Monday Mail
Mashburn Elementary
A Message from Our Principal
Our Blue Bear Awards are getting a new look this year! We want our special Blue Bear recipients to be celebrated in a very special way. The Blue Bear Awards will now honor two student from each class who have shown one of the components of SPARK. This ceremony will be a breakfast with parents invited and it will take place from 7:45-8:30.
Our first Blue Bear Award ceremony is Friday, Oct. 11th. To assist, please choose two students, a boy and a girl, from your class who have shown ACCOUNTABILITY this year. Please let Gini Kieffer know your Blue Bear Award recipient by Thursday, Oct. 4th so she can invite the parents.
Thank you for helping us make this so special for our Blue Bears!
Talk About It Tuesday Schedule
All meetings will take place in the conference room unless told otherwise.
Oct. 2nd- Keenville 1st and 2nd/ GA Milestone 3/4/5 & K- ARC
Everyone should attend.
Oct. 9th- Gifted/Advanced Learners Instructional Strategies
All homeroom teachers should attend
Oct. 16th-Instructional Strategies/ARC - (Michelle Slaton) ESOLI
Everyone should attend.
Fall Conference Schedule (EL, LEP-M)
The conference schedules for our English Learners, Monitor students, and families needing interpretation can be found on the Mashburn Team Drive.
There are 3 schedules: Cowart, DeLoach, and an Interpreter. Martha and I will meet in our rooms. We have not determined where the separate interpreter for families not in the ESOL program, but needing interpretation will meet. Due to our numbers we will start on Monday, October 15th, Wednesday, and Thursday. We tried to group families, work around SSTs and IEPs. If you see an issue, just let us know.
To access the schedules:
Go to Mashburn Team Drive>ESOL>Conferences>2018-2019
For our new teachers, you will make your Sign Up Genius for the rest of your class around this schedule. Let us know if we can help.
Action Item:
Visit the Mashburn Taam Drive-ESOL- Conferences-2018-2019 to sign for conferences with Deloach, Cowart, or the Interpreter.
Two Stray, One Stray Strategy!
This collaborative strategy gets students moving around the room while working with classmates to solve problems and answer questions. This also allows all students the opportunity to “be the teacher,” which students love to do. As students talk about their ideas and thinking process with others, it helps them develop a deeper understanding of the concepts at hand.
Arrange students into groups of three and assign each student a number, either: 1, 2, or 3. Then assign a letter to each group.
2. AssignGive all groups the same assignment. This could be a task to perform, a problem to solve, or a question to discuss. Tell the students that after a certain amount of time, they will each be going to another group to share how their response to the assignment. Every group member needs to be able to talk about their response.
3. MoveAfter groups have had their chance to formulate their response (adjust according to the task performed), have all students who were numbered 1 stand up. They will rotate to the group next to them. For example, Student #1 in Group A will move to Group B and Student #1 in Group B will move to Group C. Then, have all students who were numbered 2 stand up. They will rotate two groups. For example, Student #2 in Group A will move to Group C and Student #2 in Group B will move to Group D. Student #3 stays in his or her original position.
4. InterviewIn their new groups, students interview one another about how their completed the assignment. Everyone should take notes and prepare to take the new ideas back to their own original group.
5. Return and ShareAfter five to ten minutes (depending on the complexity of the assignment), all students return to their original groups. As the original group of three, they will each share what they learned from the other groups they worked with.
*For elementary, “One Stray” is an easier strategy to grasp. Instead of 2 people leaving the group, only one does.
Check out how this teacher uses Two Stray, One Stay as a way to engage her students!
Nearpod Change
You probably noticed that we had to change the Nearpod student app to go to nearpod.com instead of nearpod.com/students. For some reason the Nearpod lesson wasn’t loading after plugging in the code on nearpod.com/students unless the browser was refreshed. The biggest change is that the session code box will be at the top of the screen and is smaller.
I have another Nearpod Introduction Training THIS Thursday, Oct. 4th and would love for you to check it out if you haven't already been to a training. It is a very easy to use and beneficial program. Katie Colson put together a little video from the last training. Check out how much fun we had! Thanks Katie for putting this together!!!