I hope that this mid-summer update reaches you after some much deserved R&R&R (Rest, Relaxation and Reflection). While I can't say I've taken any extended vacations, I have enjoyed a less chaotic work schedule (especially thanks to Mrs. Huelsman doing a fantastic job taking over summer school coordinator!), relaxed watching too many baseball games to count, gotten back into a running groove, read several great books, and enjoyed family time while camping and out on the lake.
Interspersed throughout this summer fun I've also continued my professional learning/reflection by attending a conference, will be attending edcampleader in Chicago next week, have participated in Twitter chats and have been reading professional books/articles. I know that many of you are continuing your summer professional learning through classes, webinars, reading and such as well...I'd love to hear all about it!Speaking of professional reading...
Just a reminder about our summer reading in How to Create a Culture of Achievement. If you misplaced my notes from our last staff meeting, we are reading chapters 5 and 6 over the summer. If you'd like to join in on the google doc to share your thoughts as you're reading, there's some good discussion points taking place already at http://bit.ly/summerbookstudy. And if you're a procrastinator that needs to be given a deadline so you won't wait until August 23rd to pull out your book, then you should read ch 5 by July 15th and ch 6 by August 15th.
Thanks to those that have already been reading/completing "assignments" in the digital citizenship books...I have been checking on completions as they come in, but admit that I need to read the books myself. (Next week)
Summer Updates:
*The Resource Page for the Regional Summer Teacher Academy can be found HERE.
*Book Room: While in her first weeks of retirement (typical teacher!) Mrs. Bartlett worked hard cleaning up/organizing the book room for us. She has all the books typed up in a list that you can find in this google doc. I shared the google doc to your google accounts and also added a link to it on the memo blog site under the tab "Forms/Resources" in case you ever need to access the list from anywhere.
*New Hire: I am pleased with our hire for the reading position, but cannot officially announce our new team member until after the July 20th board meeting. I will say that for some of you, she may be a familiar face.
*Schedules...nope they're not done yet. I have scheduled for myself to work on them during the week of July 20th and will update you when they're done (and add them to the tab at the top of the blog site for schedules).
*Testing: It's official...there will be NO fall WKCE for Science/Social Studies. This only affects 4th grade at the elementary, but I thought it deserved an announcement! (I did a little happy dance when I heard the news).
Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*Do They Care? Empathy Book Clubs - such a wonderful way to incorporate character ed into literacy in a meaningful way.
*You Are Not Just a Teacher
*7 Things That Will Rob Your Joy as a Teacher
