Friday Flash: August 23, 2013

What Matters Most

How do we set priorities with so much coming at us? We are concentrating on getting to know our learners and creating a culture of Crew. We're creating lesson plans and revising them constantly. We have preparations for Voyages. Some of us are juggling the demands placed on us with the new READ act. Some of us are preparing to lead All School Meeting. Some of us are trying to figure out how to share learners and collaborate with math instruction. Some of us would just be happy if we could get a district email account! It's not feeling very peaceful.

Each of us juggle the task of setting priorities and pacing ourselves in different ways. Some things just don't get done to the high standard that we'd like to see them done. I think we have to be okay with that. I think we have to pick those things that matter most and be okay with knowing we've done those well. We'll get to the other things over time. We can put some things 'on the shelf' knowing that we can circle back and do them in pieces. We can ask for help.

Remember how I'm always talking about the E Gap? We set expectations for ourselves. Then, we experience the reality. If our experience isn't matching up to the expectations we set, we feel really stressed!

The beginning of the year is hard. Every one of us gives 100%, every day. 100% looks different on different days. If you find yourself feeling frazzled, stop - sit down with your kids and read them a book, or sing them a song, or play a game, and look into their eyes and know that it's all good. We're moving forward - all of us - the best we know how.

You - learning together with your students - connecting with them and learning what matters to them, so you can create meaningful learning experiences - that's what matters most.

Calendar

Week of August 26- 30th:

Josh's Crew to Educo on Fall Voyage

Tuesday:
* RTI meeting 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday:
* All School Meeting 9:00 a.m. Lisa's Crew leading

* Professional Development:
- Personal or team planning time unless....you are on the Leadership Team.
- Leadership Team meeting at 1:30 p.m.

Week of September 2 - 6:

Monday:
* No School - Labor Day

Tuesday:
* No RTI meeting

Wednesday:
* Leadership Team meeting 11:00 a.m.
* Professional Development:
Second offering of CITE work session

Friday:
No students - Professional Development Day
RAGNAR race begins at Copper Mountain

Featured Folks:

by Forrest Sheets

Peek Into Classrooms...

Look at the faces of these students!
Guess what they were doing?

Listening to a read aloud!
The read aloud was a story about Beneficence.

Formative Assessment -
determining where students are as we begin instruction.
Nothing is as powerful as teacher observation.
The most powerful assessment is watching students in the act of decision making.

Students making decisions about what should be in a day pack -
Critical thinking?

Preparing for a Voyage -
Student Ownership

Small group deciding on Bus Norms

Small group deciding on Cabin Norms

Small group decides on Hiking Norms

What a great idea for norms to include the teacher.
Why do you suppose the teacher had the students draw the picture?

Students in art were beginning a unit of study -
We all recognize this note catcher -
Here's a great example of active and engaged learning - inquiry in action.
Could this be an assessment too???
What type of assessment do you think this is?
How would you use it?

Student' in PE were taking a formative assessment.
Here's an example of an assessment that Doug can use as a formative assessment to find out
what he students know before he begins instruction.
He can use this same assessment for an interim assessment - to see how far they get after a few weeks - and then again later for students to identify for themselves what they've learned and what they still need to learn.
He can even use this same assessment as a summative assessment.

Caught Ms. Kathy's Crew making decisions about whether the grasshoppers
they caught should have a large home or a small one -
and deciding how long before they set them free.
(They voted to release them after one day.)

Our precious kindergarten students actively engaged in music!

Ann busy getting to know her learners.

Collaboration!
Not an easy task getting all the DRA's done and the initial assessment
for the new READ act.

Professional Learning Community in action.

Josh has been preparing his Crew for their Voyage next week.
Caught them doing some teambuilding!

What is this?
Stop by the art room and find out!

Forrest pushes kids to think deeper during math.

Nicole with a small group during math instruction.

Brittany supports a student while he grapples with a math concept.
I tried so hard to get a shot of his 'scrunch face' but missed it.

Ms. Lauren with a focused writing group.
The learning targets for this group are on the red chart behind Lauren.
Before and during the lesson, Lauren referred to the learning targets
so that students were clear about what they were working towards.

Every Child a Writer provides resources, such as the plan above, that allow students
to monitor their growth and track their learning.
Some of these resources help us figure out the 'how' and a system for doing this.