Friday Focus -Snow Day edition

Believe it or not, I've taken full advantage of these 2 snow days to relax and have fun with my boys. I hope you've enjoyed them too.

This is just a quick Friday Memo to let you know that there are no important events the week we come back (other than making up your class holiday parties).

I hope you all enjoy  the holiday vacation with your families!

Here's a little teacher humor for you...

Reading Resolutions

Some of you asked about Reading Resolutions after the staff meeting...here are the answers. If you don't want to think about it until closer to January, then save this to read later. :)

Image from BOTNS

In yesterday's staff meeting we talked about school-wide ideas to continue building a culture of readers.  We already have great literacy practices, but now we want to go further to help out students develop the habits of lifelong readers/learners.

One of the ideas I asked all of you to do is start out January creating "Reading Resolutions" with your students.  This would start with you creating your own Reading Resolutions.  I haven't written mine yet (there are still 14 days to read for 2012), however, I did write a blog post in June in which I reflected on my reading half-way through the year: HERE is the post.  In that post I noted how last year I read 20 non-fiction and only 6 fiction books and that I needed to read more fiction or I would become a really boring person!  I do not at all expect anyone to write something as long as I did for a reading resolution, but I just wanted to share that with you.

HERE is a post that Donalyn Miller wrote last year on her Reading Resolutions.

HERE is a post with some actual reading resolutions from students. HERE is another one.

I don't want to tell each of you how to do this with your class, you have to do what works for you.  I'm sure that several of you will also come up with some cutesy little form for students to fill out (and others can steal from them) and others (if it were me) might just use index cards or old-school paper.  I would share with students my own personal reflections on my reading for the year and then show them an example of what format they should write their's in (showing your own resolutions).

Thank you for all your hard work and for sharing your reading lives with students!

An idea found on Pinterest--maybe usable for 5K students?

Monday Musings - Week of December 17th

As I think about the horrific events of Newtown, Connecticut, I am thankful that each and every one of you will be in front of our students on Monday morning.  Our children need each of you more on Monday than you can even fathom.  Our students will have questions on Monday, and my hope is that the blog post linked below will help you with the questions that our students will have:

There Is No Lesson Plan For Tragedy - Teachers YOU Know What To Do  via @AngelaMaiers

We may never understand why this tragedy occurred, but we can still discuss it with all of our kids, whether they are students or relatives, and let them know that we are here for them to protect them, to love them, and to reassure them that we will do all that we can to keep them safe.

Friday Focus - Dec. 14

Great things I noticed this week:

• 2 students quietly used "rock, paper, scissors" to decide who would read first for "read to someone" during Daily 5.
• Singing/dancing while practicing properties of a square to the "Square Song"  The Have Fun Teaching YouTube channel has a ton of great songs to use in the classroom (great for educational brain breaks). 
• During math time I heard a first grader say, "Uh oh, I have an error." (I never would have though I'd hear a 6 yr old say that!)
• Students wearing a sticker that said "Ask me about what I read..."

Events Next Week:
Monday  - Elementary PD meeting at 3:05 in the Media Center
Tuesday - College shirt day
  I will be out of the building Tuesday afternoon at CESA 6
  K/2/4th grade Music Concert at 6:30 pm
Friday - wear Red and Green (instead of Dodgeland attire) for the holidays
Have a Wonderful Holiday vacation with your families :)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes

• Monday's Staff meeting will include: school-wide ideas to continue building culture of literacy, few notes on observations, volunteers/visitors, and a little fun. 
• We've already seen students starting to have a difficult time focusing on school with Christmas coming up...next week is only getting closer!  Keep in mind that the more you stray from "normal" the more the students will too.  As you're planning classroom holiday parties, make sure they are just a party and not a whole day event. ;) 

You don't want your students to turn into this ;)

• *Planning ahead for the New Year: Upon our return from Christmas break please keep in mind that you  will need to spend at least 2 weeks reteaching/retraining your students.  Please be ready to go over all your classroom routines and procedures and retrain your students
• Re-build/work on stamina in Daily 5
• Hallway behavior – We have all become very relaxed with enforcing Short, Straight, Silent.
• Transitions within the classroom – Be sure to have a transition routine from activity/subject to subject.

Blogs, Pins and Tweets...Oh My!

