Friday Focus - October 31, 2014

Great Things I Noticed This Week:
*Great conversations in grade level meetings about students that have made progress in previous years (as a result of your great work) and your focus in literacy for the next month.
*Integration of new tech ideas learned in our last PD--student use of Keynote and Pages with plans to create a class book using iBooks author.
*Students writing at recess time, because they just didn't have enough time to write their exciting stories (and begged for more time).
*Halloween themed activities that were still completely focused on the same math/literacy skills you would normally teach (but the attention of candy hyped children!)

Events Next Week: *Don't forget to change your clocks this Sunday "Fall Back!"
Wednesday - End of 1st Quarter
Thursday - 1st Qtr Grades due by 7:30 am (report cards will be printed for you to make changes by Friday afternoon)
-I will be at CESA 6 in the morning for Effectiveness Project training
Friday - I will reprint report cards after school so you will have them to send home the following Monday


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes: 
*Grading notes: as always...no blank grades or *. Instead use P (pass) or else Mark will have to hunt you down to fix it for the errors it runs on his end ;)
*Sarah will be creating a google doc to share with you all to enter your Honor Roll and "On a Roll" students. Please enter your students into the doc instead of emailing her. Thank you!
*The Pride Assembly on November 14th will be moved up to 2:00, because we will be having the elementary dancers perform one of their competition routines for us first.
*I was "double dog dared" by one of our teachers who shall remain nameless (although I will share she is recently engaged) to take part in the Principal Challenge by Book It to read all day to encourage kids to "read their hearts out" and possibly win 101 copies of the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.   Challenge Accepted!  I'm planning for this to take place on Monday, November 10th and am working on the details, but I'm pretty sure it will involve me being up high for all to see (but not on the roof). I will also likely make a schedule for classes to join me for reading if interested and will send that out next week.  Please feel free to plan EXTRA reading time for your classes on that day too!
*Back by popular demand: our Dodgeland clothing store! The link below will take you directly to the site for Dodgeland apparel.  The link will remain open until Friday, November 14.  Ameriprint estimates four weeks to fill the orders, so you should have your clothing before Christmas.

http://stores.inksoft.com/dodgelandstaff

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!
*Blog Post: Using Airdrop in the Classroom
*@CVULearns: If you give a summative and most of the class doesn't do well, then make it a formative and design more practice. That's our job. #sblchat
*Need Ideas for report comments? Check HERE for ideas.

This "pin" is from one of our classrooms!