Monday Memo
Kitsap Lake Elementary--Stronger Together 11/20/17
"Iron Chef" for Teachers
I often decompress after a long day by watching the Food Channel. Chopped, Best Holiday Baker, Beat Bobby Flay, all of 'em! I especially love when there is a "Surprise Basket" full of peculiar and rarely used ingredients, and the chefs compete to come up with the best use of these ingredients to create a judge worthy dish. You know, its a lot like teaching, only our surprise ingredients are real live human beings. Can you imagine a TV show in which teachers competed against each other using best practice strategies in exactly the right amount and in the right time? "Oh, did you see how she utilized in the moment formative assessment to change the projection of that lesson? Magnificent!" or, "Uh Oh, looks like that concept needed more perfect practice . . . "
I guess in the end, every profession has it's own end game. For chefs, its the final plate; Accountants? It's tax day. Scientists? That one discovery. Educators? Hmmmm. We certainly have an abundance of unique (and sometimes challenging) "ingredients"; do you have the strategies and tools to be an "Iron Teacher"?
Hilah's Coaches Corner
This week Wayne Callender worked with us on two important instructional strategies. The first is chunking. By chunking information presented to students into “digestible bites” students avoid cognitive overload and it allows students to get the information into long term memory. If we don’t chunk - - nothing (or little) gets in. Further, the harder the content or the less background knowledge students have, the smaller the chunks need to be. The second strategy is processing: giving ample opportunities for students to process or do something with the information. Again, if we don’t give them an opportunity to relate it to something personal, say it, write it, collaborate about it, etc., there is little chance that the information will get into long term memory. Wayne shared many ideas for ways students can process information. Be sure to talk with your teammates who attended. You will also be seeing some of them in our staff meetings in the weeks to come.
Now for the best part… I had the pleasure this week of working with David and Diane in third grade looking at the data from the SBA Lit block assessment and setting some goals that we’ll work on in the classroom and during the before school group that starts next week. We were talking about how long the text often is in both Wonders and the SBA and that students don’t seem to have the stamina to deal with passages that are so long. David (who attended Wayne’s training) suggested that we teach the students how to chunk the passage into manageable parts. We decided to have students stop several times during the story and jot down notes on what they read in each chunk. Students might also share that information with a peer in one of the ways Wayne suggested. By doing this, it will not only help students remember the main idea and key details from the story but when they are citing text evidence they will have a better idea of where to look. Way to put some good strategies into action, third grade teachers!!
From Brigitte
Safety Tip of the Week
~Soaring Eagle Badges Must REMAIN on a school issued lanyard~
Our Week At A Glance
- Thursday and Friday, 11/23-24 No School. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Just For Fun:
- Monday, 11/23 World Kindness Day
- Tuesday, 11/21 World "HELLO" Day
Thank You's and Recognition to . . .
- Our Bremerton Fire Dept. for an informative and FUN learning experience!
- Mrs. Ross and our generous PTA for bringing the Peninsula Dance Company to perform The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. What a special treat!
- All the teachers and students who made our 2017 Reading Fair a HUGE success!
- Everyone who stepped in and up to provide support and coverage when we were short staffed this week.
- The smiles, laughter, and TEAMWORK that keeps us all focused on our "WHY"-