• Great article from Donalyn Miller: Keep Students Reading Over Winter Break
•  ‏@WonderPhillips
  Can't wait to share & discuss this @Wonderopolis, 'Is It Really Better To Give Than To Receive?' http://bit.ly/YWlxfo  #1stchat #2ndchat   
  If you haven't seen Wonderopolis, it is a really neat site with something new to learn everyday: 

Read the blog post HERE for this lesson

Monday Musings - Week of Dec. 10th

I see the school year as a marathon, not a sprint. There are long stretches at the beginning and end, then those long days where winter’s cold temperatures (even though it has been unseasonably warm….we’ll TAKE IT!) and lack of sunlight drain us. When viewed within the scope of an entire school year, 10 days isn’t really that many. However, 10  is the exact number of days that we have with our students before Winter Break.

• For some of our students who will say “it’s almost break” and lack motivation, it is time to push them & keep them excited and eager to learn.
• For our students who come from challenging circumstances at home and are feeling anxiety about not being at Dodgeland for break (and acting out because of it), it is time to show them how much you care & make the most of these next 10 days.
• For our students that just keep smiling & working hard each day, it is time to pull them aside and tell them how much you appreciate them.

In these 10 days, we have a lot of work to do & lots of wonderful learning experiences to provide our students.  We’ll continue to persevere as the professionals that we are! No matter what your title is, what grade you work with, or what you do, please look at these next 10 days as times to deliver the highest quality service to our students, parents & community.

Be proud of what we’ve accomplished with our students so far this year, but please keep the focus on learning in your classrooms. In addition, I’d encourage you to:

• Take a second and tell a colleague that you’ve noticed how hard they are working and that you appreciate them working so hard.
• Make time to reflect on some of the positives that we’ve had this year that may have been overlooked as we have overcome the challenges of not having enough time.
• Set a tone for your students that regardless of how much time is left before a long break that all of us will work hard and make the most of our school days.
• Celebrate being a member of our Dodgeland School Family.

Friday Focus - Dec. 7

Great Things I Noticed This Week:

• Lesson on Visualization as a comprehension strategy: students were all given a copied page from the teacher's read-aloud book to read and draw a picture on the back of what they visualized.  They then had the chance to discuss with partners. 
• Visual of a tube of toothpaste used to teach summarizing: "squeeze out just what you need and leave the rest."
• Integration of the current math unit skills into the science unit. This is what helps students make connections and see the relevance of the math problems they are learning to solve. 

I know you're all doing amazing things in your classrooms each day and glad all of my training days are done so I can get into your classrooms more!!

Events Next Week (I'm here ALL week!)

Monday - Student Christmas Gift Donations due to Marie

   Documentation Log training at 3:05 in the Media Center (if you didn't attend this week)

Tuesday - Grade Level Meetings (see notes below on our focus)

Friday - Staff Social Lunch

  Mid-Quarter (Yes, Already!!!)  Please send mid-quarter progress reports home

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

• Tuesday's Grade Level meetings will be literacy focused.  Please bring your class reading profile charts (that list your students' F&P Benchmark levels) so we can discuss how you are meeting the needs of the variety of reading levels in your classroom.  You will also find an additional handout in your mailboxes today to read prior to the meeting.  As you read this, please think about how can we continue to create a culture of readers at Dodgeland? 
• On Tuesday Joyce, Jenny and Sandy and I all attended a literacy workshop at CESA 6 on Creating Classrooms Where Readers Flourish, presented by Donalyn Miller.  Miller is the author of The Book Whisperer, which I wrote about in this post.  If you've read The Book Whisperer,then you know she is already amazing and full of great ideas to promote literacy.  In real life, she was even better!! Here were Jenny's notes from the workshop if you would like to read them: Jenny's Notes  You don't have to read them, but if you do and have any questions, feel free to ask any of us (but we might get really excited and talk at great length!)

Blogs, Pins, & Tweets...Oh My!

• Do you have students struggling with summarizing? Get some great ideas HERE in a podcast (the webpage also has the transcript to read) from Emily Kissner. 1 easy idea she shares is to give students pre-made cards with ideas from the text. First have students put them in sequential order from the text and then have them sort them by importance so they can practice weeding out less important ideas from a text.
• "If we have data let’s look at the data. If all we have is opinions, let’s go with mine" 

  @Joesanfelippofc  

• 
  

and just for a laugh:

Monday Musings - Week of December 3

I recently read the blog post What the Kardashians Taught me About Reading (No, For Real)  written by Chris Lehman, co-author (with Lucy Calkins) of Pathways to the Common Core. To be honest, I love reading everything written by Chris, but I saw this tweeted several times and ignored it, because I couldn't care less about the Kardashians. I'm not sure what got me to finally read it, but when I did I read it several times through.  Please take a few moments to read the article HERE which is actually on Donalyn Miller's blog at Edweek (the author of The Book Whisperer that I raved about last year).








