Lincoln Lion's Local Buzz
August 16, 2019
It's a FULL MOON People!!!
The Opportunity Myth
This upcoming week we will meet in the conference room and discuss the opportunity myth. We will use this study to think about our roles in ensuring that high quality instruction is given to all students--no matter the socioeconomic status. We will be doing a great deal of reflecting and an honest look in the mirror regarding our current teaching and what is needed by our students from us here at school.
Below is the link to the executive summary of this study.
https://tntp.org/assets/documents/TNTP_Opportunity-Myth_Executive-Summary_WEB.pdf
Social Stories- Shared Resource
We have several students with interrupted or no previous educational experience. Knowing how to behave in a group setting is truly foreign for some of our Lions. For this reason, there is a new folder entitled: Social Stories- Resources in our Lincoln Elementary School 2019-2020 shared drive . This is a place to "dump" any and all social stories worth sharing.
Teachers Pay Teachers supposedly has some great resources if any of you have that membership and have purchased, or plan to purchase, support in the form of Social Stories.
ROARING READERS - Student Committee Reps Provide Feedback
Yesterday Autumn Stacy, Kathy Fields and I met with Amaari Banks, Shyonna Osborne, and Rudy Queen to get their take on our initiative. It was a truly incredible meeting. The extended notes from our meeting are in the ROARING READERS -Reading Initiative folder in our COMMITTEE WORK folder. The top 3 highlights included:
1. Students felt that all kids need their parents and guardians to be better informed and get involved. They want us to tell their family members how important reading is.
2. They LOVE the option to listed to Mrs. Galloway in the morning and appreciated the quiet reading option in the library with Mrs. Ewers.
3. They wanted anyone who participates and meets their goal to celebrate in a special way. They liked mixing things up some as far as award go and suggested several REALLY COOL ideas:
Students who turn in calendars that meet goals would be given:
a “coupon” or “ticket” to either participate in a special day (Pajama day, hat day, sock day, dress as your favorite book character or author day) OR
a special snack either in their classrooms during lunch with the teacher OR in the courtyard the first part of recess (ice-cream, pizza, popcorn, slushies)
- (And then there was this...Ms. Sheppard’s favorite idea of all…. Wait for it….) Students wanted to work with a business to sponsor a fundraiser for a charity. They suggested St. Jude (for Mrs. Rivers), Jumprope for Heart (for Mrs. Hyder) and/or the local animal shelter (because of all the sad commercials they have seen.) They requested that a business donate on our behalf, based on a school-wide participation percentage.
This was a time to stop and reflect. Each of us as teachers is trying to think of things and experiences we want for our kids. We want them to be rewarded for their efforts towards becoming better readers because we know they will desperately need
to read to achieve. And our students, well they were thinking of ways they can help others. That's when I was reminded of the bigger picture. The greatest gift we offer our students is the opportunity to love and serve others; reading well is the icing
on the cake.
Clubs
Several of you have reached out to me to ask if the club time could be extended because several of you feel that 30 minutes would not be enough time. When planning this in the summer, alone in my office, I must have thought that would be enough...however now that I'm on the dance floor I do think that a bit more time is warranted. Keeping in mind that we do have K students in the mix here and we need to be aware of their shorter attention span I would like to propose that we move clubs to a 45 minute block. IF this is something that you greatly disprove of, please email me directly. If I am misreading the staff and there are more of you wanting it at 30 minutes, please let me know. We can discuss this.
Speaking of K students and being in the balcony, our first club meeting is scheduled for after IAs leave the building thus significantly reducing our help with our younger students to navigate the building to get to clubs and then be in clubs. I would also like to propose that we move our first club experience to 1:05-1:50. So our IAs can be with our smallest lions for this new experience. If this is a major problem for a team, please email me directly.
Behavior Committee Updates
Please use only the walkie for tiered calls and you can refer to the handbook if you have questions regarding our protocol for calling a tier.
Open House and Smile Committee
Also, our SMILE committee is bringing pizza and salad to teachers before the event in the conference room. If you are interested in partaking in this early supper/time to get together, please email Autumn so she knows how much food to get that afternoon. Thanks.