PKMS Update 11.11.19
A Close Look At How We Did & Will Do Our Work
Good Day, PKMS Family.
We appreciate your dedication, planning, collaboration, assessment of students, focus, hard work, and family outreach. Thank you for another great week of instruction and student learning.
This week’s quote speaks to our Social Emotional Learning Theme of Gratitude & Kindness:: “Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”— Voltaire
As has become a part of the PKMS culture, please allow these words to inspire you as you design and redesign lessons, tasks, and questions, and reflect on practice.
Remember, to SMILE (Show My Infectious Lovable Energy) as it is the first thing students, families, and colleagues see.
Let's Keep These Thoughts in Mind:
- Laugh a little. Laugh a little more.
- Gladden the heart of a child.
- Always operate from a honest place.
- Give a soft answer
Turning Up The Heat!
Thank you to Maria Laible and her classes for their upcoming work in making thank-you cards for our service men and women overseas today
Thank you to Deni for the Pura Belpre book award competition - Deni wants to thank those who took time from their lunch break to judge and support the book award competition - Deni believes that it was a good start to promote Hispanic authors - Thank you to Maria and Ana thanks for opening your classrooms for the presentation
Thank you to Crystal, Anthony, and Frank for their work on International STEAM Day
Thank you everyone for your work on Superintendent's Conference Day - Thank you for the in-depth, drilled down analysis of your students' Interim Assessment #1 performance data - The action plans are articulated and focused on student learning
International STEAM Day (11.8.19) Work - We saw Scratch,
Thank you to Paul Schemmer and our BERT team for this past week's Altaris Training
Thank you for the RtI Meetings and Discussions this past week
Thank you to Debbie, Lurana, and Nancy for their work
Thank you to our security: Chemay, Nigel, Merriweather, Billy, and David for their work
Thank you to Tim, Mike, Mark, Kristen, Billy, Keith, and Manny for their work
Thank you to Parketha Evans and her Food Services Team
Thank you to our Clinical Team for continuing to support students, families, and staff
Thank you to staff for parent and family outreach and meetings conducted this week
A Humanities Lens
Students analyzing the plot of the text and discuss its resolution/conclusion - understanding the Spanish, French & Dutch settlements in the Americas through a jigsaw - discussing what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke alongside creating a storyboard - learning about life as a Sumerian in Mesopotamia with focus on government, religion and social classes - practicing how to write, read, speak, and listen to greetings, calendar, seasons, weather, and body parts in Spanish - learning the expressions "Me duele..." & "Me duelen..." - reading, writing, listening and speaking about the Dominican Republic and the history of the Mirabal sisters and learning how the Mirabal sisters were a great impact in the Dominican Republic - composing body paragraph of their argumentative topic of choice (revising and editing strategies, analyzing the differences between quotations, paraphrasing and summarizing)
The Arts Live Here
Students learning/listening to the sounds on Garageband to create a Thanksgiving Soundtrack/Friends and Family Dinner Party Soundtrack - determining how many measures and tracks to use for the soundtrack - examining and reviewing measures, time signature, half rest, final bar line, dynamics, chromatics, diatonic patterns, airflow - playing all sections of concert music (Diary of a Grumpy Elf), describing the process of continuing to work on a piece of music, sight reading small sections of Encore! - learning about optical illusion - introducing comics, short illustrated stories, plot, character and setting, starting to draw a 6 box comic strip - incorporating repetitive, geometric shapes, patterns, and/ or symbols to create an abstract line designcontinue working on creating an anthropomorphic double pinch pot animal, Egyptian inspired sgraffito tile using the subtractive technique
A Health-Conscious Mind & Body
Students using strength, flexibility, balance, coordination in performing the different
wrestling skills throughout the class, and naming the terminology & scoring system used
in the sport of wrestling - engaging in a full body resistance training workout - practicing aquatic skills - identifying the proper cues to performing a football pass and catch - completing tobacco free campaign poster, presenting their alcohol abuse projects - presenting their projects on more detailed substance abuse and writing a letter to a friend
We Got STEM!
