Mustang Message
October 30, 2017
A Principal's Perspective
I love the quote below about chefs cooking hamburger helper. Teachers have passion about teaching because of the creativity and innovation it requires to spark student excitement about learning. It is exciting! We have seen innovative design projects that have provided opportunities for students to have joy in learning and passion about their projects. Going through the design process to create a character pumpkin, a noodle tower, or an arcade game our of cardboard transforms students from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. They were indeed innovators which required them to be self starters, ask hard questions, design in a system thinking approach, collaborate, fail and try again, research and complete a finished project. In thinking about these characteristics, aren't these skills that our community desires in an employee? Innovative design when planning for instruction not only fosters joy in learning and prepares our students for future employment, but it also rekindles joy in teaching!
The picture below is a student that designed his arcade game for school. However, his learning didn't stop at school. He went home and designed a new game. See email message to me from his teacher:
Teacher: "'Mom just sent this."
Mom: "Ian went home and made ANOTHER cardboard game just because he wanted to!! What a great way to spend his time and work on so many skills!!"
Teacher: "We are sooooo doing this again next year. The kids will never forget it!"
Teaching is a craft that can't be found in a box. It requires us to use our talents to design instruction to spark learning and teach skills to prepare our students for their future.
Be Innovative - Design the possibilities!
Donna
Morning Duties of the Week
Gym & Morning Assembly (7:20): Cooper
Gym (7:20): C. Anderson
Parent Drop Off Direct Traffic (7:20): Lutz
Parent Drop Off Car Doors (7:20): Kieschnick & Wolf
Cafeteria (7:20): Eppes
Bus (7:15 - Buses/ Car Drop Off after all buses arrive): Jankowski
Counselor Schedule: - K & 1st Trustworthiness/Respect/Bullying/Friendship
Librarian: GP
Week at a Glance
Monday: Report Cards Sent Home; CAMP - Fire Presentation; 3:05-4:00 Choir; 2nd Grade Math, J. Parker & Hartsell Planning 8:00-11:30 & Kinder 11:30-3:00; National Candy Corn Day!
Tuesday: Book Character Dress Up Day Staff & Students;
Wednesday: Teams with 100% Social Dues - Jean Day; Training for New GP Teachers 3:30-4:30;
Thursday: 12:00 PTO Meeting; 3:15-4:15 BRAVE & Chess Club
Friday:
News & Notes
Morning Assembly for October: For October Wonderful Writing Wednesday during MA, we will be highlighting interesting vocabulary words. If you have a student's writing piece that would be a good example of the use of interesting vocabulary words, please email me their names. I will coordinate readers for each Wednesday.
Power Outage: Saturday, November 4th, the power will be off between 7:00 am-7:00 pm. The city will be working on electric lines. Note: This is next Saturday.
Locked Gates: During the school day, the kindergarten gate and the fire lane gate will be locked. Your classroom key should unlock both gates.
Fall Fashion Sense
Tell Me Something Good!
What an amazing Book Fair! Thank you guys for all of your hard work...without you, we would not have had such a successful week!
Total sales: $17,378.77
Cash profit: $3,623.38
Scholastic Dollars Profit: $800
All for Books Donations from families/coin drive - $891.24, which allowed us to purchase 60 new books for the library. I am very excited about our results with this program this fall. I think promoting it before the fair was a good idea and really gave families a chance to donate.
Not only did we get to buy new books, it is great to know that Scholastic matches that amount in donations to kids in need. All for Books total reported: $1,338.98 ($891.24 from our collections, $270.52 from the Amy Anderson Literacy Legacy program, $177.22 from the GP Summer Reading/Math Challenge.) Scholastic will match all of these donations.
Mustang Yee Haws!
Happy Birthday:
Jennifer Reed, Nov. 2nd
Congratulations:
Layne Huebner who was accepted into nursing school!
Parent from musical: "PS. the program this morning was wonderful and you have fabulous teachers who bring out the very best in the students! We will be there again this afternoon."