Weekly Messages 1.20.20

Happy Tuesday!
 
We hope that you had a restful long weekend.  PD on Friday was great and for those of you that traveled to other sites we hope that you had a meaningful day as well.  A big thank you to Marie Brown, Melissa Crowder, and Fallyn Hoffart who served as facilitators of our DCE morning PD sessions and to our program planners that facilitated the afternoon sessions.  Don't forget that Marie needs minutes and artifacts from the afternoon turned in ASAP.

   

Fire Inspection:

This week is busy with fire inspection.  Tuesday is our last day to triple check our rooms, closets, and offices.  Let's make this year infraction free!  If you are a peer mentor to a new teacher, please try to find a minute to swing by their room and help them double check that everything is ready to go.  The big day is Wednesday.

Observations:

Our scores for teacher evaluations are due in the system on March 6th.  If you have not scheduled your observation yet, please stop by to see Mary Crawford so she can assist you in getting it scheduled.

Speaking of observations, last week we had the privilege of spending time in Mrs. Feng's class.  She provided her students with think time and independent work time before putting their heads together to reach a consensus on questions that she had asked about the author's purpose.  To facilitate this, she used a wonderful Kagan mat.  This mat has two sides, one that is used for multiple choice responses and one that can be used for written responses.  We saw both of these in action.  This was a great way to get all students answering every question and held them accountable to producing an independent response. Nice job Mrs. Feng!

A few weeks ago we also saw Mrs. Cabral and Mrs. Watson have their kiddos share what they learned in the classroom with their parents via ipad. This was a great opportunity to have students review what they learned by retelling it through video at the end of the lesson.  What a great formative assessment tool as well!  The tool they used is called Seesaw.  Woohoo Mrs. Cabral and Mrs. Watson!

Week at a Glance:

We are excited that our very own Writing Committee will be presenting some training on Thursday about Top Score writing.  Their PD will help us bring alignment and consistency when having our students write across grade levels.   Yay!  Please be sure to join us in the Media Center Thursday at 7:20 for this session.

This will be a busy, but short week!  Be sure to stop by the BINGO wall to see some kind things you can do for your peers or for your students to help us keep one another's spirits high!  

-Keli and James