Eagle News
1/27/14 - A Newsletter for the Haynes Bridge Staff
Happy Birthday!
JANUARY BIRTHDAYS
2- Cathy Riley
5 - Cathy Davis
5 - Veronica Moultrie
12 - Aysha Farooqi
19 - Jenny Keiger
20 - Diane Stephenson
21 - Katie Boglione
24 - Josh Robinson
Dates to Remember
1/27-Monday
- Research Committee Meeting
1/28-Tuesday
- Leadership
1/29-Wednesday
- Grade Level Meetings
- Public Detention-Bennett/Casey
- Basketball @ HBMS
- Soft Skills PD
1/30-Thursday
- Experts on Adolescence Series-Internet Safety
1/31-Friday
- Spelling Bee
2/4-Tuesday
- Leadership
2/5-Wednesday
- Grade Level Meetings
- Public Detenion - Hooks/Sewell
- Rising 9th Grade Parent Meeting at Centennial HS
2/6-Thursday
- Scoliosis Testing
Principal's Points
We are excited to announce that a Baby Eagle is on the way! Congratulations to Caroline Johnson who is due in July : )
The votes are in and were calculate with (proportionally) half of the final vote from the staff vote and half from the student vote. It was a close call and ended up with 31.5% Regal and 28.5% Jamie. These were followed by Ernie and then finally Feathers. So our mascot is officially, Regal the Eagle!
Don't forget, on February 5th, Ms. Orrie Henry, will be joining us at our grade level meetings. Her purpose is to demonstrate the assessment capacity of Fulton Connect. She will be sharing different areas where you can find premade assessments and also who you how to upload your own assessments. Please be prepared that this training will take both planning periods. If you do not have planning back-to-back, we are working out a schedule, so you can still attend the full session.
Have you dreamed of being on TV? Well, here is an opportunity....see the note for 11Alive below.
To honor the Winter Olympics in Sochi 11Alive is planning an Olympic All Access Pass Newscast.
Date: Wednesday, February 12
Live Location: Wills Park, 11925 Wills Rd, Alpharetta, GA 30009 (exact location in the park TBD)
Arrival time: 4:15pm
Broadcast Time: 5pm – 6pm
Date: Wednesday, February 12
Live Location: Wills Park, 11925 Wills Rd, Alpharetta, GA 30009 (exact location in the park TBD)
Arrival time: 4:15pm
Broadcast Time: 5pm – 6pm
The more the merrier so please invite other organizations, friends, and family. Also, feel free to bring signs/banners/props that will be seen on-air!
Below is a link from when we took the show to the City of Dallas for the Summer Olympics.
http://dallas.11alive.com/news/news/129782-11alive-parties-dallas
Please let us know if you can attend so we can plan on how many people are able to join us! When you call, ask for Jenna Levetan or Erika Palmer.
Jenna Levetan, Producer, 11Alive News / WXIA-TV, Newsroom: (404) 873-9114
Weekly Team Time Assignments
Team Time Weekly Schedule
Monday (Math Challenge)
Marlon jogs two miles to the park in 25 minutes, turns around, and takes another 55 minutes to walk the same path back to his house. What is his average speed for the rounds trip? (Hint-use the distance formula d=rt)
Tuesday Writing Prompt (Character Ed topic)
During the month of January we often make resolutions and begin to think about our future and the impact our lives will have on others. If you could close your eyes and see yourself ten years from now, what do you think you’d see? What are you doing? What occupation are you pursuing?
Wednesday: DEAR
Drop Everything And Read: Students will read silently and participate in the “Arrive at 25 Program”.
Thursday Study/Organizational Skills
Topic: Work Organization
(This activity may take two Thursdays to complete)
Students will complete a rating quiz that will give them a numerical score which will translate into a specific organizational profile. Students will discuss with a partner their organizational strengths and weaknesses and create a list of goals for the remainder of this semester to strengthen their individual organization profile. These goals will be placed into their advisement files for follow up throughout the semester. The organization profiles can be viewed at the link below (labeled profiles).
