Spring Break!!!

 Enjoy Spring Break...Relax... Recharge... Rejuvenate so you're ready for the 4th quarter!

Friday Focus - March 19, 2021

 

Great Things I Noticed this Week:

*Teachers in the hallways greeting kids in the morning, to class and also in hallways at dismissal time. While you're making connections your hallway supervision goes a long way to promote appropriate behaviors!

*Teachers working with students 1:1 in ARP to support them to get caught up on work or get ready for an assessment. One student who has been SO far behind came out beaming with pride that she finally got a couple of assignments done. Some of our students are so deep in the hole that it seems impossible to climb their way back up to ground level....this teacher support means everything!

*Great teamwork discussions with students as they reviewed vocabulary together while in quizlet live competition groups. 

*Several staff conversations focused on problem-solving to support students. 

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

*We are at Mid Semester on Wednesday. This means that grades need to be updated as we are checking academic eligibility for students in athletics and co-curriculars.

*Thank you for your continued dedication and focus on learning during this last week before break. I know it is challenging to keep students engaged with minds on spring break and anticipation of spring weather.  This is when small chunks of instruction and mixing it up with social interaction/dialogue, movement, etc. can help keep students engaged. 

As you plan for your classes when we return from Spring Break, please keep in mind to welcome students back and reconnect with relationships, review expectations/procedures and be ready to lead them to finish strong.  

Please do NOT start a countdown to summer in your room...this only contributes to an atitude/mindset of not wanting to be in school.

*Reminder: With construction trailers and heavy equipment beginning to arrive next Monday, March 22, staff and students will no longer be able to park in the far west parking lot until further notice.   There is ample parking available in either the Elementary and/or Middle and High School parking lots.

 

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:

*Would you Rather: Designing with Choice in Mind

Friday Focus - March 12, 2020

Great Things I Noticed this Week:

* Our juniors showed their test-taking stamina for the ACT on Tuesday and we had almost 100% participation!

*Students rotating around the room in small groups carousel style, stopping for a student to explain how to solve the problem. Just some movement and interaction this way increased student engagement!

*Students using garage band creativity to publish songs they wrote to publish their learning in a musical format. 

*In a class conversation to remember a year since COVID hit, students were sharing all the reasons they are grateful to be in school instead of virtual. 

*Class pivots being made with the recent quarantine batch. Students shifted to their group projects in bluejeans breakout rooms so that no one was left out!

Upcoming Events:

Monday - PD Day, check your email for the agenda

Wednesday - Workout Wednesday, MS Faculty Meeting 3:00 

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

*We've been seen an increase in hall wandering...if students are tardy for your class please mark them as tardy. This helps from the admin level as we try to address these concerns (in addition to us sweeping the hallways). Thank you to those of you who have helped with the hall sweeping as well!

*Just in case you missed Ms. Lee's email sharing the update on Kahoot adding the feature for students to see the question on their screen: Kahoot Update.

*Change to BrainPOP:

There has been a recent change in how to log into BrainPOP for staff and students. Good news... you no longer have to remember separate login credentials! 

BrainPOP (including Jr., Espanol, and Francais) is a platform that provides animated movies, engaging learning games, and great vocabulary activities on a variety of topics. They do a great job of explaining a complicated idea in an efficient and entertaining way with most videos less than 5 minutes!

Login process for staff and students will take place through Clever. Clever is a tool that connects outside services to our district login system. This means fewer usernames and passwords for you and your students to remember! It is an app on staff and student iPads and it is also located in staff self service bookmarks on laptops. Once you open Clever, log in with your Google credentials. Once logged in, you will see what looks a bit like an app "landing page" that shows all services you can access (BrainPOP, iReady, IXL, PLTW). From this Clever "landing page" you can login to any of these tools with one click! 

You can find more information about BrainPOP on our staff resource site. 

You will find great webinars to get you started with BrainPOP in the classroom here. 

You can find information about setting up classes within BrainPOP in order to assign tasks to your students here. 

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:

*The 3 Best Practices for Performance-Based Assessment

Friday focus - March 5, 2021

 

Great Things I Noticed this Week:

*Students respectfully discussing two sides of an issue - the class was divided into both sides (no matter personal opinions) and given time to come up with points to make.
*Intense engagement with an Imposter version of Gimkit to review and then continued playing into lunch...don't you love it when they're practicing what they know while having fun?!
*Staff helping each other by covering classes to help make sure everyone could get vaccines. 
*Our first ever virtual (and hopefully only virtual) Bandorama with great music and student speakers. Check it out HERE. 

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday - HS ACT exam (only juniors in the high school).
***Middle school teachers - please know there will be NO bells, aside from the 7:45, 7:50 and 2:40, 2:50 bells.  *Set iPad alarms or something if you're like me and would need the alarms for each class period. :)
*If any middle school classes take students down by the SDC, please make sure classes are quiet, due to accommodation testing in conference rooms. 
7/8th hours for ms electives should be good to go as normal.

Workout Wednesday - NO faculty meetings

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Just a reminder to make parent contacts for any students that are slipping in grades/failing. We did not have parent/teacher conferences, so it is important to make sure that parents are aware so they can help support. 

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets: 
*Finish Strong: Bell to Bell - what's your score?

And some humor found in a list of teacher Instagram posts that had me laughing after this week...those of you visited by the bluejeans bomber will see it right away!