November 1, 2019

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• Students beginning a PLTW unit and so engaged in the lesson they didn't notice me in the room!
• Students did a great job with this week's Lock Down Drill.  I know this is because of the preparation and calm demeanor of their teachers.
• A number of people dropping things to help out at the fundraiser pick-up.  The work was so much easier with help!
• I got to sit in on a number of positive, compassionate and organized parent teacher conferences.  Our parents are noticing your work through what their children say at home and are quite impressed.  The story I heard today was a child telling their parent that they "dipped her bucket" when he said something to her.  It caused the parent to think about how the family communicates at home.  How great is that!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, Nov. 4
• Playworks Coach Jena from 8-noon
• Students of the Month announced
• Mentors/Mentees Meeting in IMC at 3:15-4:00pm
• Tuesday, Nov 5
• Grades Due at 7:30am
• Playworks Coach Jena from 8-noon
• Wednesday, Nov 6
• 5th Grade Data meeting at 12:00
• Thursday, Nov 7
• Playworks Coach Jena from 8-noon
• Attendance Committee meeting at 12:10
• 1st Quarter Report Cards sent home
• Friday, Nov 8
• Veteran's Assembly from 9:30-10:30 in the HS gym.
• HS Musical, Weird at 7pm (PG-13 rating)

Nitty-Gritty

• Playworks Coaching - Coach Jena will be back for the final coaching visit for Playworks in the classroom training.  This time around, she will be observing you teach a game that your class has not played before as well as a debrief surrounding an SEL skill.  Then Jena will teach a game while you observe.  The last 10 min. I will cover your classroom while you connect with Jena.  See Jena's email or click here for the schedule.  (If anyone would be willing to switch with Taylor Huso, she is looking for a new time.)
• Report Cards - All grades are due on Tuesday morning at 7:30 am.  Report cards will be run to check for errors by Wednesday.  Report cards should be distributed on Thursday, Nov 7 with students.
• PLTW - After meeting with both Sue and Kevin, I have a document to help us plan for PLTW teaching for this school year.  Our goal is for each classroom to teach two modules this school year.  
• The modules for grades K-2 can be done in your classroom.  However, you will have to coordinate with the other teachers in your grade.  The module can not be taught in the same grade at the same time due to material shortage.
• Most of the modules for grades 3-5 use the Vex kit and there is enough materials for 2 classrooms to teach a module needing a Vex kit at one time.  (This is so the projects can be created and kept in tact between sessions.) Click here to sign up for a time period for your classroom to teach the modules this school year.
• Weather -  So this week's horrible weather snuck up on a lot of our families.  Many of our students did not come to school with hats, mittens, boots, and in some cases even a coat.  Please ask students if they have these things in their locker to put on.  (Some have them, but choose not to wear them.)  Others may need to borrow some from the supply we have at school.  Let me know if you need any help with winter supplies for a student.  We have some options right at school.
• Veteran's Assembly - The annual Veteran's Assembly is scheduled for Friday, Nov 8 from 9:30-10:30.  Please dress professionally as there will be many guests in our building for this K-12 assembly.  In order to preserve as much instruction time as we can, but also to help our youngest students attend to the assembly, outside recess will be held for grades 5K-2 from 9:00-9:15. If the weather prohibits outdoor recess, it will be canceled due to the guests in the commons.  There will be no outside morning recess for grades 3-5. Please play a playworks game in your classrooms before and/or after the assembly.
• Math and Phonics Committee: Please email me by Friday, November 8, if you would like to be a primary or intermediate rep for a schoolwide committee to work on our math curriculum analysis or the phonics curriculum analysis.
• Pride Assembly - Our 1st quarter pride assembly will be held on Thursday, November 14 from 2:30-3:00.  It is on a Thursday so that our 4K students can join us.  Two of the assemblies will be on Thursdays this year, and two of them are on Fridays.

PD Spotlight

• I subscribe to a number of education blogs.  The one that I read this week from George Couros is the one I would like to share with you this week.  Click here to read the whole post.  The quote below is in the post.  It strikes me that it is so true, and yet, in many places inside our school building, we get to see this happen too.  In fact, I watched a couple of young students beam with pride when they had a good day behavior wise too.  Even as adults, we have the opportunity to grow and find joy in learning new things.  I learn many, many new things every day.  It keeps me engaged in my work, and allows me to find joy in the work as well, especially when I can tell it is better than the last time. This does not mean that this is easy, but it is worth it.  I get most of the students' names right when I talk to them.  It was a challenge to myself, and it's even harder when they put their snow gear on!  But it felt good to see them smile at me when I got their names right.  They were cheering me on, and I found joy in learning this small thing too.  Where do you see this joy in your classrooms?
• 

Friday Funny

Last weekend, I celebrated my nephew's confirmation.  He has 3 cousins that were adopted from Bulgaria on the other side of his family.  We don't get to see them often because they live in Indianapolis, IN, but this week I told London that I would share her joke on my weekly blog as part of the Friday Funny.  She was super excited about this. (She is 8 years old.) 

Here is her joke.

Q: Why did the cow cross the road?

A: To get to the MOOO-vies!    :-)

October 25, 2019

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• A new substitute to our district complimented our staff on the excellent sub plans she always gets when she comes to our district.  She said it makes it so much easier for the students when she knows the routines/lessons so well.  (I totally agreed, based on my experience subbing this year so far too!)
• Students referring to the problem solving wheel when discussing other ways to handle disagreements with classmates.
• Students volunteering to help out cleaning up in the commons after they finish eating.
• Third graders sharing writing pieces proudly and noting their application of an introduction and a conclusion and using punctuation!
• Junior Coaches that are dependable, patient, and kind to our youngest students each and every day!