OK, you read it now, right?
Here is what stood out to me, that I'm still thinking about...

Brand Yourself as a Reader, So Your Students Will Emulate

Lehmann writes about using the Kardashians as a metaphor for how we can see our instruction in a new light.  He says, "we need to take a lesson from Ms. K and brand ourselves as readers just as carefully so our students have that vision to aspire to."

Are you known as a reader to your students?  Do your colleagues know they can ask you for a book recommendation or share with you a book they just finished reading?  

This has me wondering if you all think of me as a reader? I have certainly tried to by sharing my Shelfari account bookshelf on my blog and sharing my reflections of what I'm reading and learning about.  Do students think of me as a reader?  After reading this article (which I have actually read several times) I want to start my own little bulletin board in the media center to post a picture of what childrens' book I am currently reading to model for our students. 

There were several other great ideas shared in the comments section of the blog post that made me wonder if any of you would be willing to share your ideas on this in the comments of this blog post?  If you've never gone from the emailed post to the blog, go to johnsonmemo.blogspot.com and scroll to the bottom of the post and click where it says No Comments. This will open up a box for you to add your comment of ideas to share with the rest of us. 

Oops!!

I accidentally published a blog post "Too Little Time?" in this blogger account instead of my other one! My apologies to teachers for this cluttering your email...it was not intended for you!

Friday Focus - Nov. 30

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." - Helen Keller

We had great discussions during grade level meetings this week.  It is really amazing to hear the progress you and your students are making with Math Expressions.  I also enjoyed some of the great collaboration to share new ideas and to help brainstorm to help with specific issues some of you are dealing with in your classrooms.

Events Next Week:
Monday: Mentors/Probationary Teachers Meeting at 3:05
Tuesday/Wednesday: I will be at CESA 6
Thursday: Documentation Log training after school (you can attend this one or the one on December 13).  I will keep it brief in case you need to leave for an XPD class.
Saturday: Elementary Dance team is competing at Watertown (I saw them last night at the BBall game and they were ADORABLE!)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

• Here is the google doc of notes from grade level meetings. I got pulled out a few times to deal with issues, so there may be some "holes" in the notes.
• I contacted another school to see what they find most useful for thinkcentral.com. Here's what they said:

1.        Look at the manual online for planning at home so they don’t have to haul their manual home

2.       Displaying homework on the screen (with and/or without the answers hidden) so students can correct their own homework when they come in

3.       Print off and and all items they need from the resource index (this is awesome!)

4.       Display workbook page to talk through problems and have students write on them on their Smartboards when doing whole group instruction

Special ed teachers love that they can print off things from many grade levels to find what fits for each of their students!  Our middle school sped use this site to access stuff from grades 3, 4, 5 for their students who are that low. 

Blogs, Pins & Tweets...Oh My! 

@Joe_Mazza: If you are "grading homework," you are in a sense grading the home support/lack there of of all of your students #vachat

Monday Memo - Week of November 26

Since I missed a Friday Focus last week, it's going to be today!
I hope that you all enjoyed a wonderful 4 day holiday weekend with your families. Believe it or not, I actually relaxed and avoided school work for most of the time.  It was wonderful!

 But now, it's back to reality. 

I know that I've said this each year, but want to say it again. Many of us enjoy this time of year—shopping for gifts, decorating, baking cookies, etc. For some of our students, this is not a festive time of year due to the financial hardships their families face. It can even get to be a stressful time for these children that hear their parents talk about no money for Christmas or even the possibility of losing electricity. I don’t mean to depress you, but just ask that you keep this in mind and pay attention to these particular students in your class that may be going through hard times.

Events this Week:
Tuesday- Grade Level Meetings in the Data Room
 Rock River Reading Council Meeting and Presentation on Text Complexity with the Common Core in the evening (dinner starts at 5:15 pm)
Wednesday-Friday - I will be out of the building all 3 days for a FEMA training (remember those online emergency tests you took last Spring? This will be 3 full days of it...I should be an expert on emergencies by Friday.)
Thursday - Elementary dancers will be performing during half-time at the Varsity BBall game

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Mrs. Bartlett will be taking student made Christmas ornaments to the Juneau Public Library on Thursday, November 29th.  The Library tree lighting program is Sunday, December 2nd.

