February 1, 2013

Couch time

Ha! You thought I was going to tell you to relax!

Nah, as I was meeting with Kenny today to debrief his observation he commented that I'd have spent a good deal of my time recently on my couch. He's right! It's been a pleasure to engage in conversations with many of you about teaching and learning! I've also met with lots of parents during the open enrollment window. Recent responsibilities have impacted my schedule and I am getting well acquainted with my couch! I look forward to finishing the observation cycles and resuming more time in classrooms.

P.S. Feel free to come and recline on the couch for therapy anytime!

Pacing Ourselves

Following is a list you might use to organize yourself and your time on the following Wednesday afternoons that have been allocated for planning. Perhaps this checklist will enable you to get out in front of some responsibilities by allocating time to plan them and allocating time in your daily schedule to accomplish them.

With that said, I recognize that some of the responsibilities feel like stand alone learning opportunities and don't easily fit into the structure of our daily schedule. So how do we manage them? Some of those responsibilities are things like Service Learning Projects, Student Led Conference preparation, etc.

There are only seven hours to each school day. So as you lay this all out before you, you are going to need to make some shifts. That will look different for each of you. You might decide to start devoting Wednesdays to some of these unique responsibilities, or decide to use a workshop one day a week, or embed what you can within a content, etc. But you will have to balance things to accomplish it all. I highly suggest you take a calendar and work from the first week in June backwards and chart out your course.

Take advantage of some of our rituals and structures, such as Morning Meeting and Closing Circle for an added place for some of this learning to occur.

Consider these as you allocate your time on Wednesday afternoons and use them to chart your course between now and the end of the year:

*Service Learning Project
*Portfolio Development
*Student Led Conferences
*Ad. Ed. skill building/team building (1x month)
*Learning Expeditions
*Genre Study
*Test taking skills
*4 C’s - explicit teaching/assessing
*Display student work
*Selecting digital tools/setting up FOR learning
*Communication - blog, feedback to students,
*Meeting with interventionists/specialists
*Visit DLMC
*Checking out field work/making arrangements
*Parent meetings (conferring together before student led conferences)
*Complete assignment for Restorative Circles (I'll get you that information)

Okay...that was kind of heavy -

that calls for a pep talk...

Professional Development Survey

Noreene emailed you a Google Doc survey to collect your thoughts and needs as the Leadership Team plans for our professional development on Friday, February 15th. Be sure to complete the survey so that we can differentiate the learning and make it meaningful for you.

Life Is Art

An auction item at Life Is Art that is tremendously popular and important are those special 'time with the teacher' auction items. Kerry Trietley will be emailing all of you to find out what you might be willing to do. She will let you know what has been popular, provide suggestions and be your contact for communicating what you will be willing to do that they can auction at the event. It's coming up fast!

If you want to do your auction event with a student on a Wednesday afternoon, I will support that.

Artist's Edition of Life Is Art

The Artist's Edition is an opportunity to showcase our student art prior to the Life Is Art fundraising event and an opportunity to include the kids, since Life Is Art is an adult only event.

We are expanding the Artist's Edition (formally called Kids Edition) to include the performing arts. Three separate times during the event (4:30 - 7:30) the 6th graders will perform a drum circle and band, orchestra and choir will perform. 

In addition there will be several 'items' that kids can auction on during that event to give them the flavor of what Life Is Art is like for the adults. Those items will be:

* One Crew going out to lunch at Chick Filet

* 8 students visiting the Art Museum with Ms. Pam

* 8 students hiking/or bowling with Ms. Deborah

Teacher auction items, as well as Crew art projects, will be displayed but will only be auctioned at Life Is Art. There will be a prize of some kind for the Crew who has the most parents attend Life Is Art.

Calendar

February 4 - 8th:

Monday:

Josh's Crew leaves on Winter Voyage
Kenny's Crew leaves on Winter Voyage

Tuesday:

RTI meeting 7:15 a.m.

SAC meeting 5:30 p.m.
Battle of the Books competition begins 7:30 p.m. public library

Wednesday:
PD: Team planning
Leadership Team Meeting: 1:30 - 2:30

Thursday:
OLE meeting 5:30 p.m.

Band and Orchestra Concert 6:30 p.m.

February 11 - 15th:

Monday:

Lisa's Crew leaves on Winter Voyage

4th grade leaves on Winter Voyage

Tuesday:

RTI meeting 7:15 a.m.

Wednesday:

All School Meeting

Professional Development: Team Planning

Friday:

No Students

Professional Development: To be decided
All staff will take the TELL survey (school survey distributed by CDE)

Leadership Team Topics Discussed
:

*Reviewed professional development plans for Friday, Feb. 15th

* Developed questions for the pre and post conference during formal observations

* Developed a check-list of sorts for teachers and teams to consult and use for team planning
* Progress monitored UIP for writing

* Evaluated Every Child a Writer resource
* Discussed possibility of guest presenter for Monday, April 8th
*Discussed World Class Education Assessment/Survey


Peek into the Life of Our School:

Sportsmanship

Cup stacking mania!

Co-composing - literacy skills of the 21st Century

Have a great weekend!

Deborah