Friday Focus - May 27, 2016

Upcoming Events:
Today - 12:25 Senior Graduation walk
 -Walkathon

Monday-Memorial Day

Tuesday- *Grades due by 8:00am
7th grade led carnival - just as previous years, this is just the 15 minutes prior to recess or after recess.  All of it is completed planned/carried out by the 7th grade ELA classes.
Grades 4 & 5 from 11:15-Noon
Grades K-2 from Noon-12:45

Wednesday - *Report Cards Distributed
for the remaining grades in the building, the high school chemistry class will be entertaining and educating our students with a performance at 1:15, which should last about 45 minutes.
*6:00pm Kindergarten Graduation

Thursday - The. Last. Day.
Assembly at 11:00, Picnic Lunch to start right after (11:30ish)
1:00-1:30 3-5 can join me in the gym for fun, 1:30-2:00 K-2 can join me in the gym for fun
(This is just to give you some extra time and because I know we will likely lose many students at the end of the picnic)

Friday - 6/3 Report and Planning Day. Just that, no other plans! 
*Purchase Requisitions Due

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

• Please add your Honor Roll/On A Roll names to the google doc so Sarah can get the certificates ready for the Pride Assembly. 
• As you're cleaning out your rooms and deciding to part with items I encourage you to find a home for them (i.e. a student, your church, daycare, garage sale junkie, etc.). We will not be putting stuff on the stage this year. If you are unable to find a place to part with your items they can go in the lounge, but we will be clearing it out by June 8th. 
• Please make sure any unfinished items in your mylearningplan are complete: 
• Click "Acknowledge" on any forms that are waiting for you to review.
• If you do not submit your Alt. Comp form with the evidence of your pre-approved activities by June 15, the form will disappear for you to be able to do so.
• Self-Score your SLO and hit submit. If you're not on your summative year, we do not have to meet to discuss this unless you want. 
• All the other end of year reminders that were given to you before for the Effectiveness Project are HERE
• Student profile cards for next year's class lists will be put in your mailboxes by Tuesday morning. You can hold on to these as long as you'd like (but they'll need to come out next May again) or you can give them back to me to keep safe until then. 

Friday Focus - May 20, 2016

Future Events (Not just next week so you can be planned out for the year!):
Tuesday - I will be out all day on the 5th grade UW Madison college tour

Wednesday - Workout Wednesday, Bike Safety presentation at 2:15, Staff appreciation dinner (it's ok to still have your workout attire on!)

Thursday - Staff social lunch

Friday - Walkathon!

Monday, 5/30-Memorial Day

Tuesday, 5/31 - *Grades due by 8:00am
7th grade led carnival - just as previous years, this is just the 15 minutes prior to recess or after recess.  All of it is completed planned/carried out by the 7th grade ELA classes.
Grades 4 & 5 from 11:15-Noon
Grades K-2 from Noon-12:45

Wednesday, 6/1 - *Report Cards Distributed
for the remaining grades in the building, the high school chemistry class will be entertaining and educating our students with a performance at 1:15, which should last about 45 minutes.
*6:00pm Kindergarten Graduation

Thursday, 6/2 - The. Last. Day.
Assembly at 11:00, Picnic Lunch to start right after (11:30ish)
1:00-1:30 K-2 can join me in the gym for fun, 1:30-2:00 3-5 can join me in the gym for fun
(This is just to give you some extra time and because I know we will likely lose many students at the end of the picnic)

Friday - 6/3 Report and Planning Day. Just that, no other plans!
*Purchase Requisitions Due

Whew...I hope I didn't miss anything!

*I am also hoping that at some point next week I can coordinate with high school to start a new tradition for our students to see our seniors walk the halls (but no day/time set yet).

You've probably seen the news for this picture above? Hoping it can be our new tradition too!

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Just a reminder as we begin writing out purchase requisitions that any type of technology hardware or software need to be approved by Mr. Modaff and Mr. Wallesverd to make sure everything will sync well. Let me know if you have any questions.

*I should be getting your budget requests back to you by the end of the day. Please complete your purchase requisitions by Friday, June 3rd.

*What has to be turned in to me by June 3rd? ALL Student reading records - this MUST include their F&P Benchmark testing forms so next year's teacher can see the books they read, the accuracy and comprehension. It should also include your book club/guided reading anecdotal notes/book lists from the book room that would be helpful to next year's teacher.
NOTHING else has to be turned in for SAGE, because I pull that all from MAP and the F&P Benchmark google doc.

