Dear Lietz community,
Just around the corner is a season that is traditionally busy with travel and shopping and entertaining. This year, if we are to seek the silver lining to all of this, it is an opportunity for us to scale back and simplify. Back in March, when we were forced to shelter-in-place, I have to admit that it felt liberating to clear the calendar of all meetings and events. It felt like someone took a chalkboard eraser and wiped the board clean for me. I know I am dating myself; most of you likely grew up with whiteboards and Expo markers! Anyhow, it felt like a chance to start fresh and choose how I would refill my days, select what I wanted to invite back into my life and onto my calendar. Well, it seems that, in spite of my hopeful plan, life quickly found its way back in the form of Zoom meetings! Still, that idea sticks with me. This is a chance to be selective with how we invest our time.
Our Executive Board, chairs, and leads have chosen to invest their time here, planning and training dozens of volunteers to provide online versions of our HSC enrichment programs and events. We are excited to ramp up some of our key programs, such as Art Vistas and Project Cornerstone, and we are anticipating creative, new ideas for our annual fundraising, community-building walkathon.
To me, November is a month to be especially thankful. As your HSC Executive Board, we are so grateful for each of you in our Lietz community. Thank you to our teachers and staff, who are working harder than ever to teach our children and keep our school a safe, nurturing place for all. Thank you to all of our Lietz families, who are managing parenting, home and work life. We hope that you are making time to take care of yourself, as well! And thank you to our children, who bring us together and inspire each of us to work for a better life.
Thank you so much for staying in touch with us, by following our social media accounts and by joining our monthly HSC General Meetings on Zoom. It always feels so good to see you! Our next meeting is on Wednesday, November 18 at 7pm. Would love for you to join us.
Wishing you love, grace, and gratitude,
Kelli Martines
President, Lietz HSC | kelli.martines@lietzhsc.com
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
Denis Waitley
Events
To find all the HSC events, go to the Events page here.
- Project Cornerstone Training: Mon., Nov 2nd (7-8pm)
- Chefs Night Out Bagel Bar: Sun., Nov 8th (8-11am)
- HSC General Meeting: Nov 18th, (7-8pm)
To have always up-to-date HSC events directly on your phone, tablet or computer, just Subscribe to the calendar feed.
Programs Update!
Our Lietz Art Vistas docents have been hard at work to coordinate and teach Set A to our classrooms – thank you docents! We are working to get supplies home for our projects whenever possible, and most classes should be done with Set A by the first week of November. Remember, the projects do not have to be done using exactly the same materials as in the demonstrations. If a project is demonstrated with a medium you don’t have at home, use what you have available! Don’t have oil pastels? Use colored pencils, crayons, markers, or even a pencil instead. We encourage your students to be flexible and use their imaginations!
The Art Vistas district board needs your help! The six elementary and two middle schools of USD work together to provide this wonderful Arts Education program to all of our students, and we rely on volunteers to make that possible. Volunteer opportunities are very flexible and have varying time commitments. Check out the ways you can be part of this amazing program and contribute to student enrichment for the entire district:
https://www.artvistas.org/volunteer-positions.html
Art Vistas Head Docents:
Rebekah Frederickson (K-1)
Caitlin Samenfeld-Specht (2-3)
Priya Vartak (4-5)
artvistas@lietzhsc.com
In Project Cornerstone’s Asset Building Champions (ABC) program, parent volunteers read specially selected stories and lead classroom activities and discussions about building social skills. The lessons focus on values like honesty, responsibility, and peaceful conflict resolution. This year the unifying theme in all of our lessons is empathy.
We have an amazing group of parent volunteers and a specialized team working with our Kindergarten program. While the virtual classroom was a completely new experience for us, our volunteers rose to the challenge and created videos for the teachers and even participated in live sessions.
The Kindergarten volunteers read “Join in and Play” by Cherie J. Meiners. This book teaches children about getting along with each other, making friends, and playing together. Students learned how classmates and friends play with each other by discussing rules, being a good sport and cooperating with others.
Our volunteers in the 1st-5th Grade Classrooms read “The Invisible Boy” By Turdi Ludwig. This story helps students develop the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with people different from themselves. It also encourages students to show empathy. In the school supply pickup this month, Project Cornerstone has supplied a notebook for students to write their Project Cornerstone assignments. They will also receive a Bucket Filler sticker to help remind them of the values of inclusion, kindness and empathy reinforced by Project Cornerstone.
We look forward to joining the teachers and students again next month to continue learning about empathy. If you are interested in joining this extraordinary program and group of volunteers, or if you have any questions or comments about the program, please contact sarah.rizvi@lietzhsc.com.
Our Walkathon is a Lietz favorite! Our hope is to have everyone participate in person. To do that, we’ve decided to be flexible and reschedule the festivities to Spring.
We’ve got some fun things in store for when we get back together. If by spring we still aren’t able to be together, we have a back up virtual plan. While we’re busy working all those details out, we are creating some fun activities to do virtually! Keep your eyes open for news in the next few weeks!
Your walkathon team,
Jennifer Kubisz
Jasmin Canty
Halloween
Halloween feels a little different this year. It’s time to think differently and come up with new ideas! Who knows? Some ideas might just stick around even when we go back to the normal!
Here are few for starters:
- Do a Halloween movie party, the size of the crowd? It could be just your family, or people in your safety bubble.
- Do a Halloween walk in your neighborhood in your costumes and make a list of all the different decorations you see and vote on the best decorated house.
- Make Candy packets for your friends and drop them at their house!
- Have your kids come and knock at your front door and do trick n’ treat. This can be repeated as many times as you or they like!
- Set up a candy hide and seek at your home.
- Plan a drive through event, cover more houses and look at decoration.
- Do a Halloween Pinata.
- Go wild with Halloween decorations and food!
If you think of something new and fun, share it with others and let it grow! Also, please remember, use proper masks, costume masks are not enough, maintain safe distance and follow all specified protocols to keep you, your family, and your community safe.
Want to help?
Volunteering opportunities
Current Volunteer Sign-up Sheets
| Title | Start Date | End Date | Open Spots | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Movie and Pizza night 2024 | September 27, 2024 | September 27, 2024 | 20 | View & sign-up » |
Please login to view and edit your volunteer sign ups.
Do you have an idea for a new program?
Are you thinking of starting a new program that would benefit the Lietz community? If so, please head to our website to complete and submit a simple Program Proposal Form.
We will work with you to make it a reality!
