Friday Focus - November 1, 2013

Great Things I Noticed This Week:

• Students searching Internet to find interesting facts about a state and create a prezi to share what they learned.
• Students using QR codes to get to information about an Explorer they were researching in groups. What was even more exciting was hearing students ask, "Can I search other sites to find more information?"
• Students searching for facts about the science topic for the day for a few minutes to build their background knowledge before the lesson...students were engaged and excited to share what interesting facts they were finding with their neighbors.

iPad Tip of the Week:
Ok, this isn't just one tip, but it is one teacher's Pinterest board with many different "boards" for different categories of apps. Check it out HERE

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. 

Monday - Packers/Bears attire 

Thursday - Last day of 1st Quarter

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

*The schedule says that grades are due by Friday at 7:30...I will give you extra time, but I will start printing them by Monday, November 11th at 7:00 am.  

*Please remember that if you have any student missing a core subject for intervention that you will need to do a manual override and enter a P. 

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

*Formative Assessment Strategy: Find Someone Who...Review

Monday Musings - October 28, 2013

Last week I had the opportunity to join in on several Parent/Teacher conferences with different teachers.  I have to say that in each one I was amazed by the time and thoughtfulness put into deciding what student work/data to share with parents, along with the descriptions of the students progress (both strengths and targets to work on), asking for  parent concerns/questions, and how the teacher is planning to help support any areas that the student is struggling with.  I didn't make it to a conference for every teacher, but I'm sure that you all shared similar great information with parents.  I appreciate the time and work that you all put into conferences; not only to share with parents how their students are doing, but also to build rapport with parents and to help them know how they can be involved and support their child at home.

Now that conferences are over with you can continue to promote parent involvement in a variety of ways: weekly newsletters (to share what is happening and give parents questions to ask their children about their learning), class facebook page, class web page,  Remind101, positive notes/phone calls home, etc.  Any work that you do to help inform and involve parents will help the success of their child in your class.

Nity Gritty Memo - October 24, 2013

Sorry folks, but I forgot that this is already our last day of the week and didn't get this written until the last minute, so it's going to be short and "nity gritty" (after our long/short week, I'm sure you want that anyways!)

Events Next Week:
Mon-Thurs: MS/HS is taking the WKCE test so I may be hard to find at times
Fri: I'm out of the building for most of the day (don't worry 5th grade-I'll be back for your WKCE talk)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*I've got about 5 pictures up on the "Caught Being a Bucket Filler" bulletin board, but they're only ones that I caught. Please send me an email of someone you've caught so I can add them up there. If you're curious how I created those pictures--I simply took their picture on the iPad, opened the picture in Skitch and then typed on the picture what they were caught doing and then opened it up from the computer to print. 
*Just a reminder for Halloween it is fine for you to plan a classroom party, but please keep it to no more than 45 minutes and no costumes. We need to be consistent across the grade levels for this. 

Monday Musings - October 21, 2013

I have always shared this article with new teachers on the Phases of First Year Teachers, however, I've always found that I went through these phases as a veteran teacher and still now as a principal. The difference is that I know to expect these different phases of the year and that I will make it through each one.  I don't know about you, but I don't even need to look at this graphic to know that we're to the "survival" point of the school year (although I would have to add that to a few other places in the year too!)  

The key to the survival phase is to make sure that you are taking care of yourself, because you can't take care of others if you don't take care of yourself first.  I appreciate the thoughtful time you are putting into preparing for Parent/Teacher conferences and that you will have great conversations with your students' parents to inform and involve them in their child's learning.  I realize that this means you have a couple of late nights  this week so please make sure to make time for yourselves this weekend to relax or do whatever it is that you do to rejuvenate. (For me-it will be reading the 3rd book in the Divergent series that comes out on Tuesday!)

Some other great tips to avoid teacher burnout can be found HERE in this post.  Here's the shortlist of tips:

• Ask for help
• Don't sweat the small stuff
• Don't play the teacher at home (I struggle with this one!)
• Take time for yourself
• Remember why you teach

Friday Focus - October 18, 2013

Image from Venosdale

Great Things I Noticed This Week:

• English Language Arts integrated into Social Studies when reading Scholastic News and discussing how the writer used descriptive words and then students later wrote their own diary entry as if they were on the Columbus voyage.
• Use of QR codes in literacy for students to scan the code to get a passage to read and then apply the skill "reading for details" and answer questions about it. They had so much fun I don't even think they realized they were learning!
• A staff member sharing with another teacher the following "Love and Logic" response to a student acting inappropriately: quietly say 1:1 to the student "Are you sure this is the right place to be doing that?" A respective, yet corrective request. 

