October 28, 2011

Friday Flash, October 28th, 2011

Calendar:


Week of Oct. 31 - November 4th:


Monday, Oct. 31st:
* Costume Parade 8:40 a.m.
*Breakfast parties


Tuesday, November 1st:
* Fire Drill 12:15 p.m.
*Girl Scouts will be collecting candy before and after school through Friday
*REA meeting 2:30 p.m.
*OLE meeting 4:30 p.m.
*SAC meeting 5:30 p.m.

Wednesday, November 2nd:
*Parent Orientation @8:00 a.m.
*Professional Development :  
       Digital Tools/Developing a PLN
   
Thursday, Nov. 3rd:
* 3rd grade Field Work to Art Museum


Friday, Nov. 4th:
* No students
* Professional Development Day beginning at 8:30 a.m. in library
(see details below)


Week of November 7 - 11th:


Tuesday, Nov. 8th:
* Woodland Park School District visiting Renaissance


Wednesday, Nov. 9:
* All School Meeting
* PD 1:30 pm


Thursday, Nov. 10th:
* 6th grade fieldwork to Keystone Science School (Thursday and Friday)


Friday, Nov. 11th:
* Book Fair begins


Note:  Student Led Conferences are scheduled in a block of two different weeks:
 December  5- 9th and December 12 - 16th. .
You decide which week you want to use for your conferences.  
The Elementary Progress Report (EPR's) window will open November 28th, and reports are due Thursday, December 15th. Parents will be able to see the reports on Friday, Dec.16th. This means, parents will not have seen the reports before they come to student led conferences. Please visit with Noreene or myself with questions or concerns.


Professional Development  Plans for November:
The district is very focused on Backward's Planning and we've been using this lesson design for our Learning Expeditions. We will be allocating roughly an hour or less of our Wednesday PD time to reviewing Understanding By Design and doing that in chunk size learning units focused on our genre studies and the outcomes of our UIP goal.  
We will continue to devote time to our digital tool learning and developing Personal Learning Networks (PLN) during our Wednesday time as well.


Friday, November 4th, is a professional development day. We will spend our time on several different things:
In the morning:


* I'm asking Bill to do a presentation on recognizing, understanding and intervening in behaviors (tentative plan at this point).
* Creating a journal entry in Halogen to document our progress on our goals.


In the afternoon:


* Neil will share and show us how he uses Backwards Planning to design his lessons. We will be working on lesson designs for our genre units and considering how we plan for the 4 C's. (There is an expectation in our district that we all embrace and use Backwards Planning. We need to clarify our understandings and perhaps tweak some of our practices about how we plan for instruction. Backwards Planning is the approach and the template we use for designing Learning Expeditions. This approach should be used for all instruction.)


* Creating an Edmodo account to serve as an interactive digital communication tool for sharing our progress and learning as we work together in grade level PLC's to clarify our expectations of student progress. 


* Posting our work on Edmodo from most recent PLC collaboration.


Update to Costume Parade:
I will pick up Jody's kindergarten students and begin the parade at 8:40 a.m.  This will allow stragglers to get to their class. You'll need to decide whether you are having a short Morning Meeting or not. It is easier to parade through classrooms if students are seated at their desks. Please make it easy to enter and exit your classroom by removing any furniture or barriers.


School Site Visits:
"If you build it, they will come." 
Several school districts in Colorado have expressed an interest in finding out more about what we do here at Renaissance, how we do it, and what it looks like.  We'll be hosting a group from Gardner School District on Friday, October 28th and Woodland Park School District on Tuesday, November 8th. The site visit will include a modified orientation, classroom visits, and hopefully an opportunity to visit with teachers. How exciting that we have evolved to a level that we can share and be of service to other schools!!


Halogen:
Please remember to take a minute and jot a few thoughts, notes, reflections down in your Halogen journal about how things are progressing on your goal. It gets easy to let this get away from us!

Featured Folks:


Doug Baker shares...

      I have been teaching for six years now, the last five at Renaissance.  I have been coaching for over a decade.  I started in Durango Colorado, where I was attending Fort Lewis College, volunteering for the wrestling team.  I now coach all three seasons at Douglas County High School.  In the fall I am the JV coach for boy’s tennis, I am the assistant head coach for the wrestling team in the winter, and I am the head coach for the girl’s tennis team in the spring. 

            I love teaching at Renaissance for a few reasons.  First of all, people who choose our school generally choose an active, healthy lifestyle which I can relate to my lifestyle.  Furthermore, I have an awesome boss who is always pushing me to be better, and to raise my already high expectations.  Finally, I love to pass on my passion for living an active, competitive, and honorable existence to our children.     

Rebecca shares... 