Blogs, Pins & Tweets...Oh my!

• Different ways to use a favorite formative assessment in the classroom: The Exit Slip

• Here's a blog post from @LauraKomos who often writes for the Daily Cafe site.  I'm sure many of you can relate to her post talking about the progress her class has made each year since she first started teaching with Daily5/Cafe. 

Read more HERE how this teacher taught students to "dig deeper" in their writing.

Flipped Staff meeting for November

This post is in place of my "Monday Musings" and our Staff Meeting due to this crazy time of year with everything going on. Please take 8 minutes of your time this week to watch the video and take the survey at the bottom of this post.  I do give a preview of our math PD time together on Wednesday, so preferably watch it Monday or Tuesday. You will see links below for the items I talk about.
 (There are no brownie points for counting the number of times I say "umm"!)


Here are the links for items I discuss in the video
List of 6 Traits books in the Instructional Media Center 
Grade Level Meeting Notes
Hudsonville District Math Parent Information Website
K/1 Parent Presentation
2/3 Parent Presentation
4/5 Parent Presentation

Friday Focus - Nov. 16

Image by Krissy Venosdale

It's been a long (or maybe too quick?) couple of weeks with WKCE testing, end of the quarter, math visits, etc.  I really appreciate your dedication to our students and our ongoing learning.  While visiting Appleton with the 3/4th grades, we had great conversation, learned a lot, but also got affirmation for the incredible work we are doing at Dodgeland.  I can't wait to hear the continued discussions next week during our PD time on Wednesday.

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes
*Notes from grade level meetings can be found HERE Thank you to Joyce and Jenny for taking notes while I was out giving make-up WKCE tests!
*Monday's staff meeting will be "flipped." If you haven't heard the term flipped classroom yet, this is when a teacher has students watch a video/lesson at home and then they do the actual work in the classroom. With this busy time of the year and an XPD session Monday at 3:30, I really just have some informational things and there's no reason to meet in that case (especially with PD on Wednesday). So I am going to "flip" our meeting and make a brief video clip with the notes of what I would share in our meeting.  I will post it this weekend in place of my Monday Musings post.  Please just plan to watch it some time next week. If you are sad that we're not meeting, feel free to meet with me after school ;)

Events this week:
Monday- no meeting (see note above)
Wednesday - Professional Development Day
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Blogs, Pins, and Tweets...Oh My!
*If you are "grading homework," you are in a sense grading the home support/lack there of of all of your students. (@Joe_Mazza)
*"Great teachers teach at the speed of learning. They teach the student, not the lesson."(@Blankenship_S)
*How to deal with an Energy Vampire by Jon Gordon

For students struggling with attention span: Cut a file folder into strips. The shorter the attention span, the smaller you will cut the strips. I cut this one into 3 parts. Students open 1 flap at a time and always begin at the top and work their way down. Students complete the work that they can see when a flap is open.

Monday Musings - Week of November 12

Another blog post borrowed from Venspired, because when I read this I thought for sure she was reading my mind!!

Know Them

Your class. The kids in your school. Do you see them?  Do you really know them?
The kid that has messy hair and dirty clothing… do you judge his parents or do you realize his mom’s a single parent struggling to keep their home?  The child at the end of the hall screaming… do you think, ‘wow, that kid needs discipline,’ or do you realize it’s a child in Sensory Overload that has autism?  The kid who won’t make eye contact with you… do you think of that child as not having any manners or do you realize that he doesn’t have anyone at home to make eye contact with him, or say kind words to him?  The kid struggling to get along with others in the classroom… do you think he’s selfish, or do you realize his brother has Cancer and is in the hospital?  Maybe they are more worried about their home than your homework.  Maybe they have a disability you cannot see.  Maybe they have a worry in their little life that most adults can’t even handle.  Maybe it’s really not about seeing them with your eyes at all. Maybe it’s about knowing them all, with your heart, and being their support.  On the good days, the bad days, and every day in between.

Friday Focus -

Great things I Noticed this Week (small list due to testing...my apologies):

• Focus on manners in the classroom after the Hal Urban Book Discussion. 
• When Mrs. Thompson helped out with testing on Tuesday she mentioned the please/thank-you's from students when she passed out snacks!
• Relating students' fishing expertise to writing...you're fishing for readers as you write.  Just like you put bait on a hook to lure fish in, you need to write an opening line to lure readers in.

