The Gator Tales
The weekly staff newsletter for Glenwood Elementary School
Week of December 17
This week at Glenwood
Dec. 19- ALL Staff Meeting in LLC 3pm
Dec. 20- PIRATE DAY
Friday December 21 -POLAR EXPRESS DAY and ADJUSTED DISMISSAL
Upcoming Important Dates and Events
Dec. 24- Jan.1- Schools closed for Winter Holidays
Dec. 26- Jan. 1- Kwanzaa
Jan 2- Return to School
Jan. 4- Citizen of the Month 9:30 am
Jan. 18- PTA Bingo Night
Jan 21- Schools Closed MLK Day
Jan. 22- Pirate Day
Jan. 23- Orchestra Program
Jan 25- Fire Safety Assemblies K-3 9:00 am, 4-5 1:30 pm
Jan 31- Learning Walk for Learning Walk Team
Grateful Gators!
Kudos to Mrs. Cotton, Mr. O, Marykay, Julie White, Kim Kennedy for jumping in to help another teacher start their day!!! Thanks you all are AMAZING! Amy Doss
Kudos to Mrs. Lisa Hill for hitting the ground running the moment she came back to class. She was truly missed, and we are all SOOO GLAD she's back!
Andrea Neal
KUDOS to Tammie and Sandra for another fabulous Book Fair. KUDOS to the P.E. Dept. for always being prepared for the many situations that they encounter. KUDOS to Dina Dreistadt and Jason Hinson for doing everything humanly possible to assist students in reaching success. -Paula Gee
A big thank you to Mrs. Hogan for helping out one of my students and pulling to work with her two times a week and collecting wonderful data! You rock! –Brittany Howell
Happy Birthday!
DECEMBER
Fields, Virginia December 14
Hood, Tina December 14
Palmer, Jessica December 14
Merce, Elizabeth December 19
Goshert, Rebekah December 21
Hill, Lisa December 22
Neal, Andrea December 25
Denham, Jessica December 26
Hankinson, Sandra December 28
Weave Intentional Talk into Whole-Group Reading
Intentional talk refers to the language you use that is consciously directed toward the goal of instruction. When you plan for intentional talk in your interactive read-aloud and shared reading experiences, think about the meaning of the text and what your students will need to think about to fully understand the story. As you talk about texts together, embed brief and specific teaching in your read-aloud and shared reading lessons while maintaining a focus on enjoyment and support for your students in gaining the meaning of the whole text. In preparation, mark a few places with sticky notes and a comment or question to invite thinking. Later when you teach explicit mini lessons about concepts such as character feelings, illustrations, and text organization, your students will already have background knowledge to bring to the mini lesson and will be ready to explore how the principle works across multiple texts.
~Irene C. Panthers and Gay Su Pinnell
THANKS ROFO ES
The One Percent Rule
So often we convince ourselves that change is meaningful if there is some large, visible outcome associated with it. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, traveling the world or any other goal, we often put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about. Meanwhile, improving by just one percent isn’t even noticeable, but it can be just as meaningful in the long run. In the beginning, there is basically no difference between making a choice that is one percent better or one percent worse. But, as time goes on, these small improvements or declines compound and you suddenly find a very big gap between people who make slightly better decisions on a daily basis and those who don’t. Here’s the punchline:
“If you get one percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done.”
When we look at what research says about becoming better at something, two pieces of evidence stand out. First, we must have clarity on what our goals are, and where we want to go or what we want to become. Second, it is deliberate practice (Combined with feedback loops) that increase the myelin in our brain and, in turn, help improve performance and growth. We tend to talk about growth, goals, and instructional practice…yet we miss a key element of going from “defining a goal” to “achieving a goal” with our students. Students (and teachers) only become better through deliberate practice and feedback on the practice.
The 1% Rule states that over time the majority of the rewards in a given field will accumulate to the people, teams, and organizations that maintain a one percentage advantage over the alternatives. You don’t need to be twice as good to get twice the results. You just need to be slightly better. Tiny habits can be used in our classrooms and schools in a variety of ways. I’ve seen how a daily routine and morning meeting can get kindergartners ready for each day. I’ve noticed how a strong daily anticipatory set sets students up for meaningful learning. I’ve witnessed teachers with communication and collaboration norms so students understood what types of conversations were relevant to learning. Each of these can be traced back to a habit that was developed in the classroom. And each habit can help build a better practice that is connected to a learning goal. What habits are you starting this year for your learners? What habits are you working on yourself? The key is to do the daily work and make it stick!
~ A.J. Juliani
Thanks ROFO ES