Events Next Week:
Saturday - PTO Craft Fair/Bake Sale/Car Show - come for some holiday shopping, good treats, car show for the boys/men and support the PTO (who supports us!)
Monday/Tuesday - Parent/Teacher Conferences and the Book Fair (happy shopping!)
Thursday - PD Day (Apple Training-you will receive another email with a description of the session choices for you to sign up for)
Friday - a well deserved day off for all of you! :) :)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

• A note about MAP Student Worksheet reports: The green area is a strand that is a strength for this child.  The strands that are highlighted yellow are a target area or area of possible concern for that student to work on improving. This is a strand that can be focused on in WIN for math or in differentiating CAFE strategies in Literacy. Please know that strands highlighted as Target/Strength for each child, are based on their score, so a child may be lower than expected, yet have a strand marked as strength because it is his/her strength, not because he/she is higher than expected. Likewise, a student with a higher than average RIT that has a yellow strand (target area) may still be higher than others in that strand, yet it is identified as their target area, because it is their lowest area. Students that scored the same in each strand do not have an identified strength or target area. 
• Grade Level PLC Meetings next week: please create your own agendas focusing on the student learning/curriculum work that you need to accomplish as a team.  I will need about 5 minutes with 3-5th grades to talk WKCE stuff. 3-5th please also bring any ideas/resource you may have for "test prep genre." Otherwise if you need anything else from myself, Jenny or Joyce, please let us know so we can be as prepared as you. 
• If you didn't already give your teacher iPad to Mr. Modaff, please do so on Monday to have it updated to ios7. 

iPad Tip of the Week:

Do you like using Google docs (actually, it's called Google Drive now), but have a hard time using it in safari on your iPad?  Use the app Drive. It should already be on your iPad and looks like this:

I love using Google Drive on the iPad with this app. If you want to see more of how to maneuver in it, here's a youtube clip that may be helpful: Quick Look at Google Drive for iPad

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

Great post from author Jon Gordon: The Gift of Failure

Todd ‏@ToddWhitaker30 Sep

100 Best YouTube Videos for Teachers http://buff.ly/15eVmD0  #ipli #edchat

Great strategies to teach our students, especially preparing for WKCE. Read more HERE

Monday Musings - October 14, 2013

You've all heard me share many times now about how much I love learning from others and how easy it is to ask a question on twitter and get many possible ideas/solutions.  I just read a great blog post from Dr Spike Cook on the idea of not knowing everything and that it is ok to be vulnerable and just had to share it with you:

Do you know a “know-it-all?” You know, the person who always has an opinion, never listens, seen it all, knows so much information… I am quite sure that a “know-it-all” is lurking in your midst… I’m actually surprised that we still have “know-it-alls” because of the ever changing nature of information.

I decided to do some research for this post (because I don’t know everything). First, I wanted to see what the “great” minds had to say about this concept of knowledge.

Here is what I found:

The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know. Socrates

The more you know, the less you understand. Lao-Tse

To appear to be on the inside and know more than others about what is going on is a great temptation for most people. It is a rare person who is willing to seem to know less than he does. Eleanor Roosevelt

If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.  Albert Einstein

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance. Confucius

Nobody knows enough, but many know too much. Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach:

I like people who show their vulnerability. Sounds like the highly regarded minds thought the same thing.

Then, I did some research to see how information (and the universe) is growing in the 21st century.

Information

According to the Worldwide Information Growth Ticker from the Digital Universe study revealed that we have created 1,987, 262, 613, 861, 770,000,000 bytes of information since January 2011!

Universe

According to www.space.com, “Space itself is pulling apart at the seams, expanding at a rate of 74.3 plus or minus 2.1 kilometers (46.2 plus or minus 1.3 miles) per second per megaparsec (a megaparsec is roughly 3 million light-years).”

If you can keep up with all of that, good luck.

My advice for dealing with others in the 21st century is simple.

• Show your vulnerability
• Be humble and graceful in your interactions with other
• Listen
• Ask questions

By doing this, you will end up learning much more, and resonating with people in a deeper way.

And by the way, there is no way you know-it-all!

Friday Focus - October 11, 2013

Great Things I Noticed This Week:

• Students sitting and reading their books in the Media Center right after checking them out...several of them walking back to their classrooms while reading.  
• One class taking a few minutes before Daily 5 for student book talks to share just enough information about a great book they each just read to "advertise" it to their peers.
• Students referring to the word wall to spell words correctly during work on writing. 