Events Next Week:
Monday - 3/4th grade teachers visit Appleton (more details to be emailed)
Veterans Day Assembly at 9:30 in the HS Gym
Tuesday - Grade Level Meetings Day
Report Cards to be distributed
Wednesday - Effectiveness Project Q/A's on the differences for Educational Specialists in Jenny's room at 3:05
Thursday - 1/2nd grade teachers visit Appleton in AM, 5K/5th grade in the PM (more details to be emailed)
Friday - Staff Social Lunch (4th grade/Cleary)
1st Quarter Dodgeland Pride Assembly 2:00 pm

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Just a reminder that we will be talking about the article "Keeping the Mini back in Mini-Lessons" at the grade level meetings.
*THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! For your flexibility in making guest teacher plans to go to Appleton next week. I know it's not the best timing, but our best chance to see Math Expressions in action before our PD day on the 21st.  I appreciate all your hard work in learning with this new math program (and everything else, of course!)
*The WKCE test is officially over, however, I'll still be involved with in completing make-up testing for absent students in grades 3-8/10.

Pins, Blogs, and Tweets...Oh My!
 *Just in case you missed this in last week's Daily 5 Tip of the Week Newsletter, go HERE for the personal CAFE menu for students to fill out.
*Video clip on stating the objective at the start of the lesson (I've actually seen similar practices in several classrooms):

Monday Musings - Week of November 5

Teachers: If you're not seeing the images in your auto-emailed newsletter,

 just go to johnsonmemo.blogspot.com

Last school year I learned a great deal from the book Mindset, by Carol Dweck and shared my learning with you in this post. I don't know if anyone else also read this book, but I am starting to notice a lot of classroom practices and teachers talking in ways to encourage students to have a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. 

In one classroom, students were discussing the following quote: "We all make mistakes. That's why a pencil has an eraser."  I've been lucky enough to get into several classrooms during the math talk time to hear students explain their thinking or to see students writing to "Puzzled Penguin" to tell him what math mistake he made.

In another classroom during science stations, students were told "Don't worry if you get it wrong, just try to think of what it might be and then check to see if you're right. Think about the new things you're learning."  At the end of this class period, students' exit slips included listing 3 new things they learned.  What was most amazing to me is throughout this class period, one student stood out to me as the model reason of why we need to encourage students to have a growth mindset.  During an iPad quiz, I watched this student answer questions as quickly as possible and when she got them wrong, moved on without even paying attention to what the correct answer was so she could learn from it.  When she moved on to a partner quiz with student-made notecards, she was proud to share that she had 15 right and only 5 wrong. When I asked her what she learned from the 5 wrong she said, "oh, I guess I should look at them."  At the end of the class period when students were given the exit slips on 3 new things they learned, everyone started writing, but this student said, "I didn't learn anything new."

The teacher did everything she could to encourage students to focus on what new things they were learning, however, this particular student has already become so used to focusing on getting the right answers, that she hasn't learned how to learn from the wrong answers.  She was my "aha moment" of why we need to continue our work on helping our students to become passionate about learning, develop a growth mindset, and learn from mistakes.

If you're looking for great posters/quotes on this topic, I found great ones from Krissy Venosdale.  Here are some of my favorites:

 

 

 

Friday Focus - November 2

Great things I noticed last week:

• A class starting the day out with a quote of the day to discuss and incorporate character in just a few minutes a day.
• Use of the website www.storylineonline.net to show a story on the smartboard. If you haven't checked this site out, the stories are read in a very expressive and engaging way for students!
• To teach the comprehension strategy of visualization, students drew pictures to show what they visualized in their head as the teacher read a picture book (without letting them see any pictures). The teacher read the story again, this time stopping to compare/contrast what the book's illustrations were compared to what students had visualized.
• Using google docs with students (and even ready to try it again when it didn't go perfectly as planned!)
• What a first grader was struggling with a math problem, a friend asked, "Can I give some advice?" and then showed how he would solve it!
• Heard from a student in the hallway: "I wish we had a whole day of math!"

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes

• Thank you for the email responses of days/times to avoid for scheduling our Math Expressions visit to Appleton. I will work around those and give you a schedule as soon as I hear back.
• I'm putting a copy of the article Putting the "Mini" Back in Minilessons in mailboxes for classroom/reading teachers.  Please read this between now and our grade level meeting day on November 13th for us to discuss your reflections, thoughts, ideas to share, or struggles with keeping mini-lessons mini. 

