Tuesday Times
January 21, 2020
Great Things!
Thank you Sarah J and Heather for gathering up some outdoor play items for everyone! That was helpful and the kids will love it!
Tressie and Laura EG pulled students and took birthday pictures for me on Thursday while I was in a meeting. That was so helpful! Thank you!
Magen and Connie's class went to Topsy's popcorn to wrap up a popcorn project they had been working on. The kids had so much fun smelling, tasting, and visiting Topsy's!
A big thank you to Marian R for whipping up a chiefs gear flyer for our students to go home with short notice on Thursday! (sad they didn't get to wear it though)
SO MANY GREAT THINGS FROM THE ADMINS!!! Staff- I am beyond proud of our staff and students. After the walkthroughs last Thursday, admin shared so many amazing things they saw in classrooms. They mentioned the positive and encouraging language, independent play and work skills, CD breathing techniques/coaching, the strong teaching skills from all adults in the rooms (they had no idea who was the lead teacher or who was the TA in rooms because of the phenomenal work being done by every single adult in the room), the depth of the activities observed in centers, and the ability of kids to explain what they were learning. They were blown away by what they saw in every single room they entered. Way to go!! I was so very honored to have them see the amazing things going on in our building! You ROCK!!
Challenge: Noticing.....(continued)
This week your challenge is to notice. Creating a new habit takes 21 days. Noticing encourages compliance, confidence, success, and builds our kids up. Our CDAT team would like to continue our challenge this week to put 10 tokens of some kind in one of your pockets (pennies, pom-poms, marbles, etc). Each time you use "noticing language" move one token to your other pocket. See if you can get at least 10 noticing statements each day! You can do it! You got this!
Example: “You _______________, so _______________. That was helpful!”
Are you willing?
News From the McNally's
Dates to remember:
January 20: No School
January 21: Certificated PD day (Be at GHS at 8:0 a.m.)
January 24: Fire Drills (rescheduled-unannounced)
January 30: Lockdown drills
New Visitor Systems going into place week of January 20
It will be a system that scans photo IDs and checks them against the sex offender list.
Every parent will be required to bring and present a photo ID of some sort if they wish to travel through the building.
Once scanned, the system will provide us information, and also print a sticky visitor sticker with their picture, name, and where they are headed.
It will be very important for parents to also stop by the office check out before they leave. We will continue to escort visitors throughout the building.
Please, if you are walking a visitor/parent/etc out of the building-bring them through the front to leave the building. Do not let them exit through a side door because it might be closer to their car. We will be checking them out through the computer each time so that it logs them out.
Nuts-n-Bolts:
*Announcements are uploaded and ready to go-Kim McN's a.m. kids continue for this week (next week Sarah J)
*Art in the Office January: Kim McNally (February: Shandi)
*If you are willing, we are still in need of some volunteers to help with childcare on Wednesday from 2:00-3:00 over the next 6 weeks. The sign up sheet is on my window outside my office. We are looking for 2 each week to help with this.
*Websites were due to be updated by end of the day January 17. Please email me to let me know you have done this.
*January book shelving duty: Caiti
Speech and Language Tip of the Week:
Do a quick check to see how well your kids can state simple opposite pairs. You can say the first word and see if your kids can state the opposite word (up/down, fast/slow, big/little, boy/girl, awake/asleep, stand up/sit down, clean/dirty, hot/cold, tall/short, etc.). Kids always enjoy acting out opposites so you may want to give that a try. Using different activities/strategies when learning skills is often helpful with helping kids learn and retain new information.
Fine Motor Tip of the Week:
Just a reminder of how helpful Cool Move is for our students:
Cool Move incorporates all 3 “power senses” that Cari Ebert talked about in her presentation to us. It provides tactile, vestibular, and proprioceptive sensory experiences- the systems that are the foundation to a child’s central nervous system and critical for learning.