Good Morning All,
This week I’d like to launch an addition to celebrations, announcements, and message of the day at Community Time–Gratitude and Appreciation! I read a story to Kinder and Grade 1 recently that got me thinking about how important it is to provide our kiddos (and ourselves) the opportunity to express gratitude and appreciation and I’d like to give it a go with your support. I’d like to start at CT today, so if you hear me ask if there is anyone else that would like to express gratitude/appreciation it would be great if a few of you took the opportunity to share. I think it would be great if we did this once each week. Expressing and acknowledging gratitude have been shown to have incredible health and happiness benefits–I wholeheartedly believe this! An article to consider:
hhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201504/7-scientifically-proven-benefits-gratitude
A few notes to get us going on this wonderful, snowy Monday morning:
1) Just a reminder that the art schedule for this week has changed–thanks again for your flexibility:
Monday
9:15-10:15 Kinder
10:40-11:40 Grade 4
12:35-1:30 Grade 5 (in classroom)
Tuesday
9:15-10:15 Grade 3
10:40-11:40 Grade 1
12:35-1:30 Grade 2 (in classroom)
2) DIBELS Wednesday morning. Scott will coordinate.
3) Family Game Night Wednesday 5-7pm. Pizza is being sold but you have to order ahead of time (24 hours before)–it will waiting for you at Game Night: https://www.friendsofamitycreek.com/product/game-night-pizza/
4) Monthly Fire Drill on Friday at 11:30am
5) Grade 3 hosts cafe Amity this week
6) Grade 5 heads to Bend Science Station on Tuesday and Thursday this week from 9-11am.
7) SIW this week–Chapter 8 Mathematical Mindsets. Please come prepared to share thoughts and ideas.
8) SIW on February 13 is coordinated by the district–have you signed up yet?
9) I have an admin meeting today and will leave around 3pm.
10) I’ll be leaving around 2:15 on Friday to participate in an admin panel at the OSU teaching program
11) Variety/Talent Show–we are planning to show some video of past shows today at CT. Tomorrow Invitations will be school wide to get kids signed up for things they think they want to do for the show. Friday Invitation will be for script writing.
Lastly, I want to express deep gratitude and appreciation for the meeting on Friday–great discourse, sharing of ideas, and consensus on assessment. In addition we’re beginning to include a few other strategies in reading/writing and we are committing to figuring out how to support students who are struggling in math. I wanted to recap and give an update of our meeting to be sure I captured everything. Please let me know if something is missing!
*Fontas and Pinnel 3x yearly for K-2, looking in to IRI for 3-5 (I downloaded one possible IRI over the weekend)
*Math Screener 3x yearly, starting with Midyear screener for this year. Hiring a sub to come the week of Feb 11-15. Please let me know 2 days that would work good for you and I’ll do my best to schedule one of the two days. For Kinder we will work with Scott to cover the class for the day.
Other:
*K-2 will begin to include Units of Study for Phonics. K & 1 sets have been ordered, Grade 2 is being released this summer.
*We will use Calkins high frequency/snap/love/sight words. I’m working with Amanda to get this together.
*We will look to switch up some of Brad’s time to offer better math intervention (likely Bridges materials).
*We will continue to explore how we can track progress in essential skills in math, no agreement yet as to how that will look but I think it’s important to go along side whatever approach we follow in terms of math instruction.
*February 6: DIBELS
*February 6: Family Game Night, 5-7
*February 11-15: Math Screeners, sub provided
*February 13: District SIW
*February 20: Lottery Info Sessions, 2:30 and 5:30
*February 23: Auction!
*February 15, 19, 21: Andy away from school all day
Thanks for reading all the way to the end! Here’s to a great week ahead!
Andy