Friday Focus - September 5, 2014

Great Things I Noticed this Week:

• Teachers sharing about making positive calls/notes home now to establish good relationships with parents early on. 
• I've heard many great comments from parents about the great start of the school year, especially those from parents new to our school who feel like they were so welcomed into Dodgeland.
• Teachers having their class practice/rehearse basic procedures like walking in the hallway, how to put book bins away and how to gather to the carpet to instill effective routines before bad habits build. 
• Students making their own individual goals for the school year. 
• Our enrollment is up significantly from last year...it's because more and more keep hearing how great of a school we are with incredible staff!

Events Next Week:

"Casual for Cancer" week- donate $10 to wear jeans all week. Proceeds will go to UW Carbone Cancer Center, organized by Ms. Maher.

Monday - Boy Scouts presentation at noon recess in the gym (please, no rain!)

Tuesday - 3:05 *optional* MAP Proctor Training refresher in the IMC

Wednesday - deadline for any district newsletter submissions

Thursday - I will be at CESA 6 in the morning for EP training

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

• If you haven't already done so, please turn in your schedule to me. 
• The MAP testing window is Sept 8-25.  This time I'd like to ask you to schedule your class in the computer lab google calendar (please do not take your lab for anything other than MAP testing during this window).  I will be putting blank copies of the parent MAP testing letter in your mailboxes.  *Please let me know if you want me to be in the lab with you when you test so I can get it on my schedule.
• If you misplaced my email for the book study groups, the google doc is HERE. (*Google Docs tip...if you are logged in to your google account when you click on this link, then the doc should always show up in your "shared with me" folder in docs).

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!

*Blog post from thedailycafe.com: Do Students Get Bored?

*@LauraKJasso: Growth mindset: what do u want to accomplish this year? What do u want your students to accomplish this yr?

*I am loving following the Twitter account for this astronaut orbiting Earth...wouldn't it be great for our students to see his incredible tweets/pictures from space like this: