Deerfield Bulletin
September 24, 2018
October Character Trait
Assessment Cut Scores Chart
U and I in Equity
Flu Shots!
Sustainable Starts to Equity
Tune into this short 2-3 minute video to help you sustain equitable practices in your classroom.
Exclusion
..."The problem is that people listen to their own tune too often-- finding the beauty of their song-- that they fail to recognize the beauty of the other notes."
"The effects of excluding individuals because they are different is much more serious than people think, or perhaps don’t think. The University of Georgia and San Diego State University did a study to show that social exclusion causes changes in an individual’s brain function and can result in neural limitations and inabilities. It starts with one act of exclusion, which triggers an absence of belonging for an individual."
Calendar of Events
Teach Character Trait: Respect!
Monday, Sept 24- A Day
Absences:
Tuesday, Sept 25 - B Day
3:15-4:00 SSP Meetings- SSP AGENDA HERE
Absences: A. Bailey, Hererra,
Wednesday, Sept 26 - C Day
8:10 -8:30 Deerfield Dens!
9:00-11:00 Joni at District Admin Team Mtg. / Principal Leadership Team Mtg.
11:00 SPED Meetings
1:45-3:15 Building Collaboration with Craig Butler (Library)
Absences: Bonner
Thursday, Sept 27 - A Day
1:00 - Joni at District SSP Planning Mtg.
4:15 - Joni at District Technology Planning Mrg.
Absences: Kagain: Humburg, Lansbury, Stephenson, Heller, Leibach
Friday, Sept 28 - B Day
7:00 am - Deerfield Flu Shot Clinic - Lounge
5th Grade to WAter Festival
Hearing-Vision Screens - room 174
Absences: Feighny, Appleman, Bonner, Kagan: Humburg, Lansbury, Stephenson Heller, Leibach.
Monday,October 1 - C Day
*************Bully Prevention Week**********
Morning Meeting - Teach Character Trait: Responsible!
1st grade Zoo Trip
Absences: Kearny, Morgan, Fowlkes
Tuesday, October 2 - A Day
Deerfield Dines Out: Minsky's)
3:15-4:00 Staff Meeting - D Bailey's room - Agenda
Absences:Feighny, Appleman (gone until 10:00)
Wednesday, - October 3 - B Day
9:30 Mental Health Meeting - Joni, Dianne T., Nicole B, Caitlin, Peggy
11:00 SPED Meetings
1:45-3:15 Regular Collaboration
3:00 DLT/CI3T- D. Bailey's room
Absences: Tornmohlen, Mefferd Lv 12:45 Beyond Diversity: Stephenson, Lansbury,
Thursday, October 4 - C Day
8:00-12:00 Elementary Principals' Meeting - @ Deerfield
3:00 XS IEP- Conference Room
Absences:
Friday, October 5 - A Day
11:00-Lunch Outside Picnic!
Absences: Caitlin-8:00-12:00 coaches meeting, Mefferd
~~~~~If You Want to Know~~~~~
Behavior Management Tip of the Month
When developing a social contract with your class you should always remember to include the following:
- Identify the values of the classroom.
- Identify the rules in your classroom.
- Connect the rules and expectations to the values.
- Involve your students in the development of the rules.
- Make sure the rules are clear and specific.
- Relate the consequences to the rule as directly as possible.
- Consequences are always guided by the goals of learning and improved behavior.
- Have a range of at least three options for rule violations.
- Learning to make good choices is always the goal of your contract, not political correctness.
- Review and update your contract regularly (at least once per month or more often).
If you need help guiding your class between a value and a rule look at the following example. Value: I have the right to be happy and to be treated with kindness and dignity in this room.
Rule: No one will laugh at, ignore, or hurt other's feelings.
Your rules should be easy to remember, precise and focused on the positive when possible. When discussing consequences remind your class that "fair' doesn't always mean "equal" (Mendler, Curwin, & Mendler, 2008).
