Conquistador Corner
Arroyo Seco Junior High School -- October 4, 2019
Staff Stuff
Thank you to Lesley and Amanda and the Culture Group for their contribution this week on LEAD Bucks and Kindness. Thank you to everyone who has participated in the Kindness challenge. Keep distributing LEAD bucks! We plan to do our first raffle drawing on the October 14th Monday Minute. Thank you, as always, to Rachael for her Weekly Wellness.
No school on Monday. Hopefully you have the opportunity to relax, recharge, and spend time with family and friends. Have a great 3 day weekend!
Upcoming Events
October 7: One Day Fall Break (no school)
October 9: Late Start schedule -- Department collaboration
October 9: Author Visit in Library
October 10: SSA training
October 11: Vision Screening minimum day
October 16: Late Start schedule -- Teacher Work Day
October 17: CA Shakeout Earthquake Drill
October 18: End Quarter 1
October 23: Late Start schedule -- Individual PD
October 30: Late Start schedule -- Department collaboration
Question of the Week
Here is a link to the latest Question of the Week: https://forms.gle/qw5VL8LzzNsqjRnq5
Claudia Lopez -- Classified Employee of the Year
Seco's Peyton Marquez named honorary co-captain at Washington Huskies football game
You've got to watch the video. Sorry Trojan fans. Peyton helped inspire the Huskies to victory. Congratulations, Peyton, and thank you for your ongoing demonstration of what it means to LEAD.
LEAD: School Culture
The Kindness Challenge has kicked off and will be going until October 30th. Students and staff are encouraged to participate. Challenge participants should initial their cards indicating the challenges they complete and complete the reflection piece on the back of the card. For the reflection piece, students should pick their three favorite or most rewarding challenges and write a few sentences about their experience on the back of the card. Completed cards can be turned in on October 30th or 31st for a prize. Challenge cards can be picked up from any elective teacher on campus. All staff should have received their cards in their staff mailboxes. Have fun with the challenge and help us promote kindness on campus!
A big component of kindness is being tolerant of people who are different than you. A great website for tolerance resources and lessons is listed below.
https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/student-tasks
LEAD Bucks
Be sure to hand out those LEAD Bucks if you catch a student doing something awesome! You can reward them for following anything on the LEAD Matrix too. Students can turn in their LEAD bucks to a campus supervisor for a raffle ticket; the raffle buckets are in front of the ASB window ready to go. Four LEAD bucks equal a dollar at the student store too! See the prize list for more details and information.
Kindness Links Us Together
An activity for the classroom to help emphasize Kindness is Kindness Links Us Together. You can download the link below and copy the third page of this activity on to colored paper, cut them out, and have students write about one person they were kind to. Link them all together and hang it up in your classroom. The document is editable in Adobe Acrobat if you want it to say something different. A simple but fun activity.
Students will write something like this on their link: Mindy Lu showed kindness to Alex by picking up his trash or Mindy Lu showed kindness to Alex by helping him with his homework.
Here is the link:
Math Practice & Speaking and Listening Standards
Thank you Lise for showing off a multitude of Math Practice and Speaking and Listening Standards during the visit from LACOE this week! Below is a picture that depicts students doing an inductive learning activity to help them build a deeper understanding about the constant of proportionality.
Here are two articles with a few other ideas of how to meet the goal of 70/30 (70% student talk to 30% teacher talk):
https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/8-ways-teachers-can-talk-less-get-kids-talking/
https://www.edutopia.org/article/9-strategies-getting-more-students-talk
Great job Lise!
Weekly Wellness
October's habit is “Be Here Now” and the disposition is Humor.
Learning to be in the present moment, without judging it, boosts our resilience. It can allow us to feel accepting and clearheaded about our options for response. When we are fully present, we’re more likely to find appropriate levity to moments of challenge and to relieve stress by finding humor in a situation.
As we move into fall, our energy wanes, and we’re triggered more easily. Learning to be in the present moment enables us to cultivate awareness of our emotions and make choices that foster our resilience.
This month, reflect on your mindfulness and ability to be in the moment. Do you know how to practice mindfulness? When you experience a strong emotion or are faced with someone else’s strong emotion, are you able to use mindful practices to help you respond with intention? Do you use mindfulness to determine how you want to interpret your experiences? Do you know the neuroscience that validates mindfulness?
One way to practice mindfulness this month is to sit down for a few minutes each day, close your eyes and observe your emotions, breath, and other senses in the moment. Practice just being in the moment, without judgment. - Elena Aguilar
Check out this article about how mindfulness and meditation can actually change the brain:
Arroyo Seco Junior High School
Email: akeyne@hartdistrict.org
Website: www.arroyosecojuniorhigh.org
Phone: 661-296-0991