Bobcat Bulletin
Week of October 14, 2019
This Week's Events
Tuesday 10/22
- MTSS Meeting 10:00am
- Devon at 1:15 Meeting at S.Springs
- Lighthouse Meeting 3:50pm
Wednesday 10/23
- Book Room Organization 8:20am
- Math Coach at Amerman for 2nd and 3rd Grade
Thursday 10/24
- K-3 ROAR Assembly 9:15am
- 4-5 ROAR Assembly 10:00am
Friday 10/25
- PTA Trunk or Treat - 6:00pm
- Ice Cream Bar for Jen Bush
Next Week's Events
- Devon at 1:15 Meeting at TC
Tuesday 10/29
- MTSS Meeting 10:00am
Wednesday 10/30
- Fire Drill 3:05pm using NaviGate
Thursday 10/31
- Halloween Parade 10:00am
Friday 11/1
- End of First Marking Period
Looking Ahead
October
- Meeting to review growth plan - Link below to sign up if you have not done so yet
November 5
- PD Day
November 6
- Picture Retake Day
November 7
- Collegial Chair Meeting - 8:00 am
- Barnes & Noble Night
November 8
- Bowling - Amerman vs. Silver Springs
Growth Plan Meeting - Last Call
KINDNESS CHALLENGE 2019
Today Amerman Elementary begins our Kindness Challenge. Let’s meet our goal of 7,000 acts of kindness in 15 days.
WHO: All of us - students and staff
HOW: We need everyone in the school to write down your one act of kindness for the day. Papers and collection bins will be provided. We have assembled a Kindness Crew of students who will collect and tally these slips of kindness each day. If you are not a classroom teacher, you can turn your kindness slips into the collection bins in the office or media center.
FYI:
The Challenge ends November 1st and we will announce our grand total shortly after that.
We will have kindness updates in daily announcements.
The 15 days includes the weekends, so students and staff should have extra slips to turn in on Mondays.
We are looking for a team of teacher and parent volunteers to help hang our paper chain of kindness on Tuesday, November 5th after our PD Day.
To access our Kindness website with posters relating to our assembly click here.
Reminders and Opportunities
- It's SRSS time again. We have created spreadsheets for each of your classes. Please have the SRSS completed by November 1st. They were shared with you last week or you can access the SRSS here.
- Please check out this great opportunity called Growing Up 2020: Walk in the Park or Social Jungle? New Ways to Manage Unfriendly Behavior and Prevent Bullying by Kids Empowered. If you are interested in attending (I'm REALLY thinking about going myself), please let me know and we might be able to cover the registration fee for you. Click the following link for more information: https://survivingthesocialjungle.com/
BOOKROOM/WORKROOM MEETING
If you are passionate about books, organization, and equity, please join us to make a plan for our minimal shelving and abundant resources. If you are interested, please meet in the Book Room/Work Room, Wednesday, October 23 at 8:20. Snacks might be provided.
Every Student Matters: Cultivating Belonging in the Classroom
Check out this article from Edutopia that explores five simple ways you can convince every student that he or she was meant to be in your classroom.
F & P online resources
Have you joined the F & P literacy online community. If not, click here to learn more about what is available in this online community of educators.
The Leader in Me
Our October focus is Habit 1 - Be Proactive
We looked at the TLIM website at our last ET and there are a ton of resources for you to be using in your classroom. Please plan on using at least one lesson from that website a week.
Below is a quick read about how we can become proactive in our "business" or work lives I thought you might appreciate!
New Math - New ELA materials, Oh MY!
Our fabulous coach, Michele Kirkwood, shared the following with another building principal. I thought it was wonderful. Remember that old implementation dip? We will be visited by that this year. This year brings a huge learning curve for staff and for students. Having been through change before, we know that implementation dips happen, and we know we always bounce back. (Excerpt from The Impact Cycle - J. Knight - p. 138)
I want to encourage you: when you're feeling overwhelmed, and students are saying "I don't get it," it's okay. Rewind. Breathe. Try again. It will be okay. This scary feeling is vulnerability. Author Brene Brown says, "Hope is a function of struggle. When you're struggling, you're also persevering, you're developing hope." Yep, it absolutely feels awful. That's vulnerability. Hope comes into play when:
- We have the ability to set realistic goals.
