Bobcat Bulletin
March 9, 2020
This Week's Events
Monday 3/9
- Collegial Chair - 8:00 MakerSpace
- Math Coach Here - Conference Room
Tuesday 3/10
- PD Day - See Schedule
Wednesday 3/11
- 5th Grade Middle School Visits - 1:00pm
- Tornado Drill - 1:55pm (with Navigate)
Thursday 3/12
- AM SIT Team
- 9:00am PTA Meeting
- Devon at 1:15 Meeting
Friday 3/13
- Author Visit: Alan St. Jean
- 5th Grade Band Visit - 2:00pm
Next Week's Events
Monday 3/16
- Family Game Night 6:00 - 7:00
Tuesday 3/17
- Willy Wonka Assembly
Wednesday 3/18
- Devon at RESA in AM
Thursday 3/19
- 5th Grade Music Concerts 6:00 (Babich, Long, McMaster) 7:00 (Tiba, Pinkelman, Wayne)
Friday 3/20
- Lockdown Drill (with Navigate)
Looking Ahead
March 24
- Amerman Hosts BOE Meeting 7:00
March 25
- ET in MakerSpace
April 2
- Fire Drill - 3:05pm
April 4 - April 12
- Spring Break
Snow Day Spirit
Don't you love snow days? There is something magical about them. The problem with snow days is we never know when they are going to happen, they only last a day or two, and we are always waiting around the fairy to wave her magic wand again. However, we can create snow day-like conditions, without the waiting around part. We need only three ingredients. Please read below to find out what they are :)
Night for Northville
As you may or may not be aware, one of the events the NEF puts together is Night for Northville. The proceeds from this event funds enrichment programming for our students and teachers in all ten schools, including; Innovative Teaching Grants, Social and Emotional Learning Programs, STEAM Fair & Initiatives, Parent Camp, student financial assistance, Project Lead The Way, and much more!
This year's theme is a Casino Night where you can play various casino games, eat, drink and be entertained by a live band. Click here to see a full list of events. It looks like an amazing night!
You might be asking, why I am telling you all about this. It's because, Steve Bancharo has donated two tickets to any Amerman staff member who would like them. If you are interested in attending, please let me know - first come, first serve!
Guest Author - Alan St. Jean
The schedule is set for next Friday. It is on the AE calendar. Please take note of times and location. We have a lot going on in the building that day.
- 9:15 - MPR - 4th & 5th Grade
- 10:15 - MPR - 2nd & 3rd Grade
- 11:40 - 1:00 - MakerSpace for Lunch
- 1:15 - MUSIC ROOM - 1st Grade
- 2:15 - MUSIC ROOM - KDG
FAMILY GAME NIGHT REMINDER
Thanks to everyone who has volunteered to support the PTA and our families for this event on March 16th (NEXT MONDAY).
All Volunteers, please plan to be at school 5:00-7:00
We will meet in the gym and be taught the games at 5:00.
The event will be from 6:00-7:00. We will be leading the games at this time.
PTA will provide dinner to volunteers about 4:00.
Learning Gizmos will provide each staff member with a $10 voucher and 21% off games purchased that night (15% discount plus no sales tax).
Here are the volunteers we have so far:
Bridget Beson
Devon Caudill
Regan Cowger
Beth Fritz
Sarah Hanes
Elizabeth LaManna
Rose McDougall
Julie Papo
Blake Vertrees
Julie Warum
Leann Wells
Julie Willerer
Megan Wilson
If you haven’t signed up and still want to help out or if your schedule has changed, please let Elizabeth know. lamannael@northvilleschools.org
LAST CALL - NHS Athlete Guest Readers
Today (Monday, March 9) is your last chance to confirm that you would like to host a guest reader on Monday, March 23rd. Please confirm or decline today! We will send our requests to the Athletic Director at the end of the day to ensure we get enough readers.
Thanks for a great Data Day!
Tuesday was a very productive day of discussing and planning support for our students school-wide. Thanks to everyone who came prepared and for being flexible throughout the day. Elizabeth and the MTSS Core Team have been commenting all week about how far we have come in our process and working together to use data as the foundation and our knowledge of child development and best practices to make purposeful decisions about our students.
Our next Cycle of intervention and support begins Wednesday, March 11th. We will continue to review student progress and data at our weekly MTSS meetings and the input from classroom teachers is invaluable. We will catch up with our Humanities Teachers the week of March 23rd. Thanks again to everyone for their thoughtful discussions and on-going problem solving approach about how we can best support our students.