Events Next Week:

*WKCE Testing for 3-5th grades Monday -Wednesday until 11:00

*WKCE Testing for 4th grade on Thursday until 10:05 am 

*PLEASE BE SILENT IN THE HALLWAYS DURING MORNING WKCE TESTING!!  Also please be aware that 3-5th grades have goofy morning recess schedules due to their testing and may end up outside with different grade levels than normal. Thank you for your flexibility with this and specials schedule changes for WKCE testing.  

Tuesday - I will be at CESA 6 for the Effectiveness Project (Lisa Breselow will be "me" for WKCE testing)

Wednesday - Fundraiser Pick-Up 3:00-5:00

Thursday - "College Going Culture" Meeting at 3:05 in Mr. Bothun's classroom
Planning ahead for the following week: The Veterans Day Assembly will be at 9:30 on Monday, November 12. 

Blogs, Pins, and Tweets...Oh My!
*Having a hard time coming up with report card comments? This google doc has a great list of suggestions.
*Looking for a book to read? Here's a list of what Regie Routman is reading. I connected personally with her habit of reading several books at one time.

Teach new phrases and ban "I can't" and "I don't know"

Sorting fiction/non-fiction using all those extra Scholastic book orders!

Monday Musings - Week of October 29

To be festive with Halloween, I'm going to borrow a blog post from one of my

 favorite blogs that I follow at http://venspired.com/

 

Image by Krissy Venosdale

We may not really wear capes, but….

Teaching might be challenging, push you to your creative limits, stretch your emotions, and make you reach for that last drop of energy 7 days of the week, but is there any better job out there?  We get to show up to class and make learning exciting for kids.  We can help them uncover a new passion, explore a current interest, or add a building block to reaching their future dreams.  We have the ability to see growth that would amaze most people.  We get to encourage kids to take risks and try ‘one more time.’  At the end of the day, when we’re our very most exhausted, a tiny note left on our desk from a kid that had fun learning, can put our entire lives into perspective.  We may not wear capes everyday, but we get to be a part of something truly inspiring.  Learning. Kids. The future.

Importance of Keyboarding

DPI just issued the following statement regarding the importance of keyboarding:

Keyboarding more Essential than Ever

With students’ keyboarding skills referenced in new academic standards—and relied upon for upcoming state assessments—it is more important than ever for conversation to occur at the district level regarding keyboarding instruction and assessment.

Beginning in 2014-15, students will use computers to take Smarter Balanced assessments (which will replace the WKCE). Therefore, it is essential to prepare students with a level of keyboarding skill that allows them to enter text efficiently.

Also, the Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts outline a need for keyboarding proficiency.

The DPI’s keyboarding webpage excerpts the Common Core State Standards and Smarter Balanced Assessment language relating to keyboarding. The page also outlines strategies and resources that may be of assistance to classroom teachers in planning for the development and delivery of keyboarding skills. 

Fall Festival Focus Day

(Sorry, but that was the best title I could come up with to substitute for Friday Focus on a short week! The short week and my Tuesday absence is also the reason for my lack of "Great Things I Noticed This Week" section.)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes
*You have the schedule for Thursday PD day, but please also make sure to bring your teacher math manuals  to our math curriculum PD.  We will be working with MaryAnn Hudziak from CESA6. I will be meeting with MS/HS staff about WKCE testing at 8:45, so I will likely be a few minutes late to join you and MaryAnn will have to start without me there to introduce her (sorry it was the only time to meet with MS/HS staff).

Events Next Week: Red Ribbon Week
*I will be involved with MS/HS WKCE testing next week, so I may be hard to find (or in the WKCE "cave"  next to my office preparing elementary test bins for the following week!)
Monday - "Put a cap on drugs" (hat day)
Tuesday - "Sock it to Drugs Day" (crazy socks)
4th grade WKCE presentation at 12:30
Wednesday - "Dreaming Big" (PJ's day)
Elementary WKCE Meeting at 7:35 in the Media Center (for 3-5th and other staff proctoring)
Thursday - "Red Rally Day" (wear red)
Friday - "School Spirit Day" (Dodgeland attire/Purple as always)
5th Grade WKCE Presentation at 12:30
3rd Grade WKCE Presentation at 2:15

*By the way...I do update all elementary events on our website in case you forget what each day is. This would be a perfect reason to show your class on the SMARTBoard of how to find the calendar at home. It's here or just go the Dodgeland website, Schools, Elementary and the main page shows the calendar.


