Elementary Curriculum News
May 2016 Edition
Teacher Appreciation Week
~ Steve Droke
Great Money/Financial Literacy Resource from Mitch Bickman
Free Book Resource: Storyline Online
Homework: Let's Keep Reading and Talking!
A Great Summer Resource for Families - Let them know!
DaybyDayNY is an online virtual calendar designed for families with young children to encourage a love of books and learning that will last a lifetime.
DaybyDayNY.org has been updated for 2016. Please visit the site and view the One More Story ebook, links to entertaining arts and crafts, directions and locations of museums, and helpful information on living a healthy lifestyle. Also, be sure to visit the newly redesigned and translated Spanish language page.
DaybyDayNY.org is an important component of Ready to Read at New York Libraries, a statewide program from the New York State Library designed to help library staff further enhance and expand their early literacy services and programs.
Book Talk Scheduled for Tuesday, June 7th
Bookstore co-owner, Peggy Zieran, gave us book talks for other middle-grades literature, and we selected our next read, The Thing About Jellyfish, by Ali Benjamin. This book also comes recommended by Ivy Cibrano, 6th grade teacher at School #8.
All are welcome to join us for our next middle-grades book club meeting:
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
3:30 - 4:30pm
Turn of the Corkscrew Books and Wine
110 N Park Ave, Rockville Centre, NY 11570
Bring a middle-grades book to recommend for summer reading!
Hope to see you there!
Residencies: May
Jessica Keegan's May Residencies:
#2 - Friday 5/6
#3 - Monday 5/9
#4 - Friday 5/13
#5 - Thursday 5/12 (Change of Date)
#6 - Friday 5/20
#8 - Tuesday 5/24
#9e - Friday 5/27
Teach Teams PD Opportunities for 2016/2017
From Beth Zirogiannis:
Many of you participated in a unique professional learning opportunity this year by forming a Teach Team to earn all or part of your 6 non-mandated PDP hours. You had the opportunity to “choose your own adventure” with your colleagues by engaging in reflective teaching practices through the use of our private online platform through Teaching Channel. The feedback has been extremely positive.
Through one of the “adventure plans” teachers are able to earn their hours by recording parts of lessons they were already planning to teach and sharing it with their Teach Team colleagues, giving feedback to their Team members on a shared lesson, sharing resources to enhance instruction, and making use of Teaching Channel’s extensive video library. Bonus: You can earn most of your hours while wearing your pajamas!
Really great choice for those in need of a flexible schedule with PDPs.
Take advantage of this opportunity to enhance your own professional practice and to learn from your colleagues by choosing a Teach Team adventure for the 2016/2017 school year. Reminder: Teachers in the mentoring program may choose a Teach Team option in lieu of mentoring in years 3 and 4 of their mentoring commitment.
Next year there will be five “Choose Your Own Adventure” options:
Novice 101 - Teach Teams for Beginners
Advanced 201 - Teach Teams for Experienced Teaching Channel Users
Self-Reflection 301 - Work Independently to Reflect on Your Own Practice
Cross-Teams 401 - Work With a Teacher Who Uses Teaching Channel in Another District
Writing Initiative Team 501 - Collaborate With Your Grade-Level Colleagues About Writing Instruction
(Please note: In the 2016/17 school year all teachers will be a part of a grade-level teach team to view Randi’s recorded lessons. This option is in addition to that basic level of participation to earn your non-mandated PDP hours - more specific details to follow.)
Please contact Beth Z if you have any specific questions. You can register for a teach team option in the fall, but can start considering it now.
Humans of Oceanside
- Brennan
It's fun, but it's learning at the same time. I read one, I found it interesting, and wanted to do my own, and we were reading about Lewis and Clark, so I did a deep question about them, and it had to be answered in the deepest details possible. It was mostly math, but social studies too.
- Juliana
Our new project is about cells. We used Juliana's on Lewis and Clark to learn from. We were thinking about things that we like to do and that would be interesting to learn about more. We thought of windmill turbines, cells, and the flowers and pollination. We picked cells and Mrs. Lucas approved. Our question was find three different cells in your body that are important and write the percentage it takes up in the body. Mrs. Lucas recommended calculating as a decimal and a percentage.
- Brennan
We are going to have Mrs. Lucas show it to the class and have them solve the problems.
- Ava
- Zoey
- Rowan