The Gator Tales
The weekly staff newsletter for Glenwood Elementary School
Week of January 7
Upcoming Important Dates and Events
Jan. 18- PTA Bingo Night
Jan 21- Schools Closed MLK Day
Jan. 22- Pirate Day
Jan. 23- Orchestra Program
Jan 25- Fire Safety Assemblies K-3 9:00 am, 4-5 1:30 pm
Jan 31- Learning Walk for Learning Walk Team
Feb. 1-Staff Day and Virtual Learning Day #3
Grateful Gators!
Shoutout to Tina Repa for her extended lesson with our kinders! They loved the lesson and the extra planning time was awesome! Thank you so much! John McFarland- thanks for sharing your class with mine! My students are SO enjoying working with the 4th grade buddies. Caitlyn Chandler
Kudos to ALL teachers for working SO hard to submit Citizen of the Month nominations, each month! It comes around SO fast and we greatly appreciate the time you all take to recognize your kiddos! Kudos to Marykay for being my right hand gal when it comes to printing certificates, running reports or gathering any Synergy info! She is truly AMAZING and always helps with a smile! Kudos to Specialistsand teachers with students who have 504’s for taking the time to review, sign and ask questions when you have them! I appreciate all of your hard work and time! Tina Repa
Thank you MaryKay for your kindness and patience. You will be missed. L Rymer.
Thanks to Mary Kay for all your support and kindness! You will be missed. Diane Dykes
Kudos to Kim Watkins for jumping into the LLC with both feet and ready to roll!
Tammie Soccio
Happy Birthday!
January
Chiuchiolo, Josephine -. January 1
Olenych, Corie -January 3
Jones, Pamela .- January 8
Fulp, Debra -. January 9
Staie, Sarah -. January 11
Hill, Marcia -January 22
Cake, Joshua -January 25
Laubach, Kathy -January 26
Recine, Lindsey- January 26
Baltazar, Kathleen- January 27
O'Callahan, Michael -January 28
How to Scaffold Learning in Three Steps
1. Modelling outcomes
For some students, it can be a real challenge to conceptualize the expected outcome of a task. Simply showing them what a good response should look like can be enormously helpful. By demonstrating how to answer a question or complete a particular piece of work prior to students attempting it for themselves, you make your requirements more explicit for every member of the class.
If you can also share the success criteria for the task (in the form of a mark scheme, for example), this will be even more powerful.
2. Completing checklists
Giving students a checklist of criteria to meet when answering a question or completing a task is a really simple way of scaffolding. A checklist provides a visual prompt and gives students an idea of how many steps they need to take to be successful, as well as the order in which they should take them.
I find that this type of scaffolding is not only useful when introducing students to a new task, but also brilliant for revision.
3. Thinking aloud
Talking through your own thought processes as you complete a task is one of the most effective ways to demonstrate to students how you apply logic and prior learning to the crafting of a response.
Talking through the steps required for tasks and vocalizing example phrases that you might use in your own writing shows students that a good response does not come automatically to anyone, but that it takes careful thought and planning – even for a teacher.
-Adam Riches