Wednesday Words
May 1-8, 2019
Nurture-Personalize-Engage-Succeed
New Prospect Elementary School Staff Notes
This week's spotlight is on.................. Brandy Davis!
Staff Birthdays!
May 2nd-Amy Lemons
May 8th-Ivon Van Der Lende
May 18th-Alissa Arco
May 24th-Amy Kraselsky
Action Steps
UPCOMING EVENTS
May 2-5th grade cluster event at Skyzone 4:00
May 3-4th Grade Testing Pep Rally in Gym 1:30-2:00
May 6-10 Milestones testing for 4th Grade
May 10- Year End Party! (See below)
May 13-14 4th Grade Milestones makeup days
May 14th- Spring Musical Concerts: 8-8:45 (5th, 3rd, 2nd & Hubble); 9-9:45 (4th, 1st & K)
Spring Showcase: 5:00
May 17th-Field Day
Tech Tips from the Vanguard Team
Skype in the Classroom
Provide global learning opportunities for your class using Skype. Microsoft offers this powerful tool that is more than just a 2-way video call. Virtual field trips, guest speakers, and connecting with classes across the world are all features of this engaging teaching approach. Enable your learners to become digital citizens through this exciting method of firsthand exploration. You will find that Skype in the Classroom can make your students take charge of their lessons. Here are a few links to help you start:
https://education.microsoft.com/skype-in-the-classroom/overview
https://www.thetechedvocate.org/the-essential-guide-to-the-use-of-skype-in-education/
https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/community-centered-tools/skype/
From the Media Center
Thursday’s guest speaker in the Media Center: Award-winning illustrator Mr. R. Gregory Christie, will be visiting 3rd grade on Thursday, 5/2 from 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. in the Media Center. For more information or to purchase his books, please visit his website, https://gas-art.com/about-r-gregory-christie/ He will be autographing his books and selling them; he accepts credit cards.
Remote GALILEO password change: This change will take place on 5/22/19 and is valid until 8/6/2019 Old password: promise New password: night (all lowercase characters).
Lessons in the MC/push-in to classrooms: Please review the MC calendar; if you can’t access it, let me know and I’ll stop by. Shout out to third grade – I loved pushing in to give an Animal Research/Nonfiction lesson. Thanks to some Kindergarten and First grade teachers with whom I’ve pushed in! I invite all grades to do the same
iPads: If student devices don’t seem to hold a charge, please go into the iPad, and close out all apps and webpages in Safari. Also, in preparation for EOTY, please ask your students to go into the Photo/picture app and delete all pictures and videos. If you have a tech team in your classroom, this might be a great job for them. Thank you!
From the Clinic
As you are cleaning out your closets, if you have any of the following items that you would like to purge – please send to the clinic – please do not send any items that have expired (yes soap and hand sanitizer expire) tissues, Ziploc bags, hand soap, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, paper towels, Band-Aids and Clinic Passes.
Fastbridge Spring Screening
- April 30th - May 17th is the window for Spring Fastbridge testing (aMath and aReading).
- Only students at risk (EIP, on a tier, below 30%ile) or NEW (haven’t taken it yet) need to test.
Reminders;
- -make sure headphones/audio are working prior to starting
- -students must have scratch paper and pencils when taking amath.
- Please ensure students take their time >15 minutes or have them retest.
- -progress monitoring continues during the screening window.
- Try to have students tested by May 10, hard deadline= May 17th.
Here are some ideas to help recognize student effort
- Show student graph of first two scores and ask them what score they think they can get- write it on a post it and follow up after testing
- Acknowledge any growth or personal best
- recognize those students who took their time by giving “patience awards”
PSC's Are Coming Up!
PSCs will need to go home on Thursday May 23rd with the students report cards. We can start to print the PSCs on May 1st so I would suggest you get ahead of them so you do not need to worry about them in the last 2 weeks of school.
Here is a sample timeline:
- April 23-26 Grade Level Teams get together to determine a template for standards taught so far this year (at this point in the year, that is only needed for advanced since everything is covered for on level by now).
- April 29-May 10 Teachers enter data in Illuminate. (All teachers can be working at the same time now. J)
- May 10- Homeroom teachers create the PDF and submit to Zarzour for review digitally.
- May 14-17 Zarzour reviews and works with teachers to make any edits and allows you to print and stuff in the folders for the next week.
- May 23 PSCs go home with students in Weekly Folders- OR if a student is leaving early and will not be there on the first day, then you can send it home with them on their last day.
If you want to be ever earlier than this timeline, I will review PSCs starting May 1st so you can print them once they are reviewed. I will sen out a calendar invite so you know the deadline though of the last day to submit to me- May 10th.
End of Year Textbook Inventory!
Since an inventory was done on an RUOS and WUOS kits last year I will not be coming around to do an inventory on those.
For RUOS Kits, WUOS Kits, Math in Practice, Reading Strategies, Writing Strategies- You may hold onto them this summer to look through, pack them in boxes to be moved to the gym, or ask Diana Z to store them for you in the bookroom. Please know that if you take them home you are responsible for them to return. IF you are not returning to the same grade next year OR you are no longer going to be at NPE :( then you will turn all of those items into me. More information is to come if you are one of those people.
PAST ISSUES OF WEDNESDAY WORDS
Tech Tips from the Vanguard Team
In honor of Earth Day do you want to go paperless? Are you too busy to grade this time of year? Well here is a quick, easy answer for you: BrainPop!!! That’s right, that little app we already use and is readily available on iPads and FCS Launchpad.
You are just a few quick steps to experiencing the amazingness of BrainPop 😊
- Make sure you have, or create a teacher account
- Create a class or multiple classes depending subject (this is more organized when you want to retrieve your quiz scores)
- When you create a class you will create a class code :
- Now students can go online and use your class code to be part of your BrainPop class. Helpful step-by-step instructions: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwS6MAo8fLiYOUQ2YWRNOFpvT1k/view. Great visuals and easy for students to follow.
- Now you can see everything your students do and view their score for easy grading. They can complete quizzes, play a game, create a concept map.
- Teachers can create their own quiz so it can be modified for students needing accommodations
- You can import your Google Classroom roster and send assignments directly through BrainPop.
- Let BrainPop do the grading for you, go paperless these last few weeks, and your kids will love it!
- Tutorial: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwS6MAo8fLiYOUQ2YWRNOFpvT1k/view