PONY NEWS February 20th
HELLO PONIES - A LITTLE TO SHARE ABOUT MS. LANDRAU-ESPINOSA
I live in Lewisville and enjoy my role as a Kindergarten Teacher, Mom and Wife. I was born in Puerto Rico, and raised by a strong Cuban woman. My mom’s formal academic instruction was up to first grade, but life experiences helped shape her to be successful. I don’t remember the first time I heard, “You have to go to college.” All I know is that at my house college was mandatory.
Growing up we did not have any close relatives, and I was used to being with my Mom all the time. That made my transition to the school years pretty difficult, and my teacher’s attitude at that time, did not help either. I would cry all day long and their thinking was, “let her cry and she will get over it eventually.” Well, that made everything worse since it made me feel unsafe. As a result, at an early age I decided I was going to be a teacher, and I would never let any of my students feel that way.
I graduated from the University of Puerto Rico at Bayamón with a Bachelor Degree in Elementary Education. After a few years working as a First Grade teacher, I went back to college and finished my Master in Counseling.
After 8 years working in Puerto Rico, I accepted a job offer to work as a Bilingual Teacher for Dallas ISD. Apart from being a change, I had lots of challenges, but I overcame them all and it's been a learning experience and very rewarding. The past 3 years I’ve worked at Lewisville Elementary as a Bilingual Kindergarten Teacher. It has been a valuable experience and everyday I enjoy being able to do what I always wanted: provide learning experiences in a safe and nurturing environment.
Specials Showcase - PE
Look at this amazing presentation that Coach Green and Coach Wieczorek put together.
A Message from Mrs. Rockne
Hello everyone! I want to let you know I am doing just fine. I'm a little sore, but I can still get around without much pain. Your thoughts and prayers have meant the world to me and keep my spirits high. Your support helps to keep me going on my road to recovery. I look forward to seeing everyone soon. Pony Up!
Love,
Sandi
A Minute with the LASes...
Running Records and ELLs
It is time to start reviewing the composition of our intervention small groups. In addition to teacher's observations and other assessments, a running record is a very useful tool that provides valuable information to make good instructional decisions. It allows us to assess the reading level of our students and also provides information about the ELLs' stage of language development. When taking a running record, please remember that it is normal for ELLs to mispronounce some words, and we should consider different factors before marking a word as an error:
- Is it a new word?
- Is it a high frequency word?
- Differences and similarities between L1 and L2
- Years in U.S. schools
Click here to see an example of a running record at a Kindergarten level and/or watch the two minute video below modeling goal setting, paraphrasing to develop vocabulary, and promoting the use of metacognition and self reflection.
Thank you for all of your sharing and brainstorming during our cultural proficiency conversations.
Learning from our own Experts- CHAMPS
Thank you Mrs. Shield for sharing!
More sharing will be coming from your peers next week.
Calendar for the next 2 Weeks
Are we taking Advantage of I Station Lessons? Are we using their intervention lessons for interventions? How is our Guided Reading going?
STAFF SHOUT-OUTS
- Specials- Thank you for your flexibility and diligence in making sure all students get to the correct locations at the correct times.
- First and Second Grade Teachers- Thank you for your encouraging words (and artwork!) to show the counselors how much they are appreciated! It means a LOT! :)
- Yvette Bernal - Thank you for diving right into the Writing Camp plan! You are a gift to the students (and us teachers too).
- Ms. Bernal, thanks for your guidance always being there! Much appreciated :)
- Lisa Harper & Ines Poole! Thanks for staying on top of things, and facilitating for my wonderful sub, Ms. Munn when I was away at TCEA the second week of February!
- Jerry Green-Thank you so much for 'liking and retweeting' (and for encouraging everyone else to!) my #tcea17 tweets! We WON the contest! All LVES TWEETERS! who 'liked & retweeted' the #tcea17 #edtech tweets!
- Congratulations to Mrs. Norma Urban for being an HEB Finalist.
- Thank you to Mrs. Isham for going above and beyond for her students all the time.
- Thank you to Ms. Colmenero for being the face of Lewisville ES for Destination Imagination.
- Thank you to Mrs. Lopez for advocating for her newcomer students.
- Thank you to Mrs. Landrau for being willing to tutor a 3rd grade Newcomer student before the school day.
- Thank you to Ms. Snyder for jumping in the car with me to go and support her BIC students during the field trip.
- Thank you to our office staff (Belinda, Tonya, Danielle, Betty, Debra and Sherri) for helping us be ready for professional development and your positive attitude during the training.
- Thank you to Brenda and Wanda E for leading the engagement activities for our office staff.
- Thank you to Marla Rodriguez for leading her team into Dual Language Conversations.
- Thank you to Ms. Rimling for twittering on how her students make 100 cents in different ways using cooperative structures and manipulatives.
- Thank you to Ms. Vandermeer for being the number 1 cheerleader for our students.
- Thank you to the best admin team I could have. Mrs. Bradley, Ms. Ulman and Ms. Simpson. You are the best!
- Thank you to the Kinder TEAM for covering for each other and taking care of students these past two weeks, especially on days when subs did not show! We appreciate you!
Thanks for the Shout-Outs!
Submit a Shout-Out to someone else HERE and we will share it in future Monday Messages.
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