Friday Focus
St. George Episcopal Lower School
Believe It or Not.... It's Already The End of the 4th Six Weeks!
I know I am not the only one who is wondering how time can be flying by so quickly. Check off spelling bee, science fair, and cowboy breakfast and get ready for the Stanford. In no time at all we will be spring breaking. Thanks to everyone for the great jobs you are all doing.
Small Talk: Kids on Valentine's Day
February 8-12
- MONDAY - Yvonne off campus
- TUESDAY - Yvonne off campus
- WEDNESDAY - Yvonne off campus, Ash Wednesday service (no birthdays will be celebrated this day), Happy Birthday, Teri K.! Exploratory for Middle School - 4th and 5th lunch/recess schedules move up 5 minutes
- THURSDAY -
- FRIDAY - Valentine's Day Parties, End of 4th 6 Weeks, Modification letters due to Yvonne
Upcoming Dates
- February 15 - President's Day holiday
- February 16 - Yvonne off campus, Modification letters due to Sam, Grades due at 4:00 p.m.
- February 17 - Birthdays for the last 2 weeks celebrated today, Faculty meeting @ 3:30 in St. John room
- February 18 - JK Assessments in library
- February 19 - Musical preview in chapel
- February 21 - Happy Birthday Ram!
- February 22 - 26 - Stanford Testing
Reminders and Things To Be Thinking About:
- Ash Wednesday services will be held during regular chapel times. These will be somber services, no singing and very quiet entry and exit to and from the chapel. Please help us make this service meaningful by stressing silence. There will be no birthdays celebrated. Please let parents and students know that they will have to wait a week for their happy birthday recognition.
- Please let me know when you will be having your student led conferences, for those grade levels who have these.
- Middle school exploratory classes will meet for the last time on Wednesday. We need to adjust our lunch times by 5 minutes for 4th and 5th grades; 4th will go to lunch from 12:05-12:30 and 5th will go from 12:10-12:35. Specialists will need to have 5th grade ready and lined up at 12:10. Teachers please make sure your classes are in the cafeteria at the assigned times because middle school will be in at 12:15. Because 4th will be coming in at 12:05 and 2nd does not leave until 12:10, 4th grade will need to sit at the three tables closest to the stage and closest to the courtyard.
- Classroom teachers - If you are using a specific behavior management plan with individual students, please send the specialists a note detailing the plan. Students who need this extra help also need consistency and, if we are using the same plan across all courses, it will be much more effective.
- Please make sure that you are always keeping your doors locked.
Here is an interesting Ted talk. I really like the way this teacher takes word problems from the textbook and turns them into real life problems for the students to solve. It is interesting how he takes out a lot of the given information and challenges his students to figure out for themselves what information and numbers they are going to need in order to solve the problem. LOTS OF LEARNING will be had from this type of challenge.
Struggling Students?? Let's talk!
If you have students who are struggling, please make sure you are having conferences with parents. I am happy to attend any of these conferences. Please make sure you let me know about any students who are having trouble. More communication is always better than less, and keeping a record of interactions through emails and/or written notes from conferences is very wise!
Some Great Things I Saw This Week:
- The science fair was amazing! I saw a lot of student work and much less parent work than in the past. Thank you teachers for pushing for this.
- Cowboy breakfast was a great success again. Thank you for coming to the breakfast. Your kids love hanging out with you.
- Fourth grade invited me to teach math and I had a great time! Please don't hesitate to ask me to come and help in any way. I mean it when I say I miss the classroom!
- Some grade levels have turned in some interesting Haiti ideas. Thank you all for working to make this schoolwide unit happen.