The Tinc Times
Volume 4 Issue 7
October 16, 2020
Calendar of Events
Fri, Oct 9-Thur, Oct 22 Virtual Book Fair
Friday, October 16 School Photo Day Cohort A
Mon, Oct 19-Fri, Oct 23 Red Ribbon Week: Wear something red every day
Monday, October 26 BOE meeting @ MOMS 6:30pm
Friday, October 30 Halloween celebrations
Mon, Nov 2-Wed, Nov 4 Virtual Parent-Teacher Conferences (full days of school)
Tuesday, November 3 Fully Virtual Day
Thu, Nov 5-Fri, Nov 6 No School: NJEA Convention
Monday, November 9 BOE meeting @ MOMS 6:30pm
Wednesday, November 18 School Photo Retakes
Monday, November 23 BOE meeting @ MOMS 6:30pm
Wed, Nov 25-Fri, Nov 27 No School: Thanksgiving Recess
Cohort Weeks
Helpful Reminders
- Please be sure your child brings their laptop to school fully charged each day.
- Please send your child in with 2 clean masks each day.
- Please know that we take attendance in the morning, and mark whether or not students leave class early. If your child is having difficulty connecting to a class, please let your child's teacher know so we do not mark them absent.
- Please send your child to school with a water bottle.
- Please send in a note if your child is not being dismissed from school according to the original plan.
- Please remind your children to mute themselves when not speaking. It will help teachers present their material without competing sounds.
Thank you!!
Halloween
All elementary schools will be celebrating Halloween on Friday, October 30th. Students are encouraged to wear costumes, whether in-person or virtually. Teachers will hold classroom celebrations that follow social distance guidelines. They will plan Halloween-related activities including songs, crafts, spooky stories, Halloween books/poems for their classrooms. In addition, Mr. Lipson will be scheduling virtual grade-level assemblies where he will do a special read-aloud with the children, as well as facilitate fun games for all students to take part in.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, no food or parades will be allowed this year. However, classroom teachers will communicate with parents on ways that the students at home can present and share their costumes with the rest of the class.
************************************************************************************************
Costume Guidelines
- Students should arrive to school with their costumes on. Due to social-distancing guidelines, they will not be allowed to get changed in the bathroom.
- Please consider safety and developmental appropriateness when choosing a costume for your child. If he/she is wearing a mask, make sure he/she can see well enough to walk safely. Check that costumes do not trail on the ground.
- All students will still need to wear a CDC-approved mask at all times, even if their costume includes a mask.
- Our children should not wear or bring a toy weapon of any kind as part of their costume, such as plastic guns, swords, knives, etc.
- Avoid any costumes that drip fake blood or that would cause fear for younger Tinc peers.
Teacher of the Year
Do you know a classroom teacher or educational services professional who is dedicated, inspiring, and making a difference? If so, please take the time to recommend this person for the NJ Department of Education Governor’s Educator of the Year!
Please fill out and submit the attached nomination form or return the paper copy you receive in your child's folder by Fri, Nov 13. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Mr. Lipson scott.lipson@motsd.org
PTO News
Our book fair is 100% virtual this year! Books make great gifts and encourage a child's love of learning. Check out the virtual book fair here https://bit.ly/TRSBookFair Feel free to share this link with family and friends. Proceeds from the book fair help us purchase things like scholastic magazines for the students as well as books for the classrooms. All orders shipped direct to you with free shipping on book orders $25+.
****Virtual Room Parents Needed! ****
Don't know how to party virtually?
We have lots of ideas to share with you to help you get started.
Sign up to help your student's teacher today!
https://forms.gle/QiG3uY8sBU9nhszD6
KidStuff SaveAround Coupon books are back AND there is an app for that! Books are filled with local and national coupons and come with an access code to unlock the app for 12 months! All orders are shipped directly to you. Books are available throughout the country, so share with your long distant relatives and friends! Use this link to purchase a book https://www.supportourgroups.com/GN/268426
For more information, see our parent letter here http://bit.ly/TincSaveAround
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please join our FB group, and follow us on twitter and Instagram to keep up with our latest news and events.
As always, we welcome your feedback. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, suggestions, or to let us know how we can provide support. We are in this together!
Tara Kovatch
PTO President
#TincRoadRocks
News from the Nurse
- Mask Requirements
- Pre-Screening Form
- Awareness of Symptoms
Real Time
Follow Mount Olive on Twitter!
Please sign up for Twitter and follow the district @MountOliveTSD,
Superintendent Dr. Zywicki @ZywickiR
and all of the Mount Olive schools for important and exciting information!
