Week of August 16

What a fabulous start to the school year!  Students were eager to start each day and excited about what they were experiencing in class.  We truly hit the mark!  Thank you to all of you for your hard work and expertise with kids.  I saw so much collaboration and sharing of practice.  Let’s keep up the momentum.

Here is what’s up this week:

Monday, August 17
Day 3 BCDA (Advisory Day)
1:30-3   Sr. Admin Mtg (Molly out of bldg)
3:15-4:30  MS Leadership Team Mtg (agenda)

Tuesday, August 18
Day 4 FGHE (DEAR Day)
*Gr 6 and 8 Team Mtg and Advisory Planning
11:50-12:05  DEAR (see below)
(Elementary Curriculum Night, 6-8)

Wednesday, August 19
Day 5 CDAB (DEAR Day)
*Gr 7 Team Mtg and Advisory Planning
9:35-10:35  SRT
3:15-4:30  Divisional Mtg, Library (agenda)

Thursday, August 20
Day 6 GHEF (Advisory Day)

Friday, August 21 
Day 7 DABC (DEAR Day)
8:15-9:15  PTA Morning (first event for PTA)

Saturday, August 21
Happy Birthday Vaughan!

Upcoming (on the radar) 
Aug. 25, 1st Fire Drill (8:30am)
Aug. 25 and 26, Tech Sessions in ELA
Aug. 27, MS Curriculum Night, 6-8pm
Aug. 28, PTA Blast!
Aug. 31, ASAs Start
Sept. 2, No School
Sept. 7, No Students; PD Day

DEAR Starts this Week:  DEAR starts on Tuesday.  If you have discussed this as a Team, follow you team plans.  If not, please opt for one of the following options: 1.  Start with sustained silent reading for the 15 minutes; 2. Go through the DEAR prezi (will be shared ASAP – I couldn’t get prezi to work from home today); 3. Begin a read aloud.  Repeat from last week: There was a question about reading on devices.  We allow students to read on any electronic device (laptop, e-reader, smart phone, etc.).  Should a student misuse that technology during DEAR, we handle it the same way any other off-task behavior would be handled.

Update on Peter Reynolds:  We have heard once again from Barbara regarding Peter’s progress.  He is currently receiving treatment for an autoimmune issue.  He is responding to this treatment and is resting comfortably at home.  We continue to hope for a swift recovery.

Divisional Meeting This Wednesday: Please be prompt to the meeting as we will start at 3:15.  You will need your laptop and something to write with.  You can find the agenda here.

Lunch Update: Things continue to improve during lunch.  We have added seating so that there is plenty of room for all students.  We continue to recommend that other adult adult faculty try to avoid 11-11:15 in the cafeteria if possible.  It does not appear that students will be able to use the “big toys” during lunch at this time as the 1st -3rd graders are like a swarm of cute ants climbing all over the equipment.  So – remind your students that available areas are the front field, the gym (when it’s their turn), the Dragon’s Den, the library, and the Atrium tables (tables only – not the open center or basketball area as 1-3rd is playing there as well).  Students may go to their lockers after eating to put away their belongings.  However, encourage them to move to other locations once they have accomplished this.

Fire Drill, Aug. 25: Please prep your students for a fire drill next week.  You can alert them to date and time for this fire drill.  It will be Wednesday, Aug. 25 at 8:30.  Please go through fire drill evacuation routes will all your classes before Wednesday next week.  I know that Ms. Sang is working to get those evacuation routes posted in each classroom.  This should be done by the end of the day Tuesday.

Names Badges for Staff–  Per Mark’s email:  All staff will need to wear their lanyards with ID card starting next week while at SSIS.  I will see about finding magnets that could be used to fix the ID card to clothing without a lanyard.  Thinking behind this: students are easily identified by their uniforms.  Whether an adult should be on campus is much harder to identify.  Wearing the badges will assist with that.  Should you see an adult on campus without a badge, please direct them to the closest office.  If they refuse to go to the office, please alert administration immediately.

Cool Instructional/Assessment Tip:  I had a great time walking through classroom’s last week.  Here is one of the awesome things I saw:  Thank you Abena Bailey for being willing to share the Board Game you developed to help students get to know each other and to talk about what it means to work as a team.  If you plan to use cooperative groups in the learning process, you might consider adapting this game to help prepare your students for how to work together.

Food for Thought:  When planning to use groups, remember one of the greatest fears a middle school student has:  rejection.  In forming a group, that fear manifests itself in the form of being excluded.  While a few students are thrilled to have the freedom to partner up with their friends, the majority grit their teeth and pray that they aren’t the last chosen.  Let’s remove this fear – there are 2 great substitution for “okay, get in groups of 4.”
1) determine purposeful groups ahead of time thinking through what you’d like grouping to accomplish in the activity (maybe combining students with different strengths together; maybe helping students get to know others in the classroom; maybe kids with like interests.
2) think of ways to orchestrate random groupings if the makeup of the group really doesn’t matter (maybe drawing cards, drawing names, age or height order, etc.).  There are many resources to assist with grouping strategies.  Purposeful Grouping, from RTI Success by Whitten, Esteves, and Woodrow, includes both types of grouping strategies and has many examples and ways to think about grouping.  15 Quick and Creative Ways to Group and Partner Students by Genia Connell provides some great tech options for random grouping.