- We're able to figure out how to achieve those goals - including the ability to stay flexible, and think about alternatives (Remember, if the horse dies, dismount!)
- We believe in ourselves.
All these things lead us to hope: I HOPE I figure out these new curriculum materials. I hope this gets easier. I hope my students are learning, I hope Devon doesn't come in to observe and sees me struggle... I'm not any good at this...
You will, it will, they will, yes, I probably will, and yes, you are.
It's okay.
LC Corner - Curriculum, Literacy & Learning...oh my!
FOCUS on the COMPREHENSION CONVERSATION
Many of you are in the thick of things right now with using BAS to get to know your students as readers. While assessing our students’ reading is nothing new, the BAS program is still new for many of us, so this week’s focus in on the Comprehension Conversation portion of that assessment. We have shared how the scoring of the Comprehension Conversation is a source of information about the strengths and needs of your whole class and individual students. We have also shared different conference/tracking forms. (Comprehension Conversation Helpers)
As professional educators, we are aware of the research and work of others such as Jennifer Serravallo, Debbie Miller and Stephanie Harvey. They all align with the work of Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell whose company has put together an assessment system that values the idea that reading is thinking. And that good readers make good thinkers because readers are always thinking. (Feel free to share this short clip with your students about how reading is thinking. Reading is Thinking)
According to an F&P Blog about why the comprehension conversation is so important from back in March of 2018, they said “Reading is thinking, and a student's talk about what they've read is evidence of that thinking.” So, when we are having our comprehension conversations with our students we are learning so much about our students’ understanding of the text and what they know about structure as well as the connections they make.
Beyond the three times a year we give the BAS, teachers can and should continue these comprehension conversations through our IRA modeling and small group instruction. Keeping in mind that through having conversations with students about their thinking within, about and beyond the text we are strengthening their understanding and adding evidence to our knowledge of our students as readers and thinkers. F&P suggests keeping the following questions in mind when ‘scoring’ the comprehension conversation. They are also good things to keep in mind in those small group instructional moments and whole class discussion times.
Within the Text
Is the reader gaining the literal meaning of the text through solving words, monitoring her own understanding, and accuracy?
Can the reader tell what happened or report important facts?
Is the reader searching for and using information and remembering information in summary form?
Is the reader adjusting her reading to fit the form—and also sustaining fluency?
Beyond the Text
Is the reader making predictions?
Is the reader making connections with prior knowledge, personal experience, or other texts?
Is there evidence that the reader is inferring what is implied but not stated in the text?
Has the reader shown that he is synthesizing information by changing his own thinking?
About the Text
Is the reader able to think about the literary elements of the text and recognize the writer’s craft?
Can the reader think critically about how the text was written?
And once we have the answers to the questions below we can better support our students in their development from dependent to independent and life-long readers and thinkers.
Now that I've been observed...how do I upload and label evidence into pivot again?
1. Upload, name, and code evidence to a specific indicator.
2. To check where you have evidence by indicator.
Dismissal Duty
Week of 10/21
- Bus - Henderson
- Loop - McMaster, McMaster, Pavlich, Wells
Week of 10/28
- Bus - Warum
- Loop - LaManna, Wilson, Mooney, Thomas
Random Useless Facts
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
- The shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
- Mr. Rogers was an ordained minister. (Presbyterian!)
- Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
- Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
- Emus and kangaroos can’t walk backwards.
- Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright’s son.
- The first interracial kiss ever seen on television was on “Star Trek”. ~ Kirk and Uhuru
- The first toilet ever seen on television was on “Leave It to Beaver.”