Blogs, Pins and Tweets...Oh My!
Choice Literacy is becoming one of my favorite sources of literacy articles, here's a couple of great finds this week:
*Great article on Putting the Mini back in Mini-lessons 
*Mini Lessons to start conversations with students about books

Monday Musings - Week of October 22

Last week when I attended the AWSA Convention (Association of Wisconsin School Administrators) I had the great opportunity to discuss current issues in the elementary buildings at our networking session.  One common issue is "what to do with challenging students."  Whether it's a kindergartner with aggressive behaviors or a 5th grader that just doesn't care about school, we've all encountered a student like this at some point in our career.  If there was one strategy that would work, then we would have all used it by now (and someone would have gotten rich off of "selling" it).  Unfortunately, there isn't one strategy or trick that will work with every student, so it is up to us to look at what patterns we see in the behaviors, hypothesize what might be the cause for their behavior and try to be proactive and address the cause with an appropriate intervention.

More often than not, students exhibiting challenging behaviors lack relationships with others in their life.  One very simple strategy to try and build that rapport with this student is just spending 2 minutes a day with them. Not 2 minutes talking about what they should be doing (they get enough of that already), but 2 minutes to give them a chance to talk about anything-what happened over the weekend, what's their favorite tv show, favorite game, etc. 2 minutes to get to know them and build that connection.

I keep a list of "frequent flyer" students that I try to check in with each day on a positive note (before they make it to my office for a negative reason).  When I'm having busy days and don't get to one of them, it seems like that child ends up having a bad day and ends up having to spend time in the office with me. (Disclaimer - I don't have data to back this up and I'm not claiming that it's me that makes the difference in their day.)

Do you have a student with challenging behaviors?  Give this simple 2 minute strategy a shot. Focus on spending 2 minutes with him/her for the next 10 days and see if it makes a difference.  I'd love to hear your "results."

By the way...if you're looking for a list of interventions for challenging behaviors, Intervention Central is full of research based strategies.

Friday Focus - October 19

Great Things I Noticed this week:
*5th grade classes looking at student writing samples together, using the 6 Traits Rubric to score and then see how the teachers scored each piece of writing. This helped students better learn the rubric. By the 3rd time around they were almost as consistent with the teachers on scoring.
*4th grade students wrote weekly scores into their portfolios, assessed themselves on the code of conduct for the week and wrote their personal learning goals for the next week. What a great way to give them ownership of their own learning.
*Kindergarten is up to 9 minutes of reading stamina!
*An almost magical technique to get 4K-ers to stop blurting...when told to "catch it" they put hands over their mouths as they raised hands. I could not believe how well it worked!
*Several classes have started trying out the iPads. I'd love to hear when you're going to so I can get in to help. Let me know if you want me to help you plan for them.

Events Next Week:
Monday-We will have 3-4 teacher visiting from Oakfield to observe Daily 5/Cafe in the lower grades, with additional teachers to visit at a later time. (Word continues to get out about how great you are!)
Let me know if you're interested in joining them for lunch to talk Daily 5/Cafe...not sure where they're eating yet.
Parent/Teacher Conferences 4-7:30, School Board Meeting 7:30
Tuesday - I will be back at CESA 6 for Teacher Effectiveness training all day
Parent/Teacher Conferences 4-7:30
Wednesday - Fall Festival
Thursday - Professional Development Day
Saturday - PTO Craft Fair/Bake Sale-If you can't come to help, please come to shop!!! (or bring baked goods on Wednesday to help with the sale)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*For 3-5th grade teachers the WKCE Parent letters will be mailed out by October 24th. Please also try to mention the WKCE test in your Parent/Teacher conference so parents end up hearing/seeing this information twice.
*Let me know if you would like me to join in a P/T conference or just have one you'd like me to be nearby "just in case." My schedule for both nights is booking up.
*When you're using Google Docs it has now turned into "Drive." I know several of you are still using the old version and some are braving the latest "Drive." I've survived through finding things in the new version, but found this resource very helpful to learn how to navigate Google Drive: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rn3sOyKSv111UX2DngOLCwd1FMCf7IgCu4RNdyjVNXg/edit

Blogs, Tweets, and Pins...Oh My!
Teach Mentor Texts - a great blog that shares a wealth of books for mentor texts. What are mentor texts? Mentor texts or anchor texts are books that can be used as an example of good writing for students.  Students can use the writing in these books to improve their own writing.  