PTA Stipend Reimbursement
As a reminder all teachers are able to get a $250 classroom stipend reimbursement ($175 for part time). Currently about 2/3 of the teachers haven't yet submitted their request for reimbursement. The deadline this year for turning in receipts is April 1st. Being a PTA member is a requirement in order to receive the stipend.However, that cost is small (I think it's $15) in comparison to the reimbursement.
LC Corner - Curriculum, Literacy & Learning...oh my!
Differentiating the Process
Differentiation in the classroom can and should happen through the content, through the product (assessment) and the process. For the purposes of this week’s LC Corner when examining process this refers to how students are making sense of the content. These are the activities we plan across the school day for our students to engage in the learning we have for them to do. Many of the language supports that were discussed earlier in the year at an ET fall into this process category. Whether we are using tiered activities, interactive journals, learning centers, graphic organizers, visible thinking routines, discussion protocols or manipulatives these are all opportunities to differentiate learning for our students based on readiness, interest level and/or learner profile.
So, what might this look like?
Think about a Bridges Lessons and Number talks and lessons on addition with regrouping. Maybe students are using white boards, or mathematician notebooks or even manipulatives to make models. These are all ways to differentiate the process. Remember there can be more than one strategy to get to the answer of the math problem, just as there is more than one way for our students to access the content. We need to provide our students with a variety of ways to practice and make sense of the concept. This could be extended to practice time in small group or at a learning station. It is about differentiated the activities not the amount of activities or the content. This can be done to enrich as well as reteach.
We all know that manipulatives and hands-on activities are great tools for helping our learners make certain concepts more concrete for them. We see this in math and science, our lower elementary teachers see this in the learning of the abstract symbols that make up our alphabet. Manipulatives and hands-on activities are a form of process differentiation, you can differentiate or personalize even further by considering and planning for which students might need longer stretches of time with these concrete materials or more intervals of time using letters to form words using letters or you may have older students who would benefit from manipulating the syllables of words or separating the root from the prefix and suffixes.
Perhaps at a future PLC when you are reviewing formative data, some of the discussion can be around what additional strategies can be used to reteach and enrich. This site IRIS Center - Differentiated Process provides even more concrete examples for differentiating the process to help us best meet the learning styles and abilities of all our students.
Coronavirus Science Lesson
In this week's Bobcast Broadcast ListServ I sent parents a really great comic that shows kids in non-scary language what Coronavirus is. They don't understand it, so they are filling in the blanks with some creative results.
Brainpop has a great video and possible science lesson on the Coronavirus geared to grades 3-5. Please feel free to use this resource. Brainpop Coronavirus Video/Lesson
Steam Fair 2020 - Sign-Ups Needed!
STEAM Fair 2020 Our Planet: Solving Today's Problems to Open a World of Possibilities for Tomorrow is coming this April (4/22/2020)! We would love to have any and all STEAM/Science/Art presentations and projects that you may have! FOSS Science, Mystery Science Labs, IQWST Science, Science Fair, classroom science and Maker Space projects are all welcome.
NEW THIS YEAR! This year we will be giving awards in the following categories - Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12. Awards are: Most Creative, World of Possibilities (best aligned to STEAM Fair Theme) and Judges Choice.
Sign up here to be part of STEAM: STEAM Fair Sign Up
Welcoming Rituals and Optimistic Closures
I am seeing some wonderful examples of both of these throughout the building! Thank you so much for implementing these into your daily routine...they're an integral part of our Social/Emotional goal for the year. Please see the links below for more examples of Welcoming Routines and Optimistic Closure Routines:
- Click here for the the CASEL Three Signature Practices Playbook. It has LOTS of suggestions for Welcoming Rituals and Optimistic Closures
- Click here for more Welcoming Routine examples
- Click here for more Optimistic Closure examples
Dismissal Duty
Week of 3/9
- Bus - Vertrees
- Loop - Babich, Borchard, Long, Hanes
Week of 3/16
- Bus - Henderson
- Loop - McMaster K., McMaster T., Pavlich, Beson
Random Useless Facts
In the past 60 years, the groundhog has only predicted the weather correctly 28% of the time.
- Finland was the only country to repay its war reparations after WW1.
- Women influence 80% of all new car purchases.
- They have a petrified buffalo hairball at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame in Waco.
- In Texas, it is illegal to curse in front of or indecently expose a corpse.
- Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
- Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors.
- The first Ford cars has Dodge engines.
- Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
Happy Birthday!!
- March 5 - Sue Segerstrom
- March 7 - Bridget Beson
- March 26 - Megan Wilson
- March 30 - Robin Long
Now that I've been observed...how do I upload and label evidence into pivot again?
1. Upload, name, and code evidence to a specific indicator.
2. To check where you have evidence by indicator.