Wildcat Weekly
December 2, 2019
Our Promise
Every student in Dallas School District is known by name, strength, and need, and graduates ready for career, college, and community.
The Mini-Rube Returns With Its 4th Annual DeSTEAMber Challenge!
Happy December! I hope you all had a restful break and look forward to the next three weeks of goodness!
A few years ago we had an idea to change the way we looked at the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas Break. At the time we also were wanting to highlight deeper learning practices and found that we could create a sense of excitement for creative learning and in a sense use the energy in our building in our favor!
The Mini-Rube is a take-off of a Rube Goldberg competition... just mini. We give teams the opportunity to compete in a fun way! For those students that volunteer, they will have the next three weeks to complete the task and submit their video presentation to me which then goes out to judges around the country who help select the overall winners who are then celebrated at an all-school assembly when we return in January. Watching our teams get recognized for their creative work is quite impressive!
Recently, I ran into a post by John Spencer who has been really influential in the work that we have done here at LaCreole as far as our Maker Movement and Project-Based Learning. I have attached the blog below for you to peruse, but it really resonated with me about the importance of giving kids the opportunity to tinker, fail and learn in a playful way. This is why the Mini-Rube was created, having fun with simple household/schoolhold items to create a simple machine that completes a seemingly simple task... seems simple right? Maybe but 'tis fraught with many unforeseen learning opportunities for kids to overcome, but they do because they can't distinguish the learning from play. Brilliant!
I love this time of the year and love this project! Kids who want to participate just need to register and get their video presentation to me by December 20th.
Please promote this project to your students. Here is the link for kids get registered: https://forms.gle/149SCtLKbGEHnk4a6
All the information that is needed can be found in our Google Classroom (see code below).
Thanks for all you do!
Glad you're here!
Last Year's Top Mini-Rube Submissions
We are Character Strong!
Extended Advisory: Advisory Grade 6 (Year One Track)
12/5/19 - Relationship Skills #1
Objectives:
- Students will reflect on their own character and identify ways they could improve it.
- To help the class quickly learn about each other through observing commonalities.
- To develop an open atmosphere of communication and sharing.
- To build confidence in students’ ability to speak in front of a group.
Staff Character Dare
Coming Up On Our Calendar
12/3 - Tuesday - Early Release Schedule
12/5 - Thursday - Extended Advisory - Morning Assembly Schedule
Coming Up In PLC
December
12/3 - Character Strong - Temperature Check, First Quarter Adjustments
12/10 - Content Area
12/17 - EdCamp Wildcat
PD in your PJs is coming up!
Wakelet Tool!
Remember to use our hashtag #lacreolerocks when sharing!