I was born in Hawthorne, California where my older brothers surfed and went to school with the Beach Boys (who did not surf).  My family moved to the Denver area when I was 12.  I still long for the beach and the ocean now and then, but I have come to love our Colorado mountains too.  I graduated from Cherry Creek High School and took off for the east coast.  I have a BA in History from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and I received my first teacher's license in Connecticut. I eventually found my way back to Denver. 
    I had three children in 3 1/2 years and as soon as my third child was out of diapers (with only a couple of weeks to spare!) I started my teaching career.
I taught for years in private schools in the Denver area, receiving an MA in curriculum and instruction from the University of Denver- until...
one day when my husband and I were hiking Devil's Head.  As we were driving home he said, "We're actually close to that house in the mountains I grew up in for a few years as a kid. You know, the one I'm always telling you about. I think I can find it."  And he did. And it was for sale.  And that is how I came to live in the mountains outside of Castle Rock, and eventually found REMS.
     We have a cute house on 2 acres where the scrub oak meets the Douglas fir and pine forest not far from Pike National Forest.  So, if you ever notice my car always needs washing, please understand that we live on dirt (and often mud) roads.  
    My children are now all twenty-somethings, graduated from college, and living too far away from me. It's what happens when you encourage them to follow their dreams.  My youngest, Kaitlin, is in NYC, working at the Marriott on Times Square, writing and dreaming of  becoming a playwright.  Elizabeth moved to LA where she works behind the scenes in movies (as a prop assistant) while she attempts to follow her dream to start a band and make music.  She plays the violin (electric fiddle, as she calls it) among other instruments.  My oldest, Robinson, has just moved to Rochester, NY to study for his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Rochester.  Don't I have practical children?
    My husband, Bryan, and I now live with three dogs and a cat. 
    I love to hike in the mountains, and can now do so from my front door. 
    I love to garden, and can now do so primarily only in the greenhouse we built. 
    I also love to weave, which I do indoors (in Kaitlin's old room). 
    I also love to read-a lot.  I have a great passion for passing my love of reading on to children             

9 Essential Skills: Skill Number Four
The Recovery Process


*This skill is too complex and misunderstood so I do not think a written explanation is satisfactory. Should you be interested in learning more about it, please visit with Pam or myself.



 The 4 C's:
A large part of the District Strategic Plan are the '4 C's':
Critical Thinking
Creativity
Collaboration
Communication


These should be an essential part of our planning process and how we evaluate the effectiveness of our lesson and instruction. The 4 C's are also an inherent part of the design of Expeditionary Learning and the Workshop Model. 
The 4 C's should also be represented in our personal professional development and the way we work together.
Are we intentional in the use of the 4 C's? Is this another vocabulary piece that we need to get in the practice of using with one another?
We will  spend some time during our Professional Development considering the 4 C's, making sure we all understand what they mean and how we use them.


Grade Level PLC's:
Have you established your schedule to conduct your grade level PLC? Have you met? What support and resources do you need?


COGAT:
For information about how to plan for instruction using CogAt results log onto: http://www.riverpub.com/products/cogAt/and use the interactive profile button and input the score the student received in the ability profile score box (middle of page). 

Formal Observations:
I am going to add more weeks to the Google Observation Calendar. I need everyone to go in and schedule their observations and would appreciate it if you would do that this coming week. If this is a hassle, let me know and I'll schedule your observation. Thanks in advance!


A Peek Into Classrooms:

Healthy Diva's out for a lunch walk!

Sarah supporting her learners as they review 
and record their thinking using expert text. 

Did you know that Cheryl provided live music entertainment
 for students at lunch on Wednesday?
How cool is that?!
Cheryl volunteering her precious  personal time, it's easy to forget
 that she doesn't work on Wednesday's. What a model of generosity.

Dressed and armed for the winter elements!
Thank you dear soldiers of outdoor recess duty when the weather is so uncomfortable!

Yes! That's Mary Beth assisting Bill using digital tools!!

Welcome back Elisha!
We know it's a struggle to be apart from Brayden!
Feel free to Skype him during lunch!

Collecting data from students during Wednesday lunch:


Question #1: Where is your favorite place to learn?
Responses: Outside; on something soft; a space observatory; Germany; on a stage; outside of the classroom; in my home.


Question #2: What is your favorite way to learn?
Responses: In a small group and talk about ideas; by myself and then come together and do as a group and then alone again; first with an example and then some support and then alone; creating a model; by myself with background noise; under a time-crunch; doing something physically like a demonstration; with a partner; independently; by myself and quiet all around.
(No wonder differentiation is such a challenge!)


Question #3: What do you think you need to learn or be good at to be successful? Do you think your teachers are teaching you those things well?
Responses: Money management - no.  Cooperation with others - yes. A lot of math - yes. How to work well independently and in groups - yes. More science - yes. About science and the world - yes. 


Question #4: What is the best way for teachers/principals to help someone who has made a bad decision?
Responses:  Discuss with them and ask them why they did it. Ask them what their motive was. Depending on the situation, a degree of discipline. Understand why they did it and see if you can change it. Stay in for recess. Ask them if there is something else in their life going on. Ask them if they really meant to do it and not say that what they did was right or wrong but make them think about that. Discuss what happened with them and help them figure out how to fix it. 


Question #5:  Do you know what you are good at, what kind of lifestyle you want to have, and what careers are probably best for you?
Responses: All but one student could identify what they are good at (!). About half wanted a lifestyle that included living in a place like Castle Rock. Two wanted to live in the country or mountains and five of them didn't know. All but one could identify a career and they were these: writer/author; architect or athlete; pediatrician; pilot; artist; performing arts; teacher or writer; musician or writer; professional volleyball player or writer; performing arts; elementary teacher. 


Question #6: What would make school better?
Responses: Have more physical activity during the day and as a tool for learning; a bigger voice in district level school decisions; to have Expeditionary Learning and Adventure Education in all schools; to specialize and spend more time in either Art, PE or Music; longer school day to have more time.


Interesting responses!  

Thought to Ponder

"As I grow older part of my emotional survival plan must be 
to actively seek inspiration
 instead of passively waiting for it 
to find me."
-Bebe Moore Campbell