Pow Wow Principal's Press
12/8/2017
Accountability
It’s time for us to get SUPER ACCOUNTABLE!
We’re prepared to make 2 years of growth this year for every single Little Indian, so we need to keep our urgency through the upcoming Holiday Season.
With some of the changes taking place for 2nd semester, Here are the expectations for each grade level:
Our coaches WILL still be coming to planning for your designated day each week. In order to make that the most meaningful experience, we are requesting that grade chairs send the lesson plan on Wednesday for the upcoming week, per the union requirement that lesson plans be done one week prior to teaching. This can give them time to prepare a modeling or ask some follow up questions to ensure that we are teaching to the rigor of the standard. Please hold each other professionally accountable to collaborative planning, as there is time designated each day to prepare lessons. THat time is not mandated by administration, so you are able to utilize it to meet the needs of your classroom. Please also remember that each team member is responsible for keeping record of their lessons to submit at the end of the year, as not all teachers are following the pacing on the exact same day.
For ELA and MATH planning, we strongly suggest that you use the scaffolded learning scales that are provided by the District. This will allow each team to ensure that there are lessons and activities planned to meet the foundation level of the standard and continue towards mastery of the standard. Please make sure lesson plans are detailed; utilizing the Leann framework to the extent and integrity of the form. It includes the standard, learning target for the day, formative assessment to show “evidence” of the learning, criteria for success, how students receive feedback, differentiation strategies, and what data will be used to determine how to differentiate as best practice.
Coaches will be pulling groups out for grades 3-5 and working directly with students next semester to help push our students towards Standards Mastery, this will lower class sizes during RTI so you can provide a strong deliberate focus as well, based on student data.
Please don’t forget that we will have our DATA chats next Monday. Kelly Baysura, Elementary District Curriculum Director will be running our data chat meeting next week. We are eager to see her approach, as the staff moved her school from an “F” to one point away from an “A,” during the time that she was Principal at Treasure Coast Elementary. Please ensure that your team arrives on time and that they bring their data monitoring forms and student folders to the meeting.
We will be doing walk-throughs next week as a leadership team. Just a reminder, this is what we're looking for:
Visions of Sugar Plums: Keeping Kids on Track Before the Holidays
“Twas the weeks before Christmas, when all through the school
Every creature was stirring, which was the general rule:
Our books were shoved in our desks without care,
In hopes that vacation soon would be here:
The children were active to a great height
With visions of sugar plums, and no end in sight.”
The time between the end of October and winter break can be an especially exhausting and trying time during the school year for both teachers and students. Most think that when students get “visions of sugarplums” dancing in their heads, that both academic and social and emotional learning slows down or stops, taking a back seat to the upcoming holidays. But that doesn’t have to be the case if you keep the following suggestions in mind.
1. Maintain a consistent schedule as much as possible.
Students of all ages and abilities are more likely to be successful when their school day follows a predictable pattern. For most teachers, maintaining a consistent schedule is fairly easy throughout August and September. However, once October and November roll around there can be many interruptions to disrupt a typical school day. Special parties or events, practices and performances of holiday programs, and the occasional day off school due to inclement weather are just a few of the many distractions that can occur. Keeping your schedule as close to “normal” as possible helps students stay on track both academically and behaviorally. When your schedule has the potential to or does go off track, be sure to prepare your students ahead of time. Just knowing that the school day may not flow normally may help alleviate stress and anxiety in students that are affected adversely by an unpredictable day.
2. Continue with rigorous academic learning.
Sometimes it seems there is never enough time to teach students everything they need to know. Even though days in school and schedules are disrupted, it is important to keep a momentum of rigorous learning. Time constraints and student engagement can vary significantly during this time of year. However, this is not a valid reason to disrupt productive and purposeful learning. Instead, you may need to chunk academic learning. One strategy that may help is to present students with smaller amounts of academic content, but give them more time to process, practice and apply learning.
3. Continue with rigorous social and emotional learning.
Now is a great time to assess the progress your students have made learning appropriate social skills. Recognize and celebrate strengths. Reteach and practice challenges. This time of year also provides excellent opportunities for teachers to help students refine previously-taught skills, enhance and advance skills already taught, and learn new social skills. Perhaps you may have to reteach skills your students have previously been successful with. It is not unusual for students who have other things on their minds to “forget” how to follow instructions or stay on task. Perhaps you can enhance and advance skills by teaching students how to apply skills in new and different settings. It is possible that getting an adult’s attention might look different when students are outside of their classroom and dealing with an adult that is not their teacher. And finally, perhaps new situations may arise that may provide an opportunity to teach a new skill. Maybe you have taught your students how to greet others and now you find they need instruction on how to say good-bye to guests who have come to visit. All of this can be done in those moments when you have a few minutes to fill when your schedule does change. Use our free lesson plan on code switching to help students apply social skills to new situations.