Events Next Week:
Monday - Elementary PD Mtg. Agenda HERE  *there is a XPD at 3:30 so our meeting will need to be done by then.
Saturday - PTO annual Craft Fair/Bake Sale and added CAR SHOW this year. Come for good holiday shopping and goodies!

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*For P/T Conferences:
-I will be creating a MAP results explanation letter to help you in explaining the information to parents.  -Please let me know if you need the "Student Goal Setting Worksheets" printed off for your class.
-3-5th grade teachers will also have a WKCE parent letter/brochure. If parents do not show then we will need to mail it home.
-If you have any conferences you would like me to join you for, please let me know as my times are filling up.
*I'll be adding "Caught Being Bucket Fillers" to the bulletin board by the office to recognize students that are carrying out this theme. Please help me by just sending me an email of someone and what they did. I will take their picture and add it to the board with what they did to be a bucket filler.  I've got a few to add up already, but need your help to keep this going.

iPad Tip of the Week: Need to Turn iPad caps lock on? To type a capital letter on the onscreen keyboard you first tap the left or right shift key, then the letter. If you need to type a whole word in caps this can be painful. Save time typing in caps by turning the caps lock on. To do this double tap on either shift key.

Blogs, Pins & Tweets...Oh My!
*Jerry Blumengarten ‏@cybraryman1

6 Oct

“If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.”

Great ideas on how to teach students about growth mindset HERE

click HERE for awesome post/ideas on Guided Reading made easy

Monday Musings - October 7, 2013

After spending a day with Todd Whitaker last week and then thinking about some of the tech-glitches that have been encountered this week it made me think about how Todd always says, "It's the people, not the programs" that make a school a great school.  He has a whole chapter devoted to this in What Great Teachers do Differently. 

We are so fortunate to be surrounded with technology to enhance student learning (and our own!), but we must always remember, it's the people that make it great, not the iPads themselves.  The technology will enhance learning if it goes along with great teaching.  You all are at different stages of integrating iPads into your lessons, but remember, it's not what you do, it's how you do it.  If you use the iPads all the time just because they are there, it might not enhance the learning.  Just as you did before, start with your curriculum/pedagogy and then look at how the technology could enhance the learning.

As you all search for ways to integrate iPads in your classrooms and not let tech glitches hinder/frustrate you, it made me recall that it is the people, not the programs that make us a great school!

This image just makes me think of you all...

Friday Focus - October 4, 2013

Image by Venosdale

Great Things I Noticed This Week:

*A group of students talking about a new book series at lunch. (If you're curious what series...it's a secret!)

*Students using the Educreations app to make pages for vocabulary words. They had to find the word in the dictionary app, choose the correct definition and then select an appropriate image to match the word.

*During Dailly 5 when I asked a student what he was working on he said,"I'm reading and practicing checking for understanding, because that's my CAFE goal."
*Students charting their math fact fluency progress.

Events Next Week:

Monday - EP Training on SLO. If you cannot attend this day, you can join the MS/HS staff on Tuesday. Please bring your EP folders you were given at In-Service.

Tuesday - Grade Level PLC Meetings (see "Nuts & Bolts" below for agendas)

Friday - I will be out of the building in the morning.  

Staff Social lunch-2nd Grade/Kopfer

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

*For Grade Level Meetings - I do plan on grade levels to eventually be creating the agendas down the road, but for this week we need to get the magnets up with the MAP/Benchmark scores and talk about WIN. I know that a few grade levels have already started WIN and may just need to check in on progress, but others need to plan to get started.
*There is a thank you letter for the Walmart Distribution Center in the mailrofor yesterday's exciting celebration.
*Just a reminder that student surveys are coming up for another EP step.  The surveys to copy off are towards the back of your EP guides (I believe they start at page 60). They can also be found in the shared drive under Elementary/Effectiveness Project Resources.
*Planning ahead...for Halloween it is fine for you to plan a classroom party, but please keep it to no more than 45 minutes and no costumes. We need to be consistent across the grade levels for this. 

iPad Tip of the Week:The iPad comes with four apps on the bottom tray of the home screen, but did you know you can add up to six apps to it? You can even remove the ones that are there by default and add your own. I put the apps that I use the most on the bottom (my home screen apps are: Evernote, Simple Goals, Safari, Remember the Milk, Mail, and a link to mylearningplan).

How can you change your bottom tray? Simply tap an icon and hold down your finger until all the apps are shaking. This allows you to move the app. To get it on the bottom tray, just drag it over and drop it on the tray. You'll see the other apps move over to make room for it, and that let's you know it is okay to drop it.

Blogs, Pins & Tweets...Oh My!

Anchor charts for using primary sources

Read all about teaching character traits HERE