Print your own blank Piggie and Elephant comic strips

Go HERE for online and hands-on science activities

 ‏@Jeff_Zoul

“If you aren't excited about examining your students' work, you are giving the wrong types of assignments.” David Wees

Monday Musings - October 15

Now with my posts switched, I didn't think "Memo" was the appropriate title for my weekly post sharing my reflections with you all, so it is now my "Monday Musings."

In last week's DailyCafe Tip of the Week Newsletter I found a series of Leadership Support articles on how principals can support teachers while implementing Daily 5/Cafe (too bad they weren't written before when we were starting!).  One of the articles was on what to look for in classrooms that indicates Daily 5/Cafe is being used. As I read through the list I reflected on how well you have all implemented Daily 5/Cafe in classrooms and that I could have written the article myself based on what I see in your rooms each day!

Here's the short list of what to look for from the article (if you want the details on each bullet point, just ask and I'll share the full article with you)...

What to look for in a Daily 5 Classroom:

• I-Charts
• Book Boxes
• Brief focus lessons
• Stamina graph
• Student behavior

What to look for in a Cafe Classroom:

• Cafe Menu
• Student ownership
• Individualized instruction
• Academic language
• Academic success

The final bullet point, academic success, is evident in our reading data.  But what our data cannot show is that we are creating readers at Dodgeland.  Our students aren't reading because we require them to or give them incentives to read; they read because they enjoy reading and they enjoy learning.  This wouldn't be possible without your passion and modeling of your love for reading and learning!

Friday Focus

Just a reminder that starting today, my posts have been switched so the Friday Focus will be giving you all of the events to plan ahead for next week!

Great Things I've Noticed this Week:
*Keeping a stamina chart for Read to Self and Work on Writing. What a great idea to track both while building reading/writing stamina in the classrooms.
*Many great ideas shared among teachers in the grade level meetings.
*In a writing mini-lesson the teacher put on a hat (her "writers hat") while writing and thinking out-loud for students to hear what was "going on in her brain" while showing students her writing process. Such a great idea for students to see/hear what it is like for writers in the process.
*4th graders explaining to me how they are rounding and checking for the exact answer. It was very different than how I've previously seen it taught (I was confused at first since I missed the lesson), but the students I asked explained it well and it made better sense than previous strategies I've seen. I know this math program is quite different, but I'm seeing some incredible thinking going on!


Events this Week:
Monday-Elementary PD Meeting (training on the Documentation Log for the Effectiveness Project) at 3:05 in the Media Center. You do NOT need laptops or your guidebooks this time. If you miss this meeting, you will need to go to the MS/HS meeting on Wednesday at 3:05.
*Monday is also the date that the survey growth plan is due in OASYS. Please let me know if you have any questions/issues or don't think it will be done in time.
Tuesday-Google Calendar refresher training at 3:05 in the Media Center with Mr. Modaff
Wednesday-Google Calendar training at 7:30 in the Media Center with Mr. Modaff (please go to the one of these)
Thursday-EC/4K Field Trip
Friday-5th grade field trip, 4K playgroup at 1:45 (open to the public)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*I will be out of the building Tuesday/Wednesday presenting/learning at the AWSA Convention. Is anyone available to cover my recess or lunch duty on Tuesday? Please let me know if you can.
*At the PTO meeting last night they discussed plans for the PTO Craft Fair/Bake Sale on Saturday, October 27th.  They are seeking any help they can get (they have all different shifts throughout the day). Please let me know if you're interested in helping. If you can't help, I would highly suggest marking it on your calendar for a good holiday shopping day--there's always great vendors there!

Blogs, Tweets, and Pins...Oh My!
*Have you ever heard your students say "I have nothing to write about?" (Did you just laugh, because you've heard that too many times?) Heres a great blog post addressing that issue: Ways to Support our Striving, Disengaged, and Reluctant Writers. 
*Great site for a picture of the day to spark ideas for writing: Twisted Sifter
*"Don't be so worried about the mistakes of yesterday that you miss today's opportunity for success." @LeadToday
*Wegivebooks.org is a site that lets you sign up for a free account and view many great books online. Looks like a great resource to use on the whiteboards, computers or SMARTBoard. I don't think it reads it to you like tumblebooks though.