Monclova Primary
Weekly Bulletin
Events for Week of February 8 - February 14
Monday, February 8
Sign up for Walk to the Keys Challenge
3rd Grade Intervention Tutor Planning - 3:45 pm - Conference Room
Tuesday, February 9
Special Education Dept. Meeting - 8:00 am - Lauren's room
Writing Committee - 8:30 to 3:30 pm (Betsey, Jamie, Rachel out)
Board Meeting - 6:00 pm
MAPS Meeting - 7:00 pm - Media Center
Wednesday, February 10
Fitness Day
Walk to the Keys Challenge begins
GLC Meeting - 7:45 am - Conference room
K & 1 Dentist Visits - 9:15 -1:15 (scheduled times)
Thursday, February 11
Friday, February 12
Valentine's Parties - 2:45 pm
Father-Daughter Dance - 7 to 9:00 pm
Announcements
Thank you:
All those that contributed soup for the cook off. They were all delicious!
Staff for your patience and understanding on lack of subs to cover classes. We have been very fortunate for the last few months but just this week run into a shortage across the district.
Reminders:
We received our 3rd grade ELA test results from the fall administration. Of the 98 tests administered, only 7 students did not make the cut score for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee (TGRG). I am very pleased with this low number and confident with re-testing and alternate assessments, all students will meet the TGRG. We will begin before school tutoring on Feb. 18 through the end of April.
The 2 hour delay agenda out within the week. It will be from 8:30 to 10:30 am and consist of mostly grade level time for discussion and sharing on specific topics.
We are organizing a basket to donate to the silent auction for the Spirit of Giving spaghetti dinner. If you would like to donate, we are collecting gift cards of any kind and amount. Please give your donation to Jill by Feb. 17. Also, Jill is selling tickets for the spaghetti dinner. Tickets are $5 a piece and the dinner runs from 4:30 pm to 8:00 pm Friday, Feb. 19 in the high school cafeteria.
Important dates changes:
Volunteer breakfast/Staff meeting - Tuesday, April 12
Book fair is April 13 - 15
We have many active staff members so lets try to have our Wellness activity come from Monclova! Make sure you get registered, even if your activity of choice is not walking, anything can be logged in to count as steps. Register on www.myparamount.org, please see Fay if you have any questions.
Here are the Walk to the Keys dates to remember:
Enrollment begins ........................February 8, 2016
Challenge begins ..........................February 10, 2016
Enrollment ends ...........................March 1, 2016
Challenge Ends .............................March 23, 2016
Last day to enter activity ...............March 23, 2016
Drawing will be held on ................March 24, 2016
Tentative dates for your calendar:
AW Spirit of Giving Spaghetti Fundraiser - February 19
Family Fun Night - March 11
CREATE! Conference - June 6
Words of Wisdom and Action..................
As we are amidst the holiday of "love" or commercial holiday of "love", the article below talks about motivation. However, the underlying theme you will see is LOVE! Whether it be loving what we do or loving students. Both of these attributes will keep you motivated during the roughest of days! Keep up the AWesome job of loving what you do and loving your students. IF you are ever feeling down, please come see me and I will motivate you with examples of the good I see you are doing each day!
From Teaching Community, Where Teachers Meet and Learn - Joel
teaching.monster.com
I was talking with a friend this afternoon about her class. She is a second year teacher. She taught elementary last year and is teaching seventh grade this year. What a change! In the process of our conversation, I asked her, “what are you doing to motivate them?” She had no clue.
Why motivate?
Without motivation, your class is just another one block of time that the students have to suffer through. With motivation, you hear things like “hi, favorite teacher!” and “I love this class!” As a teacher, those are the kinds of things that we absolutely love to hear. They say that about half of all teachers stop teaching before their sixth year. I am on the home stretch or my fifth now. I would guess that most teachers who quit teaching do so because of the lack of these kinds of comments; they do so because they do not have enough motivated students.
Steps to motivating?
As I have written before, “Motivation comes from … loving what you do.” That is the crux of the issue. If you do not love what you do, then you cannot create blissful followers. So we now see some steps to successfully motivating people.
Without motivation, your class is just another one block of time that the students have to suffer through. With motivation, you hear things like “hi, favorite teacher!” and “I love this class!”
1. Love what you do
I cannot stress enough how essential it is to love what you do. This applies for everything in life. Dave Ramsey talks about it. Steve Jobs talks about it. Po Bronson talks about it. Andrew Wee talks about it. Success in any endeavor demands that you love doing what you are doing. If you don’t, and you don’t love the idea of doing it, then get out before you regret wasting time and wasting lives of children. But what if you love the thought of teaching, but don’t enjoy teaching? If this is the case, then there is still hope for you. Stick it out. Before I started my first year, I was given the advice by a friend that when I accept my first job, I should make a mental commitment to myself that I will be there are least three years. This allows me to work toward long-range goals and respond to incidents accordingly rather than just reacting in a self-centered kind of way.
2. Emanate passion
Passion is defined as the trait of being intensely emotional. You must be intensely emotional about children, about teaching, and especially about teaching children. If you are, then they will feed off of that energy.
3. Have fun
If passion is the key, then having fun is the way to activate that passion. I joke around a lot. I mess with other teachers when they come in. I make fun of myself. I make up lyrics to go along with the music we play. I talk about my puppies. I ask them what they did over the weekend and then make some fun (non-critical) comments on whatever they did. I smile. A lot. I laugh. I say stuff to the kids when I see them in other parts of the school. I have a cool website for my class. I have a blog to keep parents updated on what’s going on in our world.
4. Stop being selfish
Whenever kids don’t do what I want them to do, I have come to the realization, that it is usually because I didn’t tell them to do exactly what I wanted them to do. I try to avoid getting mad when they do normal kid stuff, especially if it is not a specific violation of what I told them to do. Admit you made a mistake whenever you do. That makes you more real and more relateable. Look at people when they are talking to you. I am trying to do that more. talk to parents. About good stuff and bad stuff. Let the students be nice to you. Let the students be mad at you. Your life is not going to end if a child hates you. At the same time, you don’t get too many bragging rights with friends when you tell them you have a fan club made up of people half your age or whatever.
5. Be prepared
Kids can sense fear and unpreparedness from a mile away. Why do you think subs are so much fun for them? I have come to realize that no matter how good the discipline is when I am in the classroom, anyone else will get different results if I’m not there. After I started to begin figuring out classroom management, that used to really bother me. I would get back from a day off and have a report from the substitute saying that certain students had talked back or argued or whatever. Or I would get reports like, “good class, these six people were talking.” Now that I am prepared for those kinds of comments and realize that most people don’t expect as much out of the children as I do, I am fine.
I also have found that my least productive teaching days are those where I am not fully prepared for the class. Or when we don’t have enough copies of something. I am getting better about these things more and more. I find that as I get better about them, classes run much more efficiently.
6. Continue learning
Read books about teaching. Read books about your subject. Read books about personal development. Read books about art. Read books about customer service. Read books about productivity. Read books on motivation.