Monday Memo
March 21-25, 2016
Hello Spring Break!
When we return we will begin preparing for MAP testing, which begins April 11th. Please begin preparing your room now for testing by taking all content items down. If you have questions or are unsure of what can stay up please contact myself or Tina.
Kudos
Thank you to everyone for being flexible with chromebooks during CDT testing.
Thank you to Amy Rinearson for showcasing the wonderful work she is doing in Art with students involving choice, during the board meeting on Thursday.
Thank you for keeping up the rigor and engaging students each and every day. I know we are entering the home stretch, but it's just as important as ever to make sure the students know we're not done yet, and still have a lot of learning left.
Nuts and Bolts
- You may have received an email from MAP helpdesk. This email prompts you to log in within 10 days and change your password. Please log in and change your password only, don't do anything else at this point.
- Please send me nominations for Coach and Support Staff of the Month by Thursday.
- Add your athletes of the month for March by Tuesday afternoon. We plan on sending home the April newsletter before we leave for break.
- Please remember to begin transferring files in order to have them complete before April 4th. If you need to transfer ownership of files and need assistance please let me know.
- We will begin working on class placements when we return from Spring Break. Please add this to the team agenda for April 5th.
- Kurt will be coming around to teams on Tuesday to discuss some small groups we have seen a need for. He should be contacting you to have him added to the agenda.
- If you are non-tenured, contracts are due to central office by April 1st. This falls during our spring break and the district will be closed, so please make sure those get signed and sent over this week. If you are tenured, you're not required to sign and return, but it helps the business office have a tracking method for steps and years of service.
Lesson Plans
- Please make sure lesson plans are out and visible. Lesson plans should be detailed enough for us to know what students are doing during the lesson and what skill they are expected to master. For example, during Social Studies one day might say:
Cause/Effect scavenger hunt on trueflix.
QQT on cause/effect.
- This tells us that the teacher is modeling cause/effect of the Revolutionary War using a video and what the topic of the video is. It also tells us that the class will work together on a scavenger hunt and they will have a formative assessment playing QQT.
- Simply putting cause/effect doesn't explain what you, or the students are doing, or what they are doing with cause/effect. If you have any questions about lesson plans Tina or I would be happy to work with you on what we'd like to see.
- Ensure that your plans, objectives, and activities are aligned. Remember that the objectives for Reading, Writing, and Math should be displayed daily. When looking over your plans, we should see that these match and that the activity the students are doing will result in mastery of that skill in the objective.
Above is a good example of what your plans could look like. It's very clear what the students are doing and what's expected at the end from them.
A Look Ahead
Mrs. Kolarik out all day, Dr. Day out in am, show summer school video during PAWS (Tina sent links in email)
Tuesday, March 22 - (C Day) Pledge - Frazzetta
Team Meetings, Spring Pictures
Wednesday, March 23 - (D Day) Pledge - Sutton
Dr. Day out all day, Early Release PD (Work on ART form for 3rd Quarter)
Thursday, March 24 - (E Day) Pledge - Hunt
Dr. Day out all day, report cards go home
Friday, March 25-Friday, April 1 - Spring Break...enjoy and relax! Have a happy Easter!
Curriculum Corner
Great way to introduce a topic. Lay out butcher paper with pictures of the upcoming unit, then let the kids write questions/comments about the pictures.