The Tiger Times
Week of December 18 through December 21
Hello Tiger Family!
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr everybody!!
I hope you spent some time this weekend sharpening your saw and getting ready for a short week of excitement and bustle with each other, our parents and especially our Tigers!
It's an important time to remember that, while most of our kiddos (and us!!) are excited to have two weeks off, there are some Tigers that don't look forward to being away from school. Timberline and your classroom is where they feel safe and have structure. School is their "place" even if they might have a hard time showing that. Sometimes it's the most trying students that feel this way. The video I'm sharing today in our "Timberline's Big Three" was shared during the monolingual PLCs this week. Even if you've seen it before, it's a great 3 minute tribute to the culture that connects our kids to school. I hope you're able to make time to watch this...it's all about what we mean when we say "Relationships is one of our Big 3".
Even when it's not 3.5 days til the break, I'm blessed and blissed to be your principal,
Shelley
Last Week at TES!
Awesome Turnout for Our Holiday Program!
Pancakes, Santa and Shopping! Oh my!
Tiger Moms Spoils TES Staff with Breakfast
Important Dates
Monday
Wear flannel!
Holiday Cheer Team Vixen in the Lounge
Monday, Dec. 18th - 5th grade Gift of Time
Tuesday
Dress like Frosty!
Academy Bicycle Giveaway 1:00 (details to come from Lisa and Mariana)
Tuesday, Dec. 19th - 1st grade Gift of Time
Wednesday
Wear red and green!
December 20th - Schoolwide Sing-a-long @8:15
December 20th - Class parties
Tuesday, Dec. 20th - 4th grade Gift of Time
Thursday
It's holiday hat and headgear day!
December 21st - 2nd Sharpen the Saw Day and Early Release @ 11:45
Staff meets in Learning Commons at 12:45
Friday
1st day of Holiday Break
Coming Up
January 8th Teacher Work Day 8:00 - 4:00
Happy Birthday!! We're Glad You Were Born!!
January 5th - Adriana Gomez
Timberline's Big Three
Eye of the Tiger!
Thank you for the amazing teamwork on the Sped team this week. Even with all of the absences we made it work. Teamwork makes the dream work!
Robert, thank you for being our Laminator Leader! We appreciate you!! -Shelley
Shoutout to my amazing third grade team for taking care of my class when I unexpectedly had to go out of town! -Abbe
Lisa, thank you for chairing the Holiday Shop this year! And thank you to for helping her get it all set up Friday night! -Shelley
Laura - thank you for coming out Saturday morning to spend time with our families and helping with the Holiday Shop! -Shelley
Magdalena Malanowski- Thank you for my gummies! You knew just what I needed this week.-Nicole
During our Soil Unit we had our students come in with a deep understanding of weathering! They came in with background knowledge that rocks are broken down due to weathering! THANK YOU 3rd Grade for your hard work with Science! Love, 4th Grade Team
-Shelley
Kimberly and Marta for the water delivery for our CEC meeting :D - Shelley
Ariel Davis- Thank you for jumping in wherever needed, and for being as fast as a ninja!-Nicole
Thanks to Audra Harms for helping me make the AED video! I could not have done it without you! -Belinda
Thank you, Daniela, for co-conferencing a parent with me Tuesday :) - Shelley
Thank you so much Nancy, Chris, Amri, Chloe, Yesenia, Lenci, Leigh, Nicole, Daniela, and Irene for being the best CEC EVER!! (and of course our community members....they just don't see it here :) -Shelley
Huda, thank you for putting out the cones Tuesday. You saved the day :) -Shelley
Emily Perry- Thank you for giving us great ideas on how to better serve our students.-Nicole
Thank you, Britt for making the Holiday Program schedule. That's a LOT of slow thinking. -Shelley
Thank you team mates, Ms. Jaime and Ms. Bennett for stepping up Friday at dismissal
when there was an unexpected shortage at cone 3....They were thinking WIN WIN! -Mary
A big thanks to our AED team for a great AED drill on Thursday. Thanks for your time and effort! -Belinda
Thanks to Mariana Portillo for watching the clinic while I got some Yummy breakfast our wonderful parents brought Friday morning. Also for watching the clinic while I went to take care of a student in a classroom.-Belinda
Nuts and Bolts is our "virtual faculty meeting". Please read all information carefully and reach out if you have any questions or need clarification.
Please read carefully as there is information that requires actions on your part this week.
A big theme for me this week will be supervision and maintaining a structured classroom environment. As Thursday draws near, everyone will be getting more and more excited. It will be important to have fun this week and equally important to have structured, learning fun.
Please adjust lunch/recess duties so that there are 2 team members on cafeteria duty and 4 members on recess duty. We have had an increase in both negative behaviors and students getting hurt at recess. We will adjust the amount of supervision in order to better address this.
For lunches, recess and specials, please walk your class or the group of students you're responsible for all the way to your final destination and supervise students through the "handoff". There have been several occasions the last few weeks where one teacher is trying to get multiple classes to a destination and this is leading to a fall off on hallway and cafeteria expectations. This is an expectation all year but especially at a time when students are more excited than usual.
Please be mindful this week about arrival times. Although emergencies arise, please plan for extra traffic or other delays. When one person is late, it's relatively easy to "absorb". Last week, we had multiple staff members come late on same days and this causes a real challenge for covering multiple spots that are uncovered.
Prior to leaving Thursday:
- All staff will be responsible for completing the Energy Checklist and attaching it on the outside of their classroom door.
- As in previous years, all holiday decorations will need to be removed.
Have you checked the calendar for important dates?
Team leads, if you have not scheduled your time to meet with Jade and the counseling team for 5 Phase Plan Q & A, please do this ASAP!
"Principal Points" is an email sent each Friday from the district that contains information for principals to share with parents, staff or both. I've just been including it as a part of our Nuts and Bolts but thought it would be helpful if it was in its own section. I wanted you to be able to distinguish between things that reference us specifically vs. things that are shared with all district employees. Hope this is helpful!Staff and Student iPads
Technology Services has tested and verified that the new iOS 11 is fully compatible with our network and iPad devices. Any staff members that have iPads, please proceed with installing the update. To do this open setting on your iPad, select general and then push software update. You will see it ask to check for update or to download and install. The update will take about 5 to 10 minutes based on what all you have loaded on your iPad. Here is a video from Apple that also walks through the process
For Elementary campus, if time allows over the next few weeks leading into the break, have the students follow this same process. Please ensure that you do this with your students prior Wednesday. Technology will push a forced iOS update out over the holidays so we can be sure to get all our devices to the latest software level. It's essential that we stay current so we can ensure that all our programs function as intended.
Here is also a nice blog post by Kerissa about some of the new great features of iOS 11
http://gcisdleadwithtechnology.blogspot.com/2017/11/great-features-in-ios-11.html
Winter Shutdown: As staff leave for the winter break next week, we will again be conducting an energy shutdown. Please remind and encourage your staff to take part, and be sure to attach the shutdown checklist to your office and classroom doors. All employees will receive an email about the energy shutdown on December 15 and 20.
Please go here to sign the virtual sign in sheet!
Ways and Where the Tigers Tell Our Timberline Story
Email: firstname.lastname@gcisd.net
Website: http://www.gcisd-k12.org/Domain/2032
Location: 3220 Timberline Drive, Grapevine, TX, United States
Phone: 817-251-5770
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TESleads/
Twitter: @TimberlineNews