Social contracts and rule enforcement tend to become lax this time of the year. This would be a good time to review your classroom rules. If you do not have a social contract, I invite you to read Discipline with Dignity to learn more.
Social Emotional Resource
K-2 Phonemic Awareness!
- Play "Be a Mind Reader" as students line up or as a time filler. For example, I am thinking of a student in our class. This student is a boy. His name begins with the "/t/" sound, he has three sounds in his name, the last sound is the /m/ sound. Which student am I thinking of?
- Play the secret word game in small groups or partners. Student groups are given a deck of cards. The first student looks at the picture on the card and makes an identification of the picture. He or she then pronounces the name of the picture by finger stretching the word by phoneme (/c/ /a/ /t/). The partner puts the sounds together to form the name of the animal (cat).
- Play the "Birthday Wish" game with students. Sit in a circle on the floor with your class and toss a beanbag to a child. The student with the beanbag says, "For my birthday, I want a bear." Then the student tosses the beanbag to another student and this student says the same sentence, except this student, uses the ending sound in bear as the beginning sound of their birthday wish. For example, "For my birthday, I want a raccoon."
- Rhyming activities can be found at sightwords.com where they list rhymes, songs, activities, and extensions.
- This site has 55 phonemic awareness activities for your classroom that are free and easy to incorporate into daily lessons.
Oral language is so important and the activities that you do in your classrooms to reinforce and teach this skill links students to reading skills they need down the road!
3rd & 4th Teaching Students the Rules
Another recommendation for reading instruction at this age is to ensure that every single day students read to support their accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. As students encounter words they do not know how to decode in these readings there are multiple ways to help them approach these words and successfully decode them.
- Use prompting with students. For example, ask students to "Look for parts you know" and then point out familiar letter sounds and sound patterns that the student knows to help with decoding.
- Ask the reader to read parts of the word that they know (syllables or endings) and then re-read the whole word with support. For example, "You know this part, say the ending sound."
- Teach and model self-monitoring skills to students. Modeling is the key as most poor readers do not know when they mispronounce a word in the text.
- Provide time for daily oral reading practice and feedback. Time is precious in your classrooms, I get it. However, taking 10 minutes a day to read with a child to listen to them read and develop fluency and expression - this is priceless and something worth carving time out of your day for. Jessica Sanders wrote about ways to make reading with students for time efficient in 8 Tech Tools to Streamline Independent Reading Management
- Alice Terwege wrote a blog about the impact of effective teachers in Independent Reading. It's worth your time.
Teaching reading basic skills doesn't stop in third or fourth grade. At this level, we dig deeper and refine student skills so that they can read for understanding and ultimately - enjoyment!
5th Grade Struggling Readers
Having solid vocabulary routines for ELA and all other content is critical for struggling readers at this level of elementary school. Below are some vocabulary routines that you may be able to incorporate into your daily instruction.
- Text Talks - Introduce target words (Tier II) via a visual on your device or by using a photograph. Contextualize the word by putting the word in the context of the story you are reading. Say the word by giving a phonological (oral) representation of the word - model the correct way to pronounce the word and have your students say the word orally correctly. Give a student-friendly definition in everyday language. Next, provide the word in a different context from the story. Finally, engage actively with the word with your students and provide them with multiple opportunities to interact with this new word.
- Robust Vocabulary Instruction - This strategy is for small groups of students and could be done in a center with a small mini-lesson. There are five days of activities and set up is minimal for this.
- Graphic Organizers - There are many graphic organizers that teachers can use to enforce vocabulary. Remember that high-quality vocabulary graphic organizers should include a way for students to visualize the relationships between words and their possible meanings and should be used with explicit vocabulary instruction. A few that I recommend are vocabulary word maps, Frayer models, and the K.I.M. Strategy.
Deerfield
Website: www.usd497.com/domain10
Location: 101 Lawrence Avenue, Lawrence, KS, USA
Phone: 785-832-5660
Facebook: www.facebook.com/deerfield497