My Beautiful Brain: Celebrating Neurodiversity

We are celebrating and bringing awareness to neurodiversity on campus! Lilian Dean, our speech and language pathologist, and Mrs. Wyatt, our Interim Director of Education, have begun presenting to classes with great interest and enthusiasm. We have been reading “Ben and Emma’s Big Hit”, a book written by Gavin Newsom and Ruby Shamir, about Gov. Newsom’s own struggles as a child with dyslexia and showing them a large poster board with pictures of famous individuals who are neurodivergent: Simone Biles and Emma Watson (ADHD); Satoshi Tajiri, Steve Jobs, Lionel Messi, Albert Einstein (Autism Spectrum Disorder); Joe Biden, Emily Blunt (stutter); Gavin Newsom, Daniel Radcliff (dyslexia) and more.

Ms. Dean and Mrs. Wyatt have put together an interactive demonstration of what it might look and feel like to have a sensory processing difference in school by wearing glasses that make rainbows in the light, trying to listen to a set of instructions while someone is singing, turning lights on and off, and being touched on the shoulder at the same time.

To celebrate our school’s neurodiversity, we are assigning each student a project: create their own page of a book called “My Beautiful Brain”. They should take a blank sheet of paper, divide it in half (vertically, horizontally, or diagonally using wavy lines, straight lines, stars, lightning bolts, bubbles, etc.), half of the page is devoted to your child’s gift: what their beautiful brain helps them excel in: perhaps cooking, building, communicating, writing, painting, sculpting, sports, music, gymnastics! The other half of the page should be devoted to a challenge: for some that may be loud or unexpected noises, it may be focusing on one task, it could be communicating, or handwriting.

The goal is for all students to understand neurodiversity and appreciate our differences.

Our annual Move a Thon was a lot of fun this year!

We had classes cheering each other on, a surprise visit from some fun dinosaurs, gnomes, and a parent drumming circle! Each student ran or walked for 30 minutes and received marks on their popsicle sticks for each lap completed. Together, we raised over $23,600 for MBCS! Great job everyone.

Amazon Smile

Did you know MBCS has an Amazon Smile account? If you are ordering items via amazon, please consider adding MBCS as your charity of choice. This is a great way to order items and support the school. If you have not already selected MBCS as your charity you will need to do so. It is listed as Monterey Bay Charter School Parent Teacher Group.

Please Consider Donating

 The MC Gives! campaign is a partnership between the Weekly, the Community Foundation for Monterey County and the Monterey Peninsula Foundation. From November 10 to December 31, donations can be made through the MC Gives! program for Monterey Bay Charter School. Many of our families choose to submit their Family Giving contributions during this time. It is an honor to be accepted into the MC Gives! Program.