Friday Finish
Students should be given time to complete their assignments
Assessment Corner
Media/Technology Support
ONE-Did you know you and the students have 24/7 access to our databases? The passwords for the databases can be found on the media center page by clicking on Database Passwords. This page is password protected but the password is very easy to remember- EAGLES
TWO-Are you receiving wonderful projects from your students? Please share wonderful student work so students and other teachers can see the exciting, rigorous, and innovative work that is being done in our classrooms. Send to Jes O’Kelley okelley@fultonschools.org anything, including papers, posters, Prezis, Powerpoints, videos, models, artwork, and digital projects. She will return the projects to you quickly. We need work from every content area, and we would like as much as we can get! Send anything and everything you have. Click here is a sneak peak at the website!
Professional Development
Teaching Quote of the Week:
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years. -Jacques Barzun
Upcoming PD
01/29/13- 8:10 AM- 8:35 AM Room 84- “Teaching Soft Skills”- Strategies for teaching students how to function in a team environment- instilling basic people skills.
Thought of the Week:
The district Professional Learning department will be sponsoring a month long competition beginning February 3rd for the individual and the school with the highest usage rates on PD360. Be watching for a video guide for our school- our goal is for each teacher to watch at least one PD360 video a day during the contest. At stake is an ipad mini for the winning individual in each learning community, and a catered lunch for the entire staff of the winning school. We can do this! Stay tuned for more details!
Useful Resources:
All you ever needed to know about teaching at the middle school level: http://www.middleweb.com/ This website is a clearinghouse of every imaginable topic that has any connection to teaching in a middle school- interesting articles and a ton of links to great articles and resources!
Extra Help
Last week students participated in the Georgia Writing Assessment. Here are a few tips parents and teachers can use in helping their students prepare for upcoming high stakes assessments.
Four Best Practices – Preparing Students for Assessments by Mandy Groen
Student assessments provide both formal and informal information about how and what students are learning. Assessments have a greater focus in the classroom than ever before and play a unique role in the learning process. In a survey of 42 educators, teachers cited four main challenges in preparing students for assessments:
- The ability to differentiate instruction to meet the diverse needs of students
- The need to expose students to standards-based practice assessments
- The amount of content that needs to be covered to prepare for assessments
- The need to keep students at all levels engaged and motivated
“I find my biggest challenge to be the fact that so many of my students have different levels of difficulty,” said one educator surveyed. “The students that I work with are not always struggling with the same concepts.”
Based on the survey results, we’ve put together four best practices to help educators successfully prepare students for assessments.
- Review and Practice
Many teachers find that holding review sessions, issuing practice tests, and teaching test-taking skills to be the most effective means of assessment preparation. Practice tests are frequently used because well-designed practice tests support learning, serve as a review, and build students’ test-taking skills. Additionally, periodic benchmark assessments can be a good predictor of student performance on state assessments. Teachers can use the results of the benchmark assessments diagnostically to guide their instruction. - Differentiating Instruction
Small-group instruction, peer tutoring, and web-based learning programs are some of the most popular strategies teachers use to prepare students with diverse learning needs for testing. Small group instruction enables teachers to focus on the particular needs of the group. Peer tutoring benefits both students because one student gets extra help while the tutor gets to develop skills that reinforce learning. Web-based programs allow teachers to focus on specific content for a group or individuals to help prepare them for assessments. - Engage and Motivate
Teachers report that interactive content, such as games and competition, helps engage and motivate students. Additionally, enabling students to monitor their own progress keeps them involved in their learning and makes them feel successful as they watch their individual results improve. - Partner with Parents
Communicating with parents on a regular basis is an integral part of engaging them in their child’s success in testing. Teachers reported that sending home notes with practice materials for parents to work through with their child helps keep parents involved. Teachers also use other tools, such as email and websites, to communicate with parents. These tools give parents visibility into their child’s progress and convey ways in which they can help their child at home.