My apologies for this memo not coming out until today. In the future, this will be back to the regular Friday morning post so you can have information to plan for the following week.
Great Things I Noticed Last Week:
- Classroom community building activities, such as: a snowball fight/share, Guess Who about classmates, Escape activity, partner interviews, etc. You all have such great ideas to build a trusting classroom community in which students feel emotionally safe to learn and take risks together!
- Mission Possible to start the year out with secretly spreading kindness, so students build the internal pride for doing good deeds without having to get anything in return.
- Students reading letters from last year's students about what to expect this year and how to be successful.
- Students starting to build reading/writing stamina.
- Teachers helping out with building lunch routines/procedures the first few days, as well as extra hands with lunch/recess hallway transitions. Thank you...it seems we never have enough for this to go smoothly!
Wow, this is going to be an incredible year!!!
Events this Week:
Monday - Boy Scouts presentation in the IMC during noon recess for K-2/3-5
-Mentors PLC meeting at 3:15 in IMC
Tuesday - 5/6th grade Trojan Jr Football game at 6pm. If you want to cheer for our 5th graders, this is the last home game to do so
Friday - Elementary shirt orders/$ are due today
The following week...
Monday, September 18th is Picture Day and the start of our fundraiser (don't worry-no assembly this year!)
Wednesday, September 20th staff meeting
"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
- Just a review--if it's information you can read and we don't have to take up precious staff meeting time, it will be in this section of each week's memo, so you are responsible for reading the info. : )
- Bus duty - students get to start playing on the blacktop in the morning this week! It is ok for students to run on the blacktop at the end of the day (they do at recess).
- If you are given flyers/handouts on a Monday or Tuesday in your mailbox--they should go home on Tuesdays please. We tell parents to expect any office news/mail on Tuesday Newsday. Eventually, we'll get to knowing the "youngest child" count, but we're not ready for that yet.
- Please remember to read the daily student announcements in your room each day...and to send birthday students to the office to pick out a birthday book!
- If you started using iPads, have you started talking about the Code of Conduct for Technology?
- Check-In on Launching Writers Workshop:
- Do you have materials figured out and placed in easy to access spots? Do your students know where they are?
- Have you started teaching those routines that will help keep the mini lesson mini and the active engagement efficient/effective? This includes transitions to the carpet (possibly assigned carpet spots), teacher cues to signal your writers, partners for the active engagement, etc.
- Do you want a Writing Strategies book? Let me know if you are hoping to get one. I will be submitting an order this week.
- I promise this is probably the longest the "Nuts & Bolts" section will ever be!
Blogs, Tweets & Pins...Oh My!
- Just a review...this section is not a must read, just if you want to read. I get excited about sharing ideas I come across!
- A great blog post (or you can download the podcast) answering the question: "What if my students don't like me and we don't connect? Overcoming the back to school teacher jitters."
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