Friday Focus - August 29, 2014

I can’t thank you enough for your work during all of the days leading up to Open House.  It was great to see your classrooms set up for our students and families and I cannot tell you how many smiling faces I saw as they left our school.  I received many positive comments on their way out pf the building as well as a couple of emails Thursday morning about how welcome they felt. That is all thanks to your welcoming classrooms, excitement for the start of school, and your conversations with parents/students to start building relationships.  My completely inaccurate and unscientific count put us near 95% attendance!  Let’s keep that positive family engagement going and make this the best school year ever!

Events Next Week:

Recess Orientation Schedule:

Tuesday Wednesday: 9:30-9:45 4th grade 8:45-9:00 5K 11:15-11:30 5th grade 9:30-9:45 3rd grade 12:30-12:45 1st grade 12:30-12:45 2nd grade

Wednesday - Elementary staff meeting 3:05

Friday - Elementary assembly at 2:30 (have students packed up and ready to dance in the hallways at dismissal time!)

Further down the road: Tuesday, September 16th, 2:15 Elementary 5K-5th grade assembly for Fundraiser kick-off. 

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

*Student iPads should be ready for you by Tuesday. Mr. Modaff is working hard to have all grade levels ready for you.

*Please be on the lookout for student F&P Benchmark forms in your student folders...I think we had a mix-up as we passed them on to the next grade level. If you have any that are not your students, just put them in my mailbox. 

*Blackboard (our automated message system) will not be ready for staff communication by next week, so should there be a weather or other notice that needs to be shared we will have to rely on Remind and the old fashioned calling tree for those not signed up.  For those of you that were excited about the possibility of Blackboard being for classroom notices, I learned we can not use it for that purpose so please continue to use your email or Remind (it used to be called Remind101) for notices to parents. 

*We will keep reams of white paper for the print center by the art room, but the colored paper will stay in the work room.  If you bring colored paper to the hallway machine, please bring the leftovers back to the work room.

Just for Fun:
This School (parody of Footloose)...

Monday Musings - Creating a Positive Classroom Culture

Image from Venspired

Great teachers know that the most important thing you can do in the beginning of the school year is to build a classroom community in which all students feel safe, respected and supportive for one another.  A major part of this is teaching/rehearsing procedures for EVERYTHING that you and the students do in your room.  I always say at the start of the year: do not assume that your students know how to do anything!

As you are planning your first week of school here are some resources that you may find helpful as reminders to yourself and for new ideas (all of them are video clips from TeachingChannel.org)

 Playlist-9 different ideas in video clips for effective classroom management

Ready to Learn: Creating a Positive Classroom Culture

Cardomatic to Increase Student Participation (similar to having "sticks" to pull to call on students)

What is Schoology?

I've had a couple people ask me, "What is that Schoology thing we're having training on?"
Technically, the answer is, "it's a Learning Management System," but I learn better with youtube clips so I like these answers better:

Schoology Spotlight from a Kindergarten Teacher:


Schoology in Plain English:

Friday Focus - August 22, 2014

It's hard to believe it, but the time has arrived!  I can probably list 15 things (both personally and professionally) that I wanted to accomplish this summer and didn't yet...but it is what it is, and the time is now!

You all have your InService schedules for next week and I'll share more details on Monday in our elementary staff meeting. Please bring your staff binders with you as there will likely be additions and a few pages that will be part of our discussion.

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Schedules-I think they're all fixed now. Recess times are different and the duties are different as a result.
*I don't have the sign-ups in the mail room yet for you (some of you have been eagerly asking), but they'll be there by Monday.
*If you have unwanted items in your classroom or office, you may place these items behind the Multi-purpose Room stage curtain.  After Thursday, August 28, the items will be donated to a Beaver Dam church that ships supplies oversees.  If there are items in the donation pile that you would find helpful, feel free to take them.

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!

*Blog post: Supporting Readers During Workshops: The First Few Weeks
*Blog Post: Rethinking Reading Logs

Read about this beginning of the year idea HERE

Read about this idea HERE

Schedules, Schedules, Schedules!

I've almost got every schedule completed and updated for you to view on the memo site. If you only read my updates via the email notice, just go to johnsonmemo.blogspot.com and click on the schedules tab at the top.  

I will warn you that I made a mistake on the morning/afternoon recess schedule and need to change it. (I scheduled 4/5th grade recess at the same time as READ 180, so things will have to change!)

This year I am not going to create your individual schedules for you, so you will need to do that yourself (most of you already make them in your cutesy formats anyhow).  Please plan to turn in your schedules to me by Friday, September 5th.