Sunday, November 25, 2012


Quote:
                 

          Weekly Blast!
Monday, November 26    Welcome Back!


Tuesday, November 27    Happy Birthday Anita Rudman!

8:00-8:55AM                  PAC Mtg
9:30-10:30AM                 Principal Coffee


Wednesday, November 28 Staff Development
                                   Stage 1: Understanding Outcomes


Thursday, November 29   Happy Birthday Leslie Hathaway!

5:30-6:30PM                  School Advisory Council

Friday, November 30

Sunday, November 31

Reminders/ Announcements/Opportunities
•  Comprehension Toolkit Class
   Week 3 – Wednesday, November 28th at 4:15 pm or Thursday, November 29th at 8:00
   Week 4 – Tuesday, December 4th at 8:00 am or Wednesday, December 5th at 4:15 pm

•  Managing Stress with Humor – 4 hour class for 4 credit hours * December 17 & 18th 
   @ Cantril Gym * See staff development catalogue


•  Interested in participating in a field test at the local or state level? If so click here 
   to complete a survey by December 21st and see Jenny.

Go For the GOLD!
•  Thank you all for a wonderful first half of the school year!
•  Thank you Janis for supplying new salt shakers!
•  Have anyone you want to recognize?  Please let Libby know.

Golden Nuggets
Lounge Duty:  Alvey/Dazzio
Friday Treats:  Specials
Morning Announcements & Recycling: Fleet
Morning Supervision:  Rossi, McMillan, Hayes, Jones, Dalcerri, Conrad



Sunday, November 18, 2012


Quote:
             

              Black Friday:  Because only in America, people trample others for sales exactly one day
              after being thankful for what they already have.” – Anonymous

              Weekly Blast!
Monday, November 19th    Happy Birthday Eric Lundy!

Tuesday, November 20th

Wednesday, November 21st No school

Thursday, November 22nd  Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday, November 23rd        No school

Sunday, November 25th    Happy Birthday Kristi Barta!

Reminders/ Announcements/Opportunities
• The district has a new Energy and/or Paper Incentive Program.  Our school can earn 
   lots of money if we participate!  If you and your class are interested in championing 
   this effort, please let Libby know.
•  Apple Award Nominations are open!  Click here to make your nomination!
•  Comprehension Toolkit Class
   Week 3 – Wednesday, November 28th at 4:15 pm or Thursday, November 29th at 8:00
   Week 4 – Tuesday, December 4th at 8:00 am or Wednesday, December 5th at 4:15 pm
•  Social dues are due by Nov. 20th.  You may post- date your check.

Go For the GOLD!
• Thank you Joelle for printing and assembling 350 directories!
•  Thank you Anita for facilitating our Digger Feast, all of our assistants for
   allowing it to run smoothly and everyone every one else for being so
   flexible with your schedule!
•  Thank you Gail for a wonderful book fair!
•  Have anyone you want to recognize?  Please let Libby know.

Golden Nuggets
Lounge Duty:  Fleet/Jones
Friday Treats:  No Treats!
Morning Announcements & Recycling: Conrad
Morning Supervision:  Brownley, Woolums, Martino, Hawk, Holtzer



Sunday, November 11, 2012


Quote:
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
                                                                 -Groucho Marx
              Weekly Blast!
Monday, November 12th        Book Fair @ Library

Tuesday, November 13th         Book Fair @ Library
8:00AM                              Comprehension Toolkit Class
8:00AM-4:00PM                    Admin Mtg – Jenny Brown

Wednesday, November 14th    Book Fair Last Day @ Library
                                       Staff Development - Topic: ePortfolios
                                       Digger’s Family Thanksgiving Feast. 
                                       Click here for the modified schedule.
4:15PM                              Comprehension Toolkit Class

Thursday, November 15th
8:00AM                             Staff Meeting
                                      Topic: Understanding CITE evaluation

Friday, November 16th

Saturday, November 17th     Happy Birthday Nicole Coppinger!

Reminders/ Announcements/Opportunities
  If you haven’t completed the online survey for the 2013-2014 calendar please do so
   asap. The thought is to offer all families the opportunity to be on the same
   calendar from elementary through high school. The split modified calendar also allows 
   a full week during Thanksgiving when many students are already absent.  
•  Apple Award Nominations open Click here to make your nomination!
•  Comprehension Toolkit Class
   Week 3 – Wednesday, November 28th at 4:15 pm or Thursday, November 29th at 8:00
   Week 4 – Tuesday, December 4th at 8:00 am or Wednesday, December 5th at 4:15 pm
•  Social dues are due by Nov. 20th.  You may post- date your check.

