Monday Memo
September 9, 2019
Great Things!
Bus evacuations went well, and our students did a great job exiting the busses!
If you haven't stopped by to see our Art in the Office yet, make sure you swing through! Thanks to Heather and Bonnie's class for the fun Pete the Cat art!
Amazing PD with Karen Hickman last Wednesday! I hope everyone was able to find something new or a good reminder as we continue to implement CD in our classrooms and building. Thank you to Brie for setting up the Safe Place in the library for her presentation!
We welcomed back Fonda last week! So good to see her back in SB-6 and at HGECC!
Welcome to Sydney Barker- our new ECSE teacher! She will be starting on Monday, September 9th! Cindy will continue to be here this week to work with her and help with the transition.
Challenge: Safe Place: This week, reflect on Karen's presentation. How can you begin to teach the safe place in your classroom? Will you start with whole group intro, then move to smaller groups? Will it be during circle time? Center time? Make a plan, and include in your lesson plans. If you are not the lead teacher, how can you support the classroom teacher in teaching the safe place? What will your role look like?
Dates to remember:
September 12: September student birthday celebration (pics at 10:15/1:45)
September 17: Dental Day
September 18: Parent Committee meeting 1:00-2:00 (library)
Nuts-n-Bolts:
*Websites: This Friday (Sept 13) is our first official "due date" for updates; we will continue every 2 weeks after that.
*I placed a packet about the Safe Place in teacher boxes following Karen's presentation. Please read through it to help with implementation of the Safe Place.
*Pledge/announcements next week (Sept 16-27): Mrs. Kayhill's class
*This week will be our first collaboration/PLC time within programs- please keep notes during these PLC's as well and turn in.
*REMINDER: The end of the day dismissal was pushed back by 5 minutes. That means we should not be leaving our classrooms to go to the cafe-gym-a-torium until 3:55 p.m. We are having a lot of classes already in there prior to 3:55- which in turn can create quite a long wait time for some students. Please utilize that additional 5 minutes and teach/engage students up until that time. The front office will make an announcement to remind you when to head down. (we only have a short 3/3.5 hours with students- make every minute count)
*Our "Arnie and His School Tools" book has come in! If you would like to borrow it to teach the appropriate use of fidgets in your classroom- please let me know and I will get it to you.
*September book shelving duty: Gayle
Speech and Language Tip of the Week:
Pronouns, pronouns, pronouns!!! Many of our kids use the incorrect subject pronoun in their conversational speech (Her my friend. Me want it. Him took my toy.). Spend some time really listening to how your kids are talking. Model the correct version of the sentence. Even write the word or sentence down to let your kids ‘see’ how they need to say it correctly. Visual cues and prompts always ROCK!
Fine Motor Tip of the Week:
Tearing paper can be a hard skill to learn but important for fine motor development. Start with small squares of paper and cut a slit at an edge. Have your student pinch with fingers on both sides of the slit and pull to tear apart. Advance to strips of paper with slits cut along an edge. Then move to larger squares with no slits. Create mosaic art with torn pieces of paper.