their clothes backwards for some silly fun!

For future planning, there will be a Character day on March 13th on which students can dress like their favorite movie or book character, and on April 1st, we are going to have some April Fools Day fun and we will have students dress like staff and staff dress like students! We're ready for some silliness and school spirit!

Please scroll down to see exciting information about our upcoming Read-A-Thon! You can register NOW to get your kiddo started on their reading goal!

Parents: please help our student maintain healthy habit at school to best support their brains and bodies. We are seeing an increase in students bringing large bags of chips, candy and sugary treats. While these are fun, and delicious, it is creating a distraction in class, and making it hard for students to focus on their learning. Please have students save their large bags of treats for after school and weekends. Thanks so much for helping us practice nutrition at school!

As a reminder, our parent calendar is updated regularly to help you stay on top of all things Binkley!

Stay awkward, brave and kind,

Carley Harp

Principal

I recently conducted what are called "Empathy Interviews" with some of our students, and our staff reviewed the responses of those students who responded. These were 1:1 interviews with me to learn more about the student experience at Binkley and how they felt about their own progress and support at school. Several students shared that they are very tired each day (I am sure that is not a surprise to you! 🤪)

As a staff, we wanted to be sure to share this piece of information with you so you can support your student at home with healthy sleep-habits. Kids at this age need more sleep than we may expect; usually around 10 hours per night. If your child is struggling to fall asleep, establishing a solid night time routine can help. Screens off two hours before bed, a warm bath and some quiet activities as bed time draws near can all help students feel ready for sleep. If you need any support with helping your child establish a solid bed time routine, please reach out and we are happy to support you.

Sleep well!