Friday Focus - December 13, 2019

YOU'VE GOT THIS!!!

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*When I simply said "Glad to see you back today, are you feeling better?" to a student, his response was "I can't believe anyone noticed I was gone." Here's the secret behind this...I was also gone that day so I couldn't have even noticed he was absent, but he didn't know that. I just remembered seeing his name on the Welcome Back email and it took me that tiny moment to say that to him when I saw him. Are you taking opportunities to help students feel welcome at school?
*I overheard several middle school student conversations at lunch sharing with their friends what their job recommendations were after taking the Xello career interest survey. It was so fun to see their excitement as they talked about future job ideas. How can we keep that excitement and connect it to their learning in school?
*Students incredibly focused in their reading/writing work on commonlit.org. The teacher was able to see results right away to see what skills needed to be retaught for the next day. This is a great way to use formative assessments to inform our instruction!
*Our ELA teachers have teamed up to divide/conquer to teach Mrs. Sheeley's classes and other staff members have taken on additional students for SAS/Study hall until she returns 2nd semester. Kudos to them!!



Events Next Week:
Monday - Ugly Sweater day and photo booth fun-please find a time during the day to join a colleague (or group of colleagues) in the green screen room in the IMC (you can even use the backdoor in the ms hallway if you want). Have fun with the props for some photos using the iPad and clicker that will be in there ready to go. I will use the appropriate holiday photos to share with families on the school Facebook pages (I've done this long enough to know there will also be some funny ones that shouldn't go out on the FB page!).  ***The green screen room may have a class 8-9 and 1-2 so please plan to go other times.
7:00pm MS Concert
Tuesday -Flannel/Plaid and jeans
7:00pm HS Concert
Wednesday - MS-Frozen/Winter HS-workout Wednesday/winter/Ugly sweater (your choice!)
    3:15 MS Faculty meeting
Thursday  -Polar pajama day
Friday - Red/Green


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*I know that the final week before break can be a challenge to keep kids focused. If you stray from your usual classroom routine, please do so with a focus on learning. We cannot afford to lose a day of learning to holiday movies that don't serve learning purpose.
*Keep in mind that as you come back from break you may need to treat it as the first days of school again...reviewing expectations, practicing routines, building relationships, etc. High School staff get the extra "fun" of starting new cell phone procedures that will be good for learning!!

Tech Tip of the Week:Digital Citizenship/Online Resources. The PDF link is an interactive PDF with online resources to help with keeping us and our students safe online. Reading the Privacy Policies for social media sites can be eye opening, but also resources on where to get help if something does happen. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/124h-6CJhjhNz-AElAGLWOpMTENitNM8s/view

Blogs, Tweets & Quotes:
*10 Ways to Stay Motivated as You Work on Student Motivation

Friday, December 6, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Students self-evaluating their work according to the rubric, along with the rubric for the grade above to try to stretch themselves to a higher level.
*Department meeting focused on meeting needs of students. Great problem-solving at play!
*Mechelle has been hard at work with additional recruiting and having mentors impact students' lives. Did you know that December is national tie month, so she had our strive mentors give the young men mentees a shirt and tie and teach them how to tie it?

Upcoming Events:
Wednesday - Workout Wednesday
HS faculty meeting to discuss new plan for cell phones to start after break
*I will be out of the building on Wednesday at an ACP workshop.
There will be something each of the remaining 10 days till Christmas break for faculty. Here are the days that I'll let you know about ahead of time:

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*As we near the holiday break, please remember--the more that you deviate from the normal classroom routine, the more your students will with behaviors. We are still learning until break.


Here are your Plus/Delta comments from this week's faculty meeting (with my notes in yellow):

Reminder - HS faculty please email me if there are any concerns about finally rererescheduling (yes that was an intentional misspell!)  our PreACT results workshop for our 1/2 day on January 16.

Tech Tip of the Week:
Notability for your laptop. In Self Service (Rocket ship>Self Service>Notability>Download, when finished downloading use the Spotlight, or magnifying glass to search your laptop and open Notability) you can download Notability to use on your laptop. Notability on your laptop is similar to using Notability on your iPad. May consider it an ease of use when working with classes and projecting, especially any annotating that you may do together.

Blogs, Tweets & Quotes:
*Lead with Empathy

DHouse December Memo

I hope that you all had a relaxing and rejuvenating break and are ready for the days left until winter break to slide by quickly. I will share that one of my pet peeves in the classroom is a countdown of how many days until we are on vacation, because it gives students the wrong message about school. I can also recall many years ago when one of our students (a current senior) said on the last day of school that there were 84 days left until she could return to school, the safest place for her.

As we come back from Thanksgiving break, please try to be kinder than necessary, because some of our kids (and colleagues) need it. Welcome them back, give high fives, build relationships again as if it's the first week of school. 

Some of our students (and even co-workers) had a pretty painful break and are ready to be back in a place of structure that hopefully reminds them of how loved and appreciated they are. 

For many of us the holiday season is a time of joy and excitement, but that isn't the case for all of our families. For some of our kids, December can be a very challenging time of the year as kids hear the stress of the adult problems at home as parents stress about money at this time of the year.

Events this Week:

Wednesday -combined MS/HS faculty meeting 3:15 in IMC

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

This is a repeat from last week, because I'm hoping to get some submissions soon. :)
*If we are not telling the stories about the great things happening in our schools, then people will make up their own stories. Facebook can be a place of people complaining and spreading negativity or we can use it as a place to share the good work happening here. I'd like to ask your help with this...if you ever have a moment in class that you can snap a picture of to share with me and a sentence or two. Maybe a hands-on activity, experiment, students collaborating, presenting, etc.
 In addition, I would love to start highlighting one staff member a week on our Facebook pages. This is a great opportunity for us to connect with our community and share why we work at Dodgeland. If you are interested, please share with me:

• Your hometown/where you graduated from
• Your career experience (this could be years taught, previous positions/schools, etc.)
• Family, hobbies, fun facts that you're comfortable sharing
• Why you love Dodgeland
• Picture(s) of you, your classroom, your family...again what you're comfortable with (otherwise I have to take your school picture off the website, but you probably have more fun pics!)