Brooklyn Park Post
Week of February 24th
Week-at-a-Glance
Mission: Rigorous Instruction, Enriching Experiences, Positive Relationship, No Exceptions..
Walk Through Focus this Week:
Healthy Heart Month
Black History Month
Monday 02/24- BPES Spirit Day
- Karyn Out All Day
- Guided Reading Walkthrough
Tuesday 02/25: Special Ed Meetings
- IEP Meetings
- Teachers K-5: OPTIONAL Title I Planning at 7:10am
- PM Meeting: Decoding
- Rodney Out All Day - Cluster Meeting
Wednesday 02/26:
- Intermediate Reading Collaborative Planning
- Primary Math Collaborative Planning
Thursday 02/27:
- AM Meeting: Specialized Instruction
- Rodney Out All Day
- Karyn Out All Day
Friday 02/28:
- Leadership @ 7:30
- Rodney Out All Day
- Complete performance series testing for 2nd and 5th
Chapter 3: Engage for Positive Class Climate
5 Actions to Create a Positive Class Climate:
- Raise the bar
- Manage mind-body states
- Establish that "we are family"
- Sustain emotional positivity
- Teach positive social and emotional responses
Action 1: Raise the Bar
- Normal looks different to everyone. You and your students can have very different definitions of normal.
- Set the bar high for your students (academics and behavior)
Solutions:
Refer to the learning destination as a certainty
- Use phrases that set the students up for success. Instead of saying, " If you finish..." try changing that "if" to a WHEN!
- Let your students feel that you are confident about their ability to perform
Don't have low-performing students set long-term achievement goals for themselves
- Start with mini goals and build up to the long term ones
Start setting "superb" as the goal
- Provide students with the capacity and the attitudes to help students reach their goals
Affirm every little success early on
- Help students change the beliefs that they have in themselves.
16 Ways To Practice Self-Care That Cost Next To Nothing
Math Updates:
Justification was our focus in Collaborative Planning last week. We looked at ways that we are able to infuse SMP 3 into our math structures and routines. We look forward to sharing this information with the primary teachers this week.
Hopefully your SLOs are off to a great start. Please refer to the schedule below about the mid-point assessments and due dates.
We hope you know that we are always here to support you. Please reach out if you need anything!
Reading Updates:
This week we will be walking through Guided Reading. K, 1st, 4th, and PreK will be on Monday and 2nd, 3rd, and 5th will be on Friday. We will be looking at Guided Reading as a whole to provide us some clarity for future instructional implications. Please look at the schedule and let us know if you have any questions! This week we will continue our work with the Diagnostic Focus Checklists in Intermediate Collaborative Planning. Thank you!
Social & Emotional Updates:
Funny how a short week can feel so long. You are doing a great job supporting all of our students and closing social gaps as well as academic gaps. Stay consistent with your consequences and use your resources when you need an update for your toolbox. Check out the resources in the pbis folder on the share drive. PBIS world has some great suggestions and ideas for specific behaviors. It is time to rewrite you menu items. Think about varying the options to include whole class as well as individual options. Let Aileen, Laura or I know of you need help with dojo store.
From the Principal's Desk
Please send Ms. Selznick a list of families you need interpreters for during parent/teacher conferences. She has requested an interpreter for 7.5 hours (8:00-3:30). She will create a schedule and send it out for you to let parents know the time of their conference. If the parent can not attend the scheduled time you will have to use language link for the conference.
I have observed some amazing lessons over the past month. We are fortunate to work with some of the very best teachers in the County. I have a couple of thoughts:
1. Make sure you start and end with your Outcome and Thinking Job. The students must understand and connect with their learning.
2. Each lesson should have "connection to their prior learning and real world" I am not seeing this in your instruction. Below are my ideas:
- Use videos for a motivation. Discovery Education and YouTube are great resources( please watch first) I would also suggest a video capture sheet.
- Talk about or have an illustration on how your lesson connects to a career. If you reading a book about animals, talk about being a zoo keeper or how the police department uses dogs to fight crime. (my neighbor works on the K-9 Unit in Baltimore City)
- Look for diversity ( race, gender, special education, disabilities)
- Use and post Anchor Charts
- Post additional student work. Let students see their success.
3. Continue your work with "stop shaming" ( Brene Brown video) and supporting students through positive communication.
I am looking forward to our professional development his week that is focused on our ESSA Houses and TSI. Tuesday's focus will be Decoding and Thursday's focus will be on Special Education and Formative Assessment.
Staff Shout Outs
- Teachers who hosted and participated in Patriot Walks
- Staff members who assisted in the bus situation last week