Monday Morning Motivation
Central Elementary Staff News----May 2--May 6
Is Your Glass Half-Full?
Dear Staff,
According to a google definition, Is the glass half empty or half full? is a common expression, generally used rhetorically to indicate that a particular situation could be a cause for optimism (half full) or pessimism (half empty), or as a general litmus test to simply determine an individual's worldview.
As we go through our day, we get glimpses of the answer to this question by listening to the people who surround us. On Thursday, I got the distinct honor of recognizing two people who were voted by the Central staff as representing optimism. It was fun to stand in front of a group of people and read the words you had written about Shonda Meranda and Courtney Carmichael. Over and over the theme of the nomination forms in describing both people were the following: "she always has a positive attitude, she never seems stressed, she works with a smile on her face, and is always willing to help others."
After each administrator talked about the winners of the award from their building, we stood and read the Optimist Creed together. These words are worth repeating.
The Optimist Creed
Promise Yourself
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
Make it a great week or not, the choice is yours!
Julie
A Week at a Glance
Central Calendar
TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK!
MONDAY, May 2
- Beverages and refrigerator snacks
- Meet with 4th grade during prep
- Screening Interviews after school
TUESDAY, May 3
- Lunch from McAllisters
- Second grade field trip
WEDNESDAY, May 4
- Fruit and sweet treats
- General Curriculum language arts collaboration meeting (grades 3, 4, 5 and 5) at Central Office
THURSDAY, May 5
- Breakfast from Panera
- Faculty meeting
FRIDAY, May 6
- Lunch from Dickey's BBQ
- Walk-a-Thon Celebration for winning classroom at CC
- Kindergarten Mom's Day
Announcements and Reminders
The construction company has let us know that they are going to begin on both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms on the eastside of our building. They have not shared exactly which day this week this will happen. Since they will be blocking off parts of the hallway to do this, please prepare your students that you will be using different routes and restrooms. Although not convenient, we have nice restrooms in the basement, which could be used by K-1. It might require more time.
Please submit your SLO data as soon as you are able. For those of you who have ISTEP data, please look at your targeted SLO and form a score from it.
Class Lists and Data Cards . Please use the EOY STAR data for our cards. The window for STAR reading and math data is May 1-20th. We want the most up-to-date data for our students. Meetings to place students in classes will take place on May 17th. I understand we may not finish in one day.
Computer labs are open on Monday!
Please include the following information from the cafeteria in your emails or newsletters to parents. Starting Monday, May 9th, we will enforce our NO charging policy for breakfast and lunch. PLEASE keep your child’s lunch account current with money for lunch. If your child eats breakfast at school PLEASE make sure their account is funded for that as well, as breakfast is an important start to a child’s day. If your child’s account is in the negative and they do NOT have a lunch, they will have to call home to have a lunch or money brought to them.
Please note, after school on May 24th the Gym will be covered with plywood. After lunch on May 25th the boxes will begin being moved by high school athletic teams.
Since we ran out of time at our faculty meeting, please plan to share your Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites strategies at our next faculty meeting on May 5th. You can share both at one time and don't feel like you have to take more than a couple of minutes--just give us the down and dirty on the strategies :)
Please give me any feedback regarding Walkathon. I am meeting with the PTO on May 12th
In July a New District and School Website will go live for the public. The goal is to create a user friendly, clean web page, highlighting all the wonderful things happening in Plainfield.
FYI the LINK Observatory: Space Science Institute offers warm weather field trips. See linkobservatory.org if you are interested in learning more
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
NEW!! May 2016 Vocabulary FOCUS Digging Deeper
https://www.tes.com/lessons/QsFnQLHTPxAOnA/digging-deeper-vocabulary-focus
End of the Year
April and May Activities for Central Elementary
May 6 – Walkathon Principals’ Minute to Win it @ Clarks Creek Elementary
May 6 --Kindergarten Mother's Day
May 9 and 10- preschool transition conferences here at Central
May 9 – Study Buddy Party
May 10--Kindergarten Screening in the afternoon
May 11--Pat Cooney from middle school to talk with 5th grade
May 12 & 13 – 5th grade Flat Rock Field Trip
May 16 – PTO Meeting
May 18 – 3rd grade field trip Jameson Camp
May 20 – Field Day
May 23 – 5th grade breakfast & celebration AM and KG – 4 grade Central Celebration AM
May 24th-Step Up Day AM and Talent/Variety Show PM
Spring Assessments!
Please use your lab time both upstairs and downstairs time to get both the math and reading end of year benchmark tests taken. Thank you!
Celebrate Staff
- WIDA scores came back and Central did very well! A big shout out to Lexy, Julie, Ryan, Melissa, and Leisa K. for all your hard work in "growing" our ELL students! Because of all their hard work, very few students will need ELL services next year. We are so proud of our students and you!
- Great work on 1-6 high ability identification! We have done great work and continued to confirm that we have some amazing students!
- We completed ISTEP! Our teachers, students and staff worked together making it really a seamless process. Great job to everyone who helped by testing, proctoring, adjusting schedules, bubbling and packing tests. It really was a team effort!
- Congratulations teachers on great IREAD results! We are close to sharing information with parents, but it is still under an embargo. Again, kudos to our 3rd grade and special education team for getting our students prepared amidst all the stress and increased absenteeism as a result of the threats this past winter. All of our elementary schools had passing rates between 93% and 97%.
Packing Technology
Please note some updates/changes from the PPEA notes.
- When packing up ActiveVote clickers you MUST remove the batteries before the summer. If not, they will corrode and this could result in the voters not working in the future.
- ActiveVote/ActiveInspire remotes- mark the case with your room number. (You will NOT take them with you if you move rooms.)
- You will be packing your own technology and marking the box TECHNOLOGY. We have RED duct tape to help the tech crew identify those boxes for August.
- Document Camera- pack it and mark it for the room it is in. (You will NOT take it with you if you move rooms.)
- Docking Station- pack it up in a box marked tech equipment. Include all cords as well.
- Remotes- pack them and mark them for the room they are in. (You will NOT take them with you if you move rooms.)
- Printers- pack them
- Wall Clocks- Put them in your closet so the custodians know where they are when they put the rooms back together.
- Student Computers- Put in boxes marked Tech Equip.
- Telephone- Please put in your closet so we know where the phone is located. IF you are moving rooms, please take your phone with you and put it in the new room closet at the end of the year.
- Promethean Board/Projector- Technology will begin Bagging these on Friday, May 20th. (They have decided not to take them down.) This will take several days. You may not have them for the last two days of school. Pack your pens and pointers with your personal stuff, unless you are changing rooms.