Mustang Round-Up
December 15, 2019 Volume 20
Reflections From the Principal
It's finals week at FC! It's hard to believe that we are in the final week of 1st semester! A few reminders/information for the last five days of the semester:
- There will be NO INCENTIVE time this week!
- Students must take their final exam during the scheduled final exam time, as well as be present for their final exam time, unless it has been approved by the office and teacher in advance. If the students are not taking a final exam in your classroom, please make sure they have something meaningful to work on. It's important to keep students from roaming the hallways and being out of the classroom.
- Bryan Hoffman from VALIC will be at school on Tuesday - all day!
- We are planning to have a tornado drill on TUESDAY at 10:15 am. Please be prepared.
- We have the new chromebook cases (FINALLY!) and would like to get those to each classroom by Wednesday of this week. If you have chromebooks in your classroom and have not completed the chromebook form I sent out last week, please do that ASAP HERE! Please make sure your students are putting the cases on properly and taking them off to charge before they leave at the end of the day. We built an extra 5 minutes into 7th period specifically for this reason.
- The staff Christmas party is on Wednesday at 6 pm at Robie's in Attica.
- FCA will be providing a staff breakfast on Wednesday at 7:30 am in the library!
- Mr. Foster and the school board are providing a staff Christmas lunch on Thursday in the conference room. Lunch will be served during all three lunches for staff.
- FC Family Night is Thursday evening at 6:30 pm.
- Final Semester Grades are DUE by January 6th at 8 am!
I cannot thank you all enough for all you do each and everyday for students to be successful at FC! I wish you a restful break filled with family and friends and look forward to seeing you in 2020!
Have a fun week!
Ashley
The Final Dress Up Days!
Great Things I Saw This Week
The band and choir held their annual Christmas concert this week! What a great evening to see so many of our students shine and get everyone in the holiday spirit! We also had a full house! Thank you, Ms. Pate and Ms. VanHook!
I've seen many teachers in the holiday spirit with our dress up days! Mr. Hall and Mrs. Baldwin have without a doubt been winning with their dress up attire this week! There aren't many teachers who will rock a set of pigtails with big green bows! Thank you all!
Mr. Acton has enjoyed the new game in the teacher's lounge, "Would you rather?". A little birdie sent me a picture of him looking very serious about it, although I'm not sure who he was playing against! In addition, Mr. Acton's construction class built a shoe rack for the elementary PE department. It holds the shoes that they loan out to elementary students that forget to wear the correct shoes to PE. Thank you, Mr. Acton!
There are more staff members that I wanted to mention this week! Thank you to all of those staff members who helped supervise the junior high and high school winter formal's last night! Ms. Baker, Mrs. Baldwin, Mr. Owens, Ms. Pate, and Officer Austin all helped supervise the junior high dance. Mrs. Ehrich, Mrs. Britton, Ms. Pate, Ms. Frazee, Mr. Webb, and Officer Austin all helped with the high school dance supervision. While I know it's a late night for all, the students were so well behaved and had a good time! Thank you all for your dedication to students! Also, thanks to Daffanie Spencer for her custodial support last night during and after the dance and to Amanda Froedge for taking pictures of the kids! We couldn't do it without the help and support of everyone involved!
Lastly, I wanted to thank Sorani Hernandez and Gracie Lyons for their beautiful bulletin board display of "teacher elves" in the hallway! They did a great job! If you didn't know, Sorani and Gracie have been putting together all of the bulletin boards you have seen and they are very talented! Thank you girls!
Feature a Teacher!
Ms. Renee Howell
Years Served in the Corporation: 30 Years
Currently Teaching: English 9 & English 11
“Ms. Howell’s passion and desire for teaching is incredible. She is constantly exhibiting kindness, offering second chances, and teaching students practical skills that will allow them to follow their dreams.”
-Chyna Galloway
“Ms. Howell is a rare kind of teacher. She makes it clear that she’s there for you and not just your grades, and in her class everyone is equal. She always goes out of her way to see how you are doing. She makes such a positive impact on her students. It’s impressive just how much she cares.”
-Devyn Warrick
Nuts and Bolts
- December 17th - Bryan Hoffman from VALIC - rescheduled, more info coming
- December 17th - Tornado Drill @ 10:15 am - please share with your colleagues who don't read the newsletter! :-)
- December 18th - FCA Faculty Christmas Breakfast @ 7:30 am
- December 18th - 20th - Final Exams
- December 19th - FC Family Night @ 6:30 - 8:30 pm
- December 19th - Corporation Christmas lunch provided by the school board (conference room)
- January 3rd - Vocational presentations in the cafeteria for all sophomores and some juniors @ 9:30 am
#MustangMindset, SEL Coordinator
I wanted to take a moment and talk about a new resource we have available for our teachers. I have created a stack of 10-15 SEL cards that have brain breaks, refocus activities, and brain aligning activities. They tell you which type of activity it is, how long approximately it will take, and how to complete the activity. They also are numbered in the top right hand corner and labeled according to grade (E=elementary, HS=FC, and B=Both). The majority of activities on these cards are 1-2 minutes or less. The brain aligning activities are designed to take longer (10 minutes or so) and are more thought-provoking. I wanted to create something that would allow teachers opportunities to incorporate SEL activities that did not take hardly any prep and that did not take a great deal of time. I also thought that it might be easier to incorporate a SEL mindset in your classroom if you had activities that were at the tip of your fingers so you do not have to go and look for anything. I will continue to add cards as new activities develop. If you have something that works great in your room, please let me know! If you are interested in a set of SEL cards, email me at brittonk@sefschools.org.
Blue cards are Brainbreaks. Brain breaks help a student take a break, and re-energize the brain to begin focusing again.
Green cards are Refocus. Focused-attention practice is a brain exercise for quieting the thousands of thoughts that distract and frustrate us each day. When the mind is quiet and focused, we’re able to be present with a specific sound, sight, or taste.Research repeatedly shows that quieting our minds ignites our parasympathetic nervous system, reducing heart rate and blood pressure while enhancing our coping strategies to effectively handle the day-to-day challenges that keep coming.
Orange cards are Brain Alignment. Brain Alignment is about getting the left brain and right brain working together.
Also, Mrs. Sheetz shared these Animal Regulation Cards with me from her training at Butler University. They have some quick strategies for regulation. They could be included pretty easily into a regulation station! You can get them HERE.
Thanks for all you do!
Kim