*This weekend I plan to finish typing class lists and then go into EduClimber to tag students with next year's teachers so for those of you that are already excited to use that feature can start looking at next year's class. I'll send an email with directions for how to do so when I'm completed.

Friday Focus - May 13, 2016

14 Days To Make a Difference!

Are you making the days count or are you counting the days? It's a question that can make a difference for our kids and for you. I have to honestly share that one of my pet peeves is when I see a countdown of school days that puts an emphasis on hurrying up to get out of school, because what message is it really sending to our students? 

Changing the message about the final days of school will have an impact on student engagement and behavior. If you want to have a sign in your room, why not try this one? 

Image created by Jay Posick

Events Next Week:

Monday - 1/3/5 Concert Rehearsal at 1:00, Concert at 6:30pm

Tuesday - 3:15 brief staff meeting in IMC (on end of year tech checkout procedures)

Friday - Staff Social Lunch (support staff)

Future Dates:

Wednesday 5/25 -Workout Wednesday, Bike Safety assembly at 2:15, Staff appreciation dinner

Friday 5/27 - Walkathon

Tuesday 5/31 - carnival (led by 7th grade students during noon recess)

  -grades due

Wednesday 6/1 Report Cards distributed

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

*I'm almost finished with Forward testing and then I can begin to schedule MAP make-ups/completions.

*Classroom teachers: Please plan to update the F&P Benchmark google spreadsheet before the end of the year. If you don't remember where to find it: Go to your "shared with me" drive and search for "F&P Benchmark." Do NOT stress over a deadline of this...I just need it in there by the end of the year so I can enter it in EduClimber.

*As you're coming into the final stages of grading for the year, please remember (as always) to use a p for pass for students in intervention during any subjects. 4K/5K also have to make sure to enter the end of term grades.  Just remember...everything should have a grade! You don't want to worry about Mr. Wallesverd hunting you down the first week of summer! ;)

*Who's teaching what? I don't know yet! :) I hope to have an update for everyone sometime next week. Once I have finished "playing dominos" then I can work on getting class lists finalized to put "teacher tags" in EduClimber so you can see your next year student info. 

"SLO's and Doc Logs and Summatives...Oh My" (ok, not exactly the same as Lions and Tigers and Bears!)

*Just like everything else on the to-do list, I'm behind in mylearningplan work too and haven't gotten to the point to give any follow-up reminders of what I haven't checked from you if you haven't turned something in yet. Here's a great reminder of: End Of Year EP Stuff

For those of you in your summative year I will be sending out an email next week to schedule our meetings. I know that many of you will not be done with your SLO's yet and that is completely ok, because your students are still learning! We always manage to work together to get it all done before you leave for the summer! :)

Friday May 6. 2016

64.  What's so important about the number 64?  It's the number of hours some of our students go without hearing something positive from an adult between the time they leave us on Friday and the time we see them again on Monday.  Try to say something positive to our kids today, and then greet them, individually, with a positive on Monday.  Even better...make a note in your Monday lesson plans to remind yourself to greet the kids at the doors Monday morning to get their week started out right!

Events Next Week:
Wednesday - Grade Level Meetings (bring your orange/green cards for the class placement shuffle game)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Don't forget to turn in your RSVP's for the staff appreciation dinner (on May 25th). This should be a bigger/better end of year appreciation even this year for us to celebrate together!
*Just a reminder to follow-up to Mr. Modaff's email to go ahead and update your iPads.
*An email will be coming out next week about the Summer Regional Teacher Academy...it will be to just add to your calendar, but also seek teachers to present.


Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*Student Written Mentor Texts
* WeAreTeachers ‏@WeAreTeachers  

2 hours ago

Teaching Kids To Bounce Back: 8 Ways To Help Build Resiliency http://bit.ly/1SdLPFj 

Happy Teacher Appreciation!!!

Thank you to everyone for joining in the fun over the past week leading up to today's meeting of team fun.  If you missed the meeting, the secret name was:

(edited to remove so people at other schools cannot find the name...you'll have to ask a colleague!)

And Wooo Zowie did we have fun!

As I shared, I didn't receive all of the same emails that you did, so I didn't really know what to expect at our meeting...especially when I heard there were secret team planning meetings going on, saw one table decorated already when I went to set up. Then some of your entrances into the meeting....Wooo Zowie!! Your teamwork, along with colleagues you might not normally collaborate with, was amazing. It is a testament to the awesome staff here at Dodgeland! Thank you for all that you do to make our school a great place...for the students and the staff!  :) :)

Now, I just couldn't help myself, to share some of the great pics I got of the fun, definitely memories to last (I'm sure some of you are glad there aren't videos of the distraction trivia!):