Students exploring types of Cells: Prokaryotic Vs Eukaryotic Cells - discussing types of Organisms: Unicellular Vs. Multicellular - developing and using models to examine molecules in motion - analyzing the Universe & Big Bang Theory - simplifying fractions to form equivalent fractions - solving equations using addition or subtraction, multiplication or division - writing the equation of a line in slope-intercept form (y=mx+b) when given: slope & y-intercept, table, graph, words, or points - using the engineering design process to create the strongest structure - creating complex objects from simple shapes by using copy and paste shortcuts
Town Hall - Student-Building Work
- This week’s quote speaks to our Social Emotional Learning Theme of Gratitude & Kindness: “Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”— Voltaire
- Please refer to the counselors' email on the Town Hall's New Format/Structure - See them for any questions for additional details
- Tuesday - Friday (Work Completion Days – Please structure it so that students can complete homework, work on projects, and get work from other teachers - Fun Days - Students who have met behavioral expectations will enjoy recess or whatever classroom activity designed)
Collaborative & Department Work
- Full Department Meetings from 3-3:40PM: 11/18, 12/9, 1/20, 2/10, 3/9, 4/20, 5/11, 6/8
- November 12th - Meet as a Full Department
- November 19th - Dept Members present latest assessment data analysis using District Data Analysis Form with Action Plan - Please focus your analysis on a population subset - ELLs, Spec Ed, African American, etc. - Boys, Girls, etc
- November 26th - Dept Members present latest assessment data analysis or discuss December's Upcoming Work
- Month of December:
- For the month of December, please take a close (or closer) look at the 2019 ELA, Math (take a look at the Regents to determine what adjustments are necessary), and Grade 8 Science or Earth Science exam - Social studies will review the American History exam
- The goal is to identify trends, patterns, academic vocabulary, sentence phrasing, and what is the student being asked to do that he/she was not previously asked to do - From there, look at how you can add additional components/tasks/assessments to Rubicon Atlas and what instructional adjustment/supports will be designed
Grade-Level Work
- For the months of November & December, - RtI Meetings where applicable - Leslie Detres will communicate specifics
- November 13 - Administration and Clinical - How's it Going and RtI Conversation - Closer look at The Struggling Student
- November 20 & 27 - Reintroducing the Data Driven Instruction Model & Examining NYS ELA & Math Level I Reporting (What do the indicators tell us)
PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES - NOVEMBER 14 - 6:30PM - 8:30PM
THANKSGIVING DRIVE
Student Assistance Services
Thomas Grimes - Grade 8 @1:15PM on November 14 - Presentation on Internet Awareness
GOT DATA???
We thank everyone who has administered and who will administer our assessments - We appreciate the instructional adjustments you will design to further enhance learning - #datadriveninstruction
Must ask: Are Our Students Learning
What do my students need to learn? Why?
What have my students learned? How do I know?
What are my next steps? Why?
Task Predicts Performance
Questioning - are we posing low-level questions that address the standard or are we challenging students to think critically while addressing the same standard
LEVEL OF MASTERY THAT WILL BE REACHED IS DETERMINED BY WHAT SORT OF QUESTIONS STUDENTS ARE EXPECTED TO ANSWER
November 19 - May 7th - Tuesdays & Thursdays
Work Dates
- November 11th - Veteran's Day - SCHOOL CLOSED
- November 13th - Picture Retakes
- November 14th - Thomas Grimes - 1:15PM (Grade 8) in Auditorium
- November 14th - PKMS Parent-Teacher Conference Night - 6:30-8:30PM
- November 15th - Department Leader Meeting @7:45AM
- November 19th - SLT Meeting @7:545AM
- November 21st - New Staff Meeting @7:45AM
- November 28th & 29th - Thanksgiving Recess - SCHOOL CLOSED
- December 2nd - Faculty Meeting
- December 5th - Data Team Meeting @7:45AM
- December 5th - Author Thanhha Lai Workshop - 10:00 am - 12:00 pm (Grade 8)
- December 9th - Department Meetings @3PM
- December 10th - PKMS Winter Concert @7PM
- December 12th - Technology Team Meeting @7:45AM
- December 13th - BERT Team Meeting @7:45AM
- December 23rd - Jan 3rd - Holiday Recess
Work Reminders
- Take attendance for each of your instructional periods
- Ensure 504 and IEP Plans are being supported
- Ensure grade content colleague planning - reflecting Rubicon Atlas
- Ensure Gradebook and Teacher Webpage/Google Classroom reflect current information and assignments
- Communicate with families and maintain that communication in PLP
- Data Driven Instruction Model
- Always Ask: Have They Learned? How Do You Know?
- Training One Another
- Discussing Student Performance Information
- Designing Tiered Instruction
- Reflecting on Daily Practice
- Reviewing Assessments from All Content Areas (Formative, Summative, Interim)
- Discussing Progress Monitoring Efforts
- Pacing through Rubicon Atlas
- Lesson Plans Should Be Designed with the following in Mind
- Questions Posed - What is the level
- Tiered Instruction
- Guided Instruction
- Driven By Data
- Clear and Articulated Assessment Throughout (assessments must contain spiraling back questions)
- Groupings (Fluid)