Each month, Principal Scott Briske spotlights learning happening at Wildwood Elementary School. This month, the Principal's spotlight focuses on perseverance.

As adults, you likely reflect each year on your own goals, whether personal, family, home, or even future retirement goals. You might write these goals down, or you’ve established proactive steps or practices each day, week, month, or year to achieve these goals. You likely haven’t achieved every goal you’ve set; more often than not, you likely hit a setback. I’m asking you to think about your goals as an adult because when did you develop the ability to think about or set goals for yourself?

Our district has recently completed our Portrait of a Mahtomedi Graduate, which articulates the skills, competencies, and dispositions students need to be globally positioned for success. The Portrait includes six core areas that describe graduates of Mahtomedi Public Schools: Collaborator, Communicator, Ethical, Global Citizen, Innovative Thinker, and Self-Aware and Self-Directed. Embedded in these core areas is the ability to set goals and persevere through challenges.

Why am I talking about graduation? It seems so far away for our youngest learners, doesn’t it? But these skills develop over time, and at Wildwood Elementary School, we are helping our students think about their hopes and dreams, a developmentally appropriate way to start setting goals and develop perseverance. If you walk around our school and classrooms, you’ll likely see some of these student-identified hopes and dreams. Here are a couple of ones up right now: 

• “My hope and dream is to get better at reading challenging words.” -Kyleigh

• Stella hopes to learn science.

• “I want to be able to read lots of words.” -Graham

• “My hope and dream is to get better at spelling long words and subtraction.” -Shreyas

It’s really fun to see how many of these hopes and dreams focus on reading, whether it is just starting to read or being able to tackle a large, challenging chapter book. The hopes and dreams have various aspirations and are as unique as our students. This action is their start in thinking about their personal goals, and as supportive adults, we will help them persevere through setbacks, celebrate accomplishments, and set new goals for their success now and in the future.

Monday, November 11th is Veterans Day. Our Wildwood family would like to honor all soldiers past and present who have served. Starting tomorrow, if you have a family member who is a veteran please have your student bring a copy of a picture to the Wildwood office (No originals please.) They will be displayed in the hallway and we don’t want them damaged. On the picture please write:

• Student’s name

• Teacher

• Who is in the picture ex: Grandpa Joe

• The relationship of the Veteran to the student

Also, on November 11th, students can wear anything camo to support our veterans.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who joined us for our first-ever Trunk or Treat! With over 40 amazing trunks and 400+ kiddos in costume, it was a fantastic time with Halloween fun. We’re thrilled to kick off what we hope will become a beloved new tradition for years to come!

A special shout-out to Custodian Dan at Wildwood for his incredible help in making the day run smoothly—thank you, Dan!

Our first graders had a great time at the orchestra. They got to hear music that was inspired by the beauty and wonders of outer space! Students said their favorite parts were getting to see the instruments play live, hearing music they recognized from Star Wars and Bluey, and seeing the giant sound cubes on the walls and ceiling of Orchestra Hall. The orchestra hosts a variety of family friendly concerts throughout the year so it might be something for your family to attend as well. A special thanks to PTO for helping make this music field trip a wonderful tradition at Wildwood!