Spotlight: Deerfield Elementary - Novi, Michigan

Students teaching the 7 Habits.

Deerfield Elementary is a K-4 school in Novi, Michigan.  All of the Novi School District K-6 schools are Leader in Me Schools and they are all hosting Leadership Days entitled "A Day in the Life of a Novi Student."   On March 4, 2015 Deerfield held it's first Leadership Day.  A representative from The Novi Education Foundation spoke at Deerfield's Leadership Day and talked about why they have selected The Leader in Me as one of the programs that they support.

My sister, a former elementary teacher and I were happy to attend. A number of parents were in attendance and were very supportive of The Leader in Me. One father spoke about how he had learned the 7 Habits at his company many years ago and that he felt compelled to attend the Leadership Day to show his appreciation for the school teaching the habits to his three children.

Zachary and his mom.

One mother I met was Clarissa Porter who has sons Jonathan and Zachary at Deerfield.  She said that her children do use the 7 Habits language at home and sometimes remind her about how they can work together. She is very pleased that her children attend a Leader in Me school and she wanted to attend the Leadership Day. Zachary was handsomely dressed in his jacket and tie to serve as a greeter for Leadership Day.

We were impressed with the 7 Habits Songs.

Synergy Activity in Cabin Time.

One of the activities we enjoyed seeing was "Cabin Time".  Each K-4 student is assigned to a "cabin" made up of a mixture of K-4 students.  The students remain in the same cabin throughout their years at Deerfield. The cabins meet with their adult leader to learn more about the 7 Habits.  We observed the students doing an activity to practice Synergy. The task required the children to work together to get a gummy worm into a candy life saver by only using paper clips. The students eventually determined that it took several children working together to stretch the candy life saver while another child maneuvered the candy worm inside.

Michigan Leader Reports

 

Third graders teaching my sister, Kay, about their goals.

During our visits to the classroom, we were able to talk to many students.  These third graders were eager to tell us about their goals and teach us about the 7 Habits.

The 7 Habits Tree.

Proud to share his Leadership Notebook.

This was my sister's first visit to a Leader in Me school.  She taught elementary grades for her entire career.  She was very impressed with the Deerfield students' ownership for their behavior and for their learning. We talked for hours about the warm spirit and positive attitude of every teacher and student we met at Deerfield Elementary School.

Principal:  Julie Bedford
Deerfield Web Site: http://www.novi.k12.mi.us/df/
Deerfield Face Book:https://www.facebook.com/DeerfieldElem