Go For the GOLD!
•  Thank you Gail and Carolyn for all of your hard work organizing the Book Fair.  We 
   appreciate all you do!
•  Have anyone you want to recognize?  Please let Libby know.

Golden Nuggets
Lounge Duty:  Conrad/Dalcerri
Friday Treats:  Fifth and Childcare
Morning Announcements & Recycling: Jones
Morning Supervision:  Schulte, Hoff, Murray-Close, Simpson, Fleet, Kramer


Reflections From Tuesday

What challenged your thinking?

•  The difference between skills and strategies.
•  Thinking strategically – Moving thinking to knowledge
•  Getting deeper with 1sr graders.
•  Making thinking more visible.
•  What’s knowing vs. information. 
•  How to assess thinking.
•  Activities to think about how strategies support learning content.
•  Craft language to bring about the best learning.
•  The information into knowledge piece and the word agency.
•  Using more literature for emotional learning.
•  Merge thinking
•  Assessment vs. Evaluation
•  Incorporating all of this into 30 min. sessions.
•  Inquiry groups and getting kids in depth with this.
•  70% of the day should be spent in small groups.
•  How to incorporate the knowledge given to the class and to have them actively use that knowledge.
•  How to incorporate more literature into therapy.
•  Moving away from so much whole group instruction to small group agency.
•  We are born thinking, but we need to learn how to strategically think. 
•  More explicit modeling.  Skills are not teachable.  Strategies are deliberate.
•  How to use my groups.
•  Thinking about how learning is a consequence of thinking.  Transferring/merging content to acquire knowledge.
•  How to make the most out of my time.  Overlapping more and more with content and reading.
•  We shouldn’t grade a student until we have done all we can do as a teacher and given them plenty of opportunity to practice.
•  How to incorporate the sticky notes with fiction and how to assess this.
•  The different levels of questioning.  Moving my kids along the continuum.
•  The amount of non-fiction kids should be reading.

What will you try in your class?
•  Questioning to show if kids have “acquired knowledge.”
•  Helping students a connection that is “important to them” vs. “important to the text.”
•  Model distracting connections.
•  Sticky notes on charts.
•  Creating meaningful lessons where students respond to text in a thoughtful manner that demonstrates their thinking.
•  Collaboration chart.
•  Inquiry circles.
•  Continue to share proficient sticky notes  - demonstrate how to move sticky to written response.
•  More actual teaching of structures for collaboration.
Explicitly teaching behavior and collaboration more.
• Using more advanced vocab for younger kids when appropriate.
•  Inquiry circles
•  Try using the continuum with kids, make it kid friendly.
•  More modeling and practice of annotating text.
•  Using post-it notes on the carpet to track thinking.
•  Anchor charting more and go slow to go fast.
•  The collaboration rule chart.
•  Setting up collaboration norms.
•  Not so skill focused when possible.
•  Less “worksheets” and more “thinking sheets.”
•  Student led inquiry circles.
•  Show more visible thinking.
•  Model the inner voice.
•  More non-fiction annotation and more non-fiction materials for students to access.  Explicitly showing collaborative learning.
•  Scaffolding my lessons more.  I expect them to do more than they are capable.
•  More effective, authentic assessment.
•  More student/student talk, text complexity, focus more on the inner conversation.
•  Holding kids more accountable for their independent reading using sticky notes.


What questions do you still have?
•  Explore more with resources she mentioned.
•  The best (most meaningful) way to grade thinking.
•  What does this look like in a literacy block?
•  Are backwards plans prompting useful conversations?
•  How can I meet district initiatives and still do things I know are great teaching?
•  How to fit it all in time-wise?
•  How to use this in what I do?  Maybe self-reflection in what I do.
•  How to give time and cover content.  How to manage all the post-its.
•  How to incorporate more STR.
•  How to incorporate Kagan into this.
•  What do these strategies look like for emerging readers?
•  What should happen if the person chooses not to follow the collaboration rule chart?
•  How do you do this with SPED?
•  How to explain assessment/evaluation to parents.  How does it translate to report cards?
•  How can I set up my classroom time to better implement this learning?
•  More examples of authentic assessment and evaluation.
•  Being explicit with language.  Modeling – public, visible, and audible
•  How to do this in my small group, when I still feel like I am trying to get them to read (decode).
•  More on evaluation.  How will this look to parents.
•  How to teach my third graders to annotate effectively.
•  How to incorporate in 30 min. special education lesson?  How to make it authentic while supporting SSN kids language and thinking?
•  Move conversation about getting kids to actively use knowledge

Thursday morning with 11 classrooms to go! Thank you to everyone for helping this week! Week of May 18 Last Week of School!  REMIN...