Bobcat Bulletin
October 12, 2015
Dear FSS staff,
- Conferences seemed to go very well. Many of you shared how nice it was to connect with so many families. I hope you will follow up with the families that did not attend. These are the the students that need this connection from us.
- Mini PD will begin tomorrow. We have set aside one Monday a month for short inservice based on trends or needs. Please complete the survey the TOSAS sent you to help guide us. We will entice you with chocolate and pay?
- Lexia and Dreambox are in full usage. This is a wonderful way to fill gaps and also allow you to pull small reteach groups in ELA and math. Hopefully you share these two programs with families for homework so their prescribed time can be met. Pete, the Lexia trainer, will be on campus on Oct 27th for individual or group training. Let me know if you need a sub and we will cover you for a 40 min block of time. You may sign up to meet with him during your PE as well.
- Locking up is going well. Continue to give a student leader the jobs of flag, blinds, lock-block... and shutting down devices on Fridays.
- Birthdays are a topic I have avoided. This is a tradition that make kids and parents happy, but we must consider our paramount goal of educating our students and the amount of instructional time these parties take from our day. They also create a divide with students that will never have a party at school. PLEASE communicate this in your next newsletter. Feel free to celebrate birthdays with singing happy birthday, a student of the day recognition, reading a special birthday book/poem/song, each student writing a special birthday message/book... There will be no more class parties for birthdays and cupcakes/treats. You may chose two parties a year- halloween, Christmas, Valentines or end of the year. We must discourage the cupcakes and parent planned parties... these need to happen at home. Make me the bad guy! But please communicate this message before the next set of cupcakes and balloons show up and in the office and we turn them away. That never goes well. This will be a hard change for some families and not so much for others. Our instructional tasks this year are daunting. We need every minute we can get. I know you understand!
- Newletters have or will go home this week. Please be sure to send a copy to the office. We refer to them often. They should be filled with content/standards being taught, upcoming school/grade level events, themes being taught, needs you might have, donations you might need, grade level celebration or accomplishments, homework updates...
Hope you have a wonderful week!
Stephenie
Instructional Focus:
Securing Students Attention: Heard some very creative ones this week, Teacher-"flat tire?" Students "Shhhhh!" and Teacher-"A ghost says Boooo!" Students- "Boooo!"
Changing them up, using them in the same location each time and waiting for complete attention will ensure they are all with your for your next set of directions.
Engagement:Pull stick and pull cards are being use universally. This practice puts urgency in students to stay connected and ready to answer. AB partners allows them a chance to practice before they are prepared to answer.
Lexia and Dreambox: This helps support Standards based instruction. Find ways to get them on the intended usage time recommended.
Curricular Alignment: When walking thru its easy to see the PLC's that planned together. Planning together allows for all students in a grade level to receive similar instruction and more brains together planning is better.
Continued Refinement:
Intentional seat work: Finding practice activities for students is hard. Finding practice activities that are not worksheets that reinforce the lowest level of learning, recall, is really hard. We need to continue to intentionally find and provide work for students that promotes deeper critical thinking and less low level recall. Think Blooms Taxonomy. We will work more with Depth of Knowledge on Wednesday which is similar to Blooms. This is a practice that will help us analyze "tasks" we are asking students to do. Authentic writing on a blank sheet paper where students design the graphic organizer, make a list, write a letter... is a much deeper level of application than recall on a work sheet. All students should have a journal to write in.
Week Ahead:
Tech TOSA
2nd to UCI
2nd vision and hearing
Mini PD ELD with BJ room 1
6:00pm DELAC
10/13
Lunch on the Lawn
1:00 Admin to PC
10/14
1:30 Leadership Team room 1
2:00 Staff Dev room 1
10/15
Karl's class to public library
10:15 Great American Shake Out-Earthquake focus
2:30 Lighthouse team meeting
10/16
?
Begin with the end in mind!
October is Habit 2
ELA WIG: All Fallbrook Street students will meet their individual reading goal by June 2016.
K-2nd- will track this progress using fluency.
3-6th- will track this progress using the STAR IRL assessments. We want students to go up a grade level from their initial baseline IRL and below grade level students up a level and a half.
This involves knowing their current fluency K-2 and IRL 3-6 level and personally meeting with each student to help them set their reading goals.
Please have these up by the end of the week.