Friday Focus - November 18, 2016

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Our students were SO well behaved at last Friday's Veterans Day assembly. I know that this is due to your preparation in classrooms for them to understand why we were gathered together, how to show respect and honor to our Veterans and how to sit so respectfully throughout the long assembly. I noticed one particular student look directly into each Veterans' eyes as he shook their hands and say, "Thank you for your service" to each one. It was SO amazing to see!
*2nd graders spreading positive messages to student lockers throughout the entire school (4K-12th!) They had to use math, word choice, and teamwork to prepare that many post-its of positive messages.
*Students in writing partners, providing each other with feedback and questions to help each other revise their writing to add in descriptive details.
*I know the full moon had some effects while I was out Tuesday/Wednesday...I thank those of you who helped out with student issues while I was gone. Your teamwork here is incredible!

Upcoming Events: 
Wednesday-Friday - Happy Thanksgiving Break!
(No Friday Focus post next week)
Monday, November 28 - Mentors/Mentees meeting
Wednesday, November 30 - Public Library Tree ornaments due to Mrs. Haan (the tree lighting is on Dec 4th)


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*The Badgers have some brain break videos that your students might enjoy: Badgers Give Back
*Just a reminder to complete this survey to let me know your professional needs for our Dec 8 PD Day: http://bit.ly/129needs
*Please let me know if you would like to serve on our Title 1 Schoolwide planning team. This can count towards an Alt Comp professional activity. If you have any questions about this team, you can feel free to ask Mrs. Huelsman, Mrs. Madsen or me.
*We will be completing our winter AIMSWeb testing in Math December 1-8th, with more info to come later.

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*Teaching Main Idea of Non Fiction Text - 3 Different Ways

Friday Focus - Nov 11, 2016

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Students practicing the mental math of making tens...in Phy Ed! How awesome is it that we are so collaborative at Dodgeland that Mrs. Kuhn is even helping students improve in math?!!
*Students being taught to reread for deeper meaning, and then doing it! While still on the carpet, students reread a section of the text together, then did a brief turn-and-talk to discuss feelings and emotions while citing what the text said.
*Students writing positive comments to others in their small group to recognize what they noticed in their writing.
*Students passing on random notes of kindness. Love to see this bucket filling!
*With this heated election, I was unsure of whether or not to have a mock election, but am glad that we did. As you each came down with your class I witnessed so many great lessons by you to model for students of how we can have our own opinions and sitll get along, that we should learn as much as we can to inform our decisions, that no matter what we should always be kind. 

Events Next Week: 
Monday - Staff Meeting 3:10 (agenda below)
Tuesday/Wednesday - I will be out of the building for a conference
Friday - 1st Qtr Dodgeland Pride Assembly at 2:30

Food drive for The Gathering Source all week through Tuesday, Nov 22.

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

• Monday's staff mtg agenda includes: information about going school-wide Title 1 and grade level discussions on writing. Obviously, there's not a LOT of time to discuss writing, so this will be focused on answering the question: What do you need on our 12/9 Professional Development day (i.e. time/structure/resources) for your grade level to discuss/plan/grow together in writing to support your writers?
• Please talk to your students about the Pride assembly so that any new students will know what to expect and for all to review behavior expectations. 

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*Have you seen this great resource on DPI? Wisconsin Writes has videos of interviews with Wisconsin writers for students to learn about how they go through the writing process.
*Self-Assessment: Assessment Strengthens Writers

Friday Focus - Nov 4

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Students practicing expanding their vocabularies by jotting down words they didn't know the meaning of (along with page numbers) as they read their good fit books.
*A writing mini-lesson showing how to take revision marks of where to indent for new paragraphs, using a struggling writer's rough draft as an example. Getting to have his writing displayed was a confidence boost for him, yet at the same time, taking his piece to show a model of a final copy was a very sneaky way of giving him that added support right in the mini-lesson for all!
*Students completed a day long "Pumpkin of Regret" activity. They first pounded nails into a pumpkin that each represented something they've admitted to doing that may have hurt someone else. Throughout the day if they did something kind for someone else they could remove a nail. By the end of the day the class removed the nails, but the holes were still there. This produced a great class conversation about how we can apologize for things we've done, but we can't really take it back.
*When students were given a much more challenging task a student said, "I'm glad you believe in us!" and then they accomplished it! This is after continuously including a growth mindset into each of their lessons.
*After knowing the process of think-write-share students were given the same engaging task, but this time in writing their response in Schoology for the first time. After writing their response they were then given the task of reading through others' responses to find someone who had the same opinion as them. While this was their first time in Schoology, the "how to do the tech part" took very little time to learn how to do this and they can add on next time by learning how to respond to others in a discussion thread on Schoology.

Events Next Week:
Monday - Packer attire day
   Grades due by 7:30am
   I will be out of the building at CESA
Tuesday - Election Day - please see an email coming from me about a mock election for our students
Wednesday - Report Cards should be distributed
 - Fundraiser pick-up after school 3:00-5:30
Thankful Thursday will be "casual Friday" also because of      
     Friday's assembly
Friday - Veterans Day assembly starting at 9:30 Please dress professionally on Friday as we will have many community members in our building for this event.
-No AM recess

Our 1st Quarter Dodgeland Pride Assembly is Friday, November 18th at 2:30.


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Please review behavior expectations with your students before taking them down to the gym for the Veterans Day Assembly. Please also make sure to be there prior to 9:30 so they are not waiting for us to get started.  
*Please take parent invitations for the Dodgeland Pride Assembly that will be getting recognized and then make sure to add student names for Honor Roll and On a Roll to the google docs. This sounds silly, but as you enter your names, please make sure to click "return." Most of the time when names get "lost" it is only because of typing, but not hitting return for the name to be entered into the cell of the spreadsheet.


Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*I Don't Know...Or Do I?  I can't wait to try out this questioning strategy on a student that says they don't know. Let me know if you get to try and have the same success as she writes about in this blog post!