Friday Focus - August 28, 2015

In 4 days, our students will be here.  They will be nervous, excited, shy, verbose, quiet, and unsure, all within the first day.  You may have some of the same feelings.  Be supportive.  Be visible.  Be reassuring.  Be positive.  Let's make next Tuesday the best day of the year, with many more best days to follow.

Great Things I Noticed This Week:

• Collaboration between Mr. Mane and Kindergarten team to prepare students together for the drawing that kinders start out with to build stamina for writing workshop.
•  Collaborative grade level conversations focused on writing, along with several other necessary discussions, but all focused on student learning. I'm excited about the teamwork that is kicking off this year!
• I lost track of how many positive comments I heard from parents at Open House, but what was most exciting to me is that several of our new families shared with me that they came here because a friend/relative spoke so highly of our school and the impact it has had on their child. One family that enrolled here last year shared with a teacher that it was a tough decision to switch districts, but it was the best decision they made.    We are becoming the school of choice! :)

Events Next Week: All week (with ms/hs on 1 hr delay schedule) our lunch/recess is 11:30-12:30 and some music classes may be affected. 

*I will be reading in classrooms so I may be hard to find!

Tuesday - 1st Day! All teachers in hall by classrooms to help direct students, all specials teachers outside on blacktop.

9:15-9:30 4th grade Recess Rules Orientation

10:00-10:15 5K Recess Rules Orientation

11:15-11:30 3rd grade Recess Rules Orientation

Wednesday - 

9:15-9:30 1st grade Recess Rules Orientation

10:00-10:15 2nd grade Recess Rules Orientation

11:15-11:30 5th grade Recess Rules Orientation

Friday - 2:35 Elementary assembly. Please have students packed up before coming to the assembly. 

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*If you'd like to use the Austin's Butterfly video clip with your class to talk about feedback/learning/growth, it's HERE.

*Digital Citizenship ibooks for student iPads will be "pushed out" from Mr. Modaff, but not right away. 3-5th grade will be available by Thursday. K-2 will not be available until September 14th. This is due to the "high traffic" downloading that will be occurring with ms/hs students downloading all of their student handbooks/digital citizenship books the first two days.
To get them on student iPads: students will go into Self Service, select "eBooks" tab on the bottom, and tap on "Install" for their appropriate book.
I am not giving an expectation for when to teach these, although I've already heard a couple of grade levels discuss plans to incorporate it in the beginning weeks of school while developing procedures/expectations of the iPads/digital work, which sounds like a great plan!

*Meemic $100 book grant  Meemic just keeps offering us opportunities for money for our school.  Here is a link to a grant application for $100 for classroom libraries in conjunction with Scholastic.  It's seriously only 3 questions long.

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*6 Ways to Teach Growth Mindset from Day 1 of School

Nuts & Bolts Notes before inservice

Just like every summer, the time flew by; I still have tasks on my to-do list, books not read and fish I didn't get to catch on the lake.  It's hard to believe it, but the summer is over and it's time to get back to the work we are all so passionate about!

To try to maximize our staff meeting time together, please make sure that you read the following reminders/"nuts & bolts" info:

*You will not be getting a staff binder of school info this year. It is ALL in a google folder that you will be able to find in your shared drive named, "DES Staff Handbook." Please let me know if you can't find it. We will be accessing this during our first staff meeting. I will be printing off a set of schedules for everyone, but if you want anything else printed from the folder you will need to do so yourself.

*Please bring to the staff training/meetings on Monday:

• To Schoology training: laptop and iPad
• To Monday's staff meeting: ipad, laptop, the purple Faculty Handbook (this was in the packet that was mailed to you), Culture of Achievement book and a Dodgeland shirt for a group photo.

Sometime next week, use the google doc to sign up for event committees: Committees Sign up

Please sign up for me to read to your class in the first week of school on this google doc.

First Day/Week of School Business:

• 1st Day start of day: All teachers in hall by classrooms, all specials outside on blacktop. Marie will give specials teachers packets of all class lists to help students find where to line up.

• First week of school  is 1 Hour Delay for MS/HS. Lunch will be 11:30-12:30.

Music times will likely be affected.

• Recess Rules Orientation outside with Mrs. Jaeckel/Mrs. Johnson (teachers: please stay with your class)

Tuesday: Wednesday:

9:15-9:30 4th grade 9:15-9:30 1st grade

10:00-10:15 5K 10:00-10:15 2nd grade

11:15-11:30 3rd grade 11:15-11:30 5th grade

• End of 1st week assembly in the elementary gym: Friday, September 4th at 2:35.  This will be a very brief assembly led by Mrs. Johnson to talk about Code of Conduct, Bucket Filling and Friday celebrations.  Please have students packed up before coming to the assembly.

• Don’t assume that your students know how to do anything! Use the Bucket Filer’s pledge/Bucket Filler’s books.

Teach the procedures, practice them, reinforce them, practice them, and practice them

again!

*Classroom *Hallways *Bathrooms

*Lunch Room -beginning and end of lunch *Recess-to and from

*Arrival/Dismissal *Assembly *Lockers

Schedules, schedules, schedules

If you haven't already checked my memo site, the schedules are up! (I also just added the core schedule) Some notes for you about the schedules:

• There is a google spreadsheet for all schedules pertaining to teachers and a spreadsheet for support staff schedules. At the bottom of each spreadsheet you can find a tab for each separate schedule.  They are not fancy/pretty schedules being in this format, but they are easily accessible.  They will also be shared in your google drive for easy access.  
• Please do not laminate them just yet.  I'm not planning to change anything, but I'm realistic that additional eyes looking at them will find mistakes I may have missed. You will get copies of them all in our first week back. 

What about your classroom schedules for reading, writing, math, WIN, etc?

• You will make your specific classroom schedule for each subject, but please try to stay within the core schedule framework (for some of you with odd specials times, I know this is not likely). 
• Please try to follow the minutes of: 60-90 minutes reading, 45-60 minutes writers workshop, 60+ minutes math. Yes, science/social studies can be every other day or even just one subject for a unit and then switch to the other subject for a different unit. 
• Reading and Writing separate...what? Yes, with implementation of Lucy Calkins Units of Writing, we need a separate time just for writers workshop. Lucy Calkins says 60 minutes a day, but I have yet to find a school that followed that with fidelity due to schedule constraints and reality. I think we are going to find that Daily 5 will no longer be a 5 (for upper grade levels it already isn't) and transition to be more of a readers workshop. 
• WIN--please keep it in your schedule for 3 days a week. You can use it as a classroom version of WIN until your team comes up with a plan

Please turn in your final classroom schedule to me by Friday, September 11.