4. Praise students when they do the right thing.
Too often during this stressful time of the year, it’s easy to fall back on old habits. Adults tend to revert back to correcting more than they are praising, and students can tend to revert back to inappropriate behaviors that served them well in the past. Take heart that this is usually just a temporary set-back. Here at Boys Town we recommend four positives for every correction. It may be a good idea to increase that ratio in order to consistently prompt students to apply appropriate behavior skills they have learned. Of course, don’t wait for them to be perfect before you praise! Praising approximations of desired behaviors can be very powerful. Get more tips on praise here!
And don’t forget to enjoy the excitement and enthusiasm of your students. Doing so may help to continue building those strong positive teacher and student relationships. Take the time to share and revel in the delights that your students experience. After all, it is truly the “most wonderful time of the year.”
Our #VBEVIP is Ms. Finley! Enjoy your special parking spot, and keep making those nominations on Twitter!
Updates from Ms. Keeley
Science Fair Winners
Class Winners K-3
Kindergarten - Ms. Martin's Class
First Grade - Ms. Barth's Class
Second Grade - Mrs. Cisneros' Class
Third Grade - Ms. Norwood's Class
Group Winners 4-5
Fourth Grade -
1st Place - Ms Kincus - Colorful Candles
2nd Place - Mr. Trumble - Bust the Rust Pretreating
3rd Place - Ms. Kincus - Terrific Temperatures
4th Place - Ms. Craner - Ice Cubes
5th Place - Ms. Kincus - Wick Races
Fifth Grade
1st Place - Mrs. Fiori - Climate Change
2nd Place - Mrs. Patterson - Heat Capacity: Water v. Oil
3rd Place - Mrs. Patterson- Solubility...That is the Question
4th Place - Mrs. Berwick - Ice vs. Salt
5th Place - Mrs. Fiori - Rub It the Wrong Way
I will keep the science fair boards of the winning projects and will pull those students in January to tweak their boards and practice presentations. Permission slips will go home with the presenters shortly.
Thank you for making the science fair a huge success!! The judges were very complementary on how the projects/boards/presentation skills have increased over last year.
Ozobots and Beebots
I have a sign out sheet for these. Please let me know if you would like to use them. I will need to know the check out date and when you will be returning them.
Updates from Ms. Riddick
I have enjoyed by first week back being welcomed by faces old and new. The abundant hugs are heartwarming.
Visiting classrooms and learning everyone's routine will help me in efforts to assist you more efficiently with instruction and giving our students what they need. Also, I will be getting into one drive and looking over our plans for next week. If you need anything please do not hesitate to ask.
Updates from Ms. Ragley
Fact Fluency and Why it is important
Fact Fluency - we mean knowing a fact with automaticity. Very much like a student knowing sight words without thinking about them.....this is how we want students to know their math facts. The FIRST step to fact fluency is having a strong conceptual understanding of the fact strategies (doubles, doubles +1, using combinations of 10,etc.)
Shout out to 3rd grade - Multiplication Fact Fluency Challenge
Tribal Phonics January 23-March 22
VBE will be launching " Tribal Phonics" in January. The Tribal Phonics after-school program will focus on sight word instruction. All instructional materials will be provided to you.
Our little Indians need you!!! Please email Vanessa Gonzalez if you would like to be an instructor or for any questions. Have a great day!!
Kagan Strategy of the Week - AllRecord Consensus
PD Opportunities
FDLRS will offer two (2) online Professional Development Alternatives, FREE to all educators in Martin, Indian River, Okeechobee and St. Lucie Counties:
Differentiating Reading Instruction for Students: Making It Explicit
January 10, 2018 through April 25, 2018
60 In-service Credits
https://goo.gl/forms/tEOtoAiRycyRlNa82
Differentiating Science Instruction
January 31, 2018 through April 18, 2018
30 In-service Credits
https://goo.gl/forms/zXOMCz1zIuCL09Lr2
To register for these modules, click the links above. Please contact Lynda.Ledlow@stlucieschools.org with any questions or further information.