MOHS – @PrincipalMOHS
MOMS – @mtolivemiddle
CMS – @CMSmtolive
Mountain View – @MtView07836
Sandshore – @MOSandshore
Tinc Road – @tincroadschool
And check out all of Tinc Road's Twitter pages!!
Tinc Staff Spotlight
Kelli White
1st Grade Teacher
Personal Info:
Mrs. White is married and graduated from Ohio University.
Interests and/or hobbies:
Mrs. White enjoys hiking, golfing, traveling, baseball, and sports.
Favorites:
Favorite Food: Grapes
Favorite place to go: Guatemala
What makes a 'good' day at school?
"Singing, dancing, learning, and laughing!"
What would the students be surprised to find out about you?
Mrs. White has built 7 houses in Guatemala. She has also visited 25 of the 30 Major League Baseball stadiums.
What inspires you?
"People that are grateful for what they have."
If you couldn't be in education, what would you have wanted to do?
Nursing
Tinc in the News
Inside Remote Instruction
One teacher’s journey to make virtual learning as powerful as she can
Rebecca Hopler teaches her remote students while at her desk surrounded by several laptops. This mission control set-up allows the fourth grade teacher to quickly move in and out of small virtual workgroups engaged in different levels of coursework, while keeping her eye on everyone. It’s a ballet of engagement and personalized instruction similar to what she would do with a classroom full of real-life students learning in person.
Remote instruction poses unique instructional hurdles to approximate the in-school experience; student engagement is perhaps the tallest. For Hopler, engaging her remote students with active, meaningful, and thought-provoking lessons requires bringing all her 16-years of classroom experience and resourcefulness to bear.
“The planning for each day really starts a week in advance,” she said. “I look at the material we need to cover, then I start researching online, doing screenshots of informational websites, and getting digital ideas by looking at what other teachers have done in the virtual world. I’m always working a week out, gathering and planning since I am not working with curriculum that is geared towards virtual learning. So I always have to start from the ground up for every lesson, in every subject, for every day.”
Keeping students engaged
Hopler leverages technology to keep students continually interacting with subject content, usually on quick assignments throughout the school day. Remote instruction in which teachers are streaming live all day is new territory that requires a new way of thinking about engagement. During the course of the day you might see the fourth-graders creating interactive multimedia bulletin boards via Padlet.com, dragging and dropping movable icons to indicate their answers or choices, and typing in short answers on a digital worksheet. Anything that will keep kids doing, actively engaged in their own learning. And with a click of a button, the students can send their work to their teacher for review.
Through Pear Deck, an add-on to Google Slides, Hopler presents lessons that include quick knowledge checks to gauge student understanding on the fly. The students’ answers are immediately tabulated. The results can show many students correctly answered a math problem, for example, or have correctly identified the main idea of a paragraph from a list of multiple choices. Hopler can then use that data to identify the students who need more personalized instruction, perhaps in a small group, or she can re-teach the material to the entire class. Pear Deck can also be configured to allow students to draw their responses in illustration form.
Developing personal/interpersonal skills
This year, the district has continued its emphasis on social emotional learning to help students develop self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills. (Those are the five core areas identified by the state department of education as essential for positive school climate and healthy social development.) For students working remotely, physically separated from their classmates and teachers, the cultivation of these personal/interpersonal abilities requires special attention. Building relationships and developing the necessary social skills to communicate effectively with peers and work collaboratively are more difficult when dealing with just faces on a screen. While technology can link everyone together, it’s the role of the teacher to transcend the digital walls and make those individuals alone in their living rooms feel and function as a single classroom unit.
All the teachers in the building begin each day with a morning meeting devoted to developing various character traits and social skills. For Hopler, this time and the end-of-the-day checkout she conducts are crucial blocks to help her fourth-graders become better acquainted with each other and better acquainted with her.
The SEL lessons are centered around weekly themes that she chooses such as respect, responsibility, and empathy. Activities allow students to share their thoughts and feelings; however, building a classroom spirit of community and providing time for her to meaningfully bond with each student are equally important goals.
“My whole philosophy is to create a classroom family, whether we are virtual or not,” said Hopler. “That’s who I am. Developing those bonds and level of trust is key, particularly early on in the school year. When my students feel secure and happy, learning goes more smoothy. If they have a problem, they’re not afraid to come to me. With virtual learning, it’s even more important. I can’t give my kids a high-five or a hug, so I connect however I can.”
To make remote learning feel even more like actually attending school in person, Hopler created a virtual classroom over the summer. This emoji view of the front of a classroom grounds students in the familiar – and even includes an emoji Hopler, too. The virtual classroom serves as a portal which provides easy access to a wealth of digital resources such as the daily health screening form, e-books, links to informational websites, class assignments, SEL books and websites, a monthly calendar and specials schedule, enrichment activities, and a supply list.