Friday Focus - January 6, 2017

Great Things I Noticed this Week:

• Students being dismissed from intervention due to the gains they have made and others being moved in to intervention. This is a huge celebration for the work we are doing focusing on specific skills that students are lacking and providing tiered intervention. Just imagine how much growth we'll continue to have when we get back to having WIN at each grade level to have a systematic intervention system!
• 2nd graders super excited about using their "expertise" on topics to apply to their writing.
• Kindergartners learning how to write directions on how to do something as their teachers followed their directions. You can just imagine the laughter as their teachers followed each direction (leaving out very important details) on how to wash their hands or brush their teeth!
• Math talk in classrooms as students were checking in with their partners after solving each problem. They worked together to figure out where mistakes were when they didn't have the same answer (just imagine how much time that saved of individuals asking the teacher for help!)
• When a teacher randomly called on a student that wasn't raising his hand. He didn't know the answer. She gave him some thinking time, but he still responded with "I don't know." But she didn't let him off the hook...she told him to thin about the question, listen to other responses and be ready to tell her which answer he liked the best and why. 
• 2nd graders creating goals for something they want to improve on that is challenging for them, using a resource from Class Dojo. On the bottom they wrote different steps to take to reach their goal and after completing each step they will tear it off as they work towards their goal. What a great strategy to stay focused on a goal!
  

Events Next Week:
Monday - Staff meeting at 3:10
Thursday - Badger attire day (jeans too!)

Future events:
Friday, January 20th Early Dismissal day - the Geography Bee for 4/5th graders will be 10:00 - 11:00
 -Our lunch/recess time is 11:00-12:00

Wednesday, February 1st is the annual theater presentation sponsored by Juneau Electric. 9:00 for K-2nd grades, 9:30 for 3-5th grades.

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Monday's Staff Meeting agenda will be on ThinkCentral Math resources.  Please make sure to bring your laptops.  Several of you were interested in learning how you could utilize the online program in the computer lab for students--Mrs. Scholfield will be showing us how to do this.

Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!!!
*A great article on misconceptions of growth mindset: How Praise Became a Consolation Prize.  The few lines that really stood out to me in this article were:
"Praise the effort that led to the outcome or learning progress; tie the praise to it. It's not just effort, but strategy...so support the student in finding another strategy. Effective teachers who actually have classrooms full of children with a growth mindset are always supporting children's learning strategies and showing how strategies created that success."

Click HERE for directions