Johnson Memo: Friday Focus

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.