Staff Weekly Update
For the Week of: April 25th, 2016
Let's gear up to show our appreciation for Alison and Jen this Wednesday!
Honoring Muff, Diane, and Deb!
- Monday, May 9th
- 4:00 - 5:30
- SGE Cafe
- It will be an afternoon to celebrate these three lovely ladies and WONDERFUL educators!!
Field Day!
- Friday, May 20th
- Dad's Club will organize this event for THIS YEAR ONLY.
- Next year, our new Wellness Teacher will take the lead with the Dad's Club acting as support.
End of School Year Party!
- ALL SGE Staff are invited by the Joy Club!
- Please keep this to *staff only*
- Location: Home of Jessica Luchenbill
- Thursday, May 26th - as soon as students depart!
- We will also be celebrating our "Three Babies and a Wedding!
Tuesday Take-Away: DEALING WITH TEACHER STRESS!
This Take-Away is devoted to things you can do to take care of yourself!
- Prioritize - It seems that everything is demanding our attention and everything is TOP priority. Prioritize those things that absolutely have to be done, and focus on completing the next thing. That awesome idea you saw on Pinterest that you wanted to try might need to wait until next year. And that is ok.
- Mind your monkeys - The saying goes, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” However, when people under stress are together in one spot, sometimes that stress can spread. When you feel yourself getting pulled into a situation that is causing you stress but really doesn’t concern you, take a step back. Mind your own monkeys. Be the keeper of your circus.
- Make a Plan, don’t just admire the problem - When difficult situations arise, it is easy to get stuck just thinking about the problem in an endless cycle. I once heard this described as “admiring the problem”. Stop and focus on how that problem can be solved, who can help, and what supports are needed.
- FIDO: Forget It and Drive On - When something negative or stressful happens to us, we can get stuck in a loop thinking about the incident, reliving it over and over. We need to break that cycle and move on to the next thing. I once heard a speaker who had faced a number of huge adversities say that this was the secret to him getting through life. If something bad happens, when it’s over, forget it and drive on. Leave the past in the past. Look to the future.
- Exercise - Exercise is truly good medicine and a great stress reliever. You don’t have to join a gym to get the benefits from exercise. A walk in the park or in the neighborhood with a friend is good for your body and your soul.
- Laugh deeply and often - I love to hear babies laugh from their bellies, and it always makes me think that adults don’t often do that. Laughing can have much the same effect on a person as exercise. Laughter is therapeutic.
- Celebrate success - Take time to recognize the good things you do. Look back through your file of positive notes from former students and parents. Lots of good things happen in your life. Celebrate them.
- Focus on the positive, and smile - The simple act of genuinely smiling has been shown to improve your mood as well as the mood of those around you. Focusing on maintaining a positive outlook can also help your brain make pathways that help you be a more positive person.
- Sleep- I think we can safely say that teachers don't get enough sleep. Between grading and planning at home and balancing that with family responsibilities, sleep is often the first thing to go as we look to get more done. However, being well rested can make a huge difference in our day. We can better focus on tasks, be alert when challenging situations arise, and have more patience and kindness with others. Even 20-30 minutes more sleep per night can have great cumulative effects.
- Seek support- When life gets overwhelming, find a trusted friend or colleague that you can confide in. Sharing your burdens makes them lighter, and a friend can offer a different perspective on the situation.
When you create a Blendspace lesson, you can pull in videos from YouTube, websites, pictures, EduCreations lessons, Flickr images, or links and images from Google. You can import from Gooru, OpenEd, Dropbox, or Google Drive. AND you can always upload your own files, like PowerPoints or resources housed on your own computer. Pretty much any resource you can imagine or that you would pull together to share can be embedded into a Blendspace lesson. But that's not all . . .
Blendspace also gives you the ability to add in multiple choice quizzes into your lessons so that your lessons are more than just sharing info - it helps you assess students on what they're learning right alongside the content. When you create a quiz, select the correct answer (if applicable), and then Blendspace can even auto grade your assessments for you, too. I see flipped classroom teachers flipping over the ability to put in websites or video clips and immediately follow up with questions before moving on to the next piece. And while the quiz feature of Blendspace is limited to a multiple choice question format, don't forget that since you can pull from Google Drive, that means you COULD create a Google Form with deeper, more open-ended questions and include that in your lesson as well.
Source: From the I Heart Ed Tech Blog, December 2013
Click here to read her entire post!
She is a teacher at Carmel Middle School and was an Instructional Technology Specialist but now a classroom teacher.
John Wolf (DOE) creates a Literacy Focus of the Month using TES Blendspace. Check it out below!
Here are our beautiful birthday friends for April 2016!
*If you are NEW and we do not have your birthdate, please email Alison so we can recognize you on your special day! Thank you!*
April
2 - Pam Anyaebuman
7 - Muff Biber
14 - Leslie Frobig
19 - Carrie Williamson
20 - Rhonda Munz
23 - Joe Budd
25 - Paula Marine
2015-2016 Lifelines
August - Cooperation
September - Respect
October - Flexibility
November - Gratitude
December - Generosity
January - Responsibility
February - Friendship
March - Perseverance
April - Self-Control
May - Integrity7-Day Forecast: Possibly Some Indoor Recess This Week!
I just *HAD* to share . . .
I went to visit them on Sunday morning to check over mail and help pay a few bills. I noticed two things I could not ignore . . .