What's Happening at Dodgeland

Mon, Oct. 28 - *OPTIONAL* - EP SLO session in the IMC (use the time to ask questions, work on the SLO, get feedback, etc)
Tues, Oct 29 - Parent Teacher Conferences (last day of the Book Fair)
Wed, Oct 30 - Fundraiser Pick-up from 3-5:30 (Feel free to come out and help right after school!)
                     - 5K Grade Level Data meeting
Thurs, Oct 31 -  Halloween
Fri, Nov 1 - Flu shot clinic for students

Nitty-Gritty

• Popcorn:  The volunteers that make popcorn for our students each week would like us to help them a bit.  Each week they are guessing at how much popcorn they should be popping. Sometimes, they are way over and other weeks they run short and have to quickly make more.  They often arrive very early to begin popping so that it is done before the start of their work day.  It would help tremendously if they had a ballpark figure as to how many kids may be ordering popcorn.  On Thursday morning/afternoons, could you take a quick count of who thinks they may be buying popcorn on Friday morning.  We realize it may not be totally accurate, but it would help them be as efficient as possible.  Click here for the Popcorn tally form.
• Please Note: Grades are due on TUESDAY, November 5 at 7:30am.
• Reminder that Halloween costumes will not be worn at school.  (This week I had a student who was getting anxious about Halloween coming up and how it is a scary time of year.  Hopefully, by keeping the costumes out of the school, we can avoid some anxiety for children that feel this way too.)
• Student of the Month:  Please fill in the chart for your class here by Thursday, Oct 31.

PD Spotlight

Last week, I talked about kindness and the issues some of our students are having in social interactions.  Again this week, unkind words have spread to physical reactions.  This is not to say that we haven't been modeling, praising, and focusing on being bucket fillers.  It does mean that we are going to stay the course and consistently spread the message.  Our students need it and it has so many benefits for them in the long run.  The link here shares some research regarding how kindness affects people.  I find this fascinating.  When I think about how I want the Dodgeland Elementary to feel, sound and look like, I have a clear image in my mind.  It is filled with warm smiles, kind words and actions, helpful students, and everyone happy to be here.  I can see it so clearly and I am committed to this mission.  Students that consistently show kindness to others will create a chain reaction that will help the entire building.  Please watch this two min. video that discusses some benefits of kindness.  My favorite line from the video is: "The thing about kindness is, it is just about the only thing in the world that doubles when you share it."  How awesome is that to think about?!

Friday Funny

Knock, Knock

Who's There?

Theodore

Theodore Who?

Theodore is stuck and it won't open!

October 18, 2019

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• A first grader was reading a book to me during Literacy.  He started by saying, "This book is hard."  But he stuck with it, read every word, and was starting to use strategies to break down words and make meaning.

• Writing pieces are coming along nicely in many classrooms.  I have seen many students in the past week that have persevered through this complex task, working on coping with their frustration and ultimately feeling good about their progress.

• Staff expressing their thoughts and ideas professionally to others and myself with the purpose of making our school a great place for our kids to learn.

• Quick, caring responses to help out fellow teachers with students that are struggling or in crisis.  As a professional, it is always nice to know when there is a fellow teacher(s) just around the corner ready, willing and able to help out when needed.

What's Happening at Dodgeland

Tuesday, 10/22 -

• Optional meeting with Mindy regarding 2nd Step Resources (see below)

Wednesday, 10/23 -

• Picture Retake Day
• Newsletter article's due

Thursday, 10/24 -

• Parent/Teacher Conferences 4-7:30 (Jenny's providing an early supper in the lounge for everyone!  It'll be ready at 3:00)

Friday, 10/25 -

• Professional Development Day (agenda to be coming soon)

Nitty-Gritty

• Some grade levels are looking at adding an SEL day into their WIN rotation schedule.  If your grade level is looking for resources to help with the plans for these lessons, Second Step has resources that accompany the lessons that Mindy teaches during GG.  On Tuesday, Oct 22 from 3:15-3:45pm, Mindy will have an OPTIONAL meeting in the EL PLTW lab to share and help staff members with logging in to the Second Step site, finding and downloading resources, and ideas to help both staff and students continue to work on these important SEL skills.  If you have any questions, please see Mindy.

• I received a message from the program coordinator at UW-Oshkosh Literacy Graduate program.  They are investigating interest in creating a cohort that would meet in Beaver Dam starting in the Spring of 2020.  This cohort would lead to licensure as a reading teacher (1316) and optionally, a reading specialist (5017) and master's degree. Click here for the brochure and contact info. I don't know anything about the program, just passing on the information.

• CESA #6 is looking for volunteers that may be interested in reading applications for the Herb Kohl Fellowship/Scholarship program.  Click here for more information.

• I am so enjoying the opportunities that I have to continue to learn about our DES system, routines and procedures.  This week, I learned that there is a structure to record the outcomes of the parent contacts I am making or the responses that have been completed in Educlimber.  Then Educlimber emails out the update to staff who submitted the open review referrals.  Thank you for your patience with me.  Most of the open items in my open review Educlimber list, I had already addressed, but I did not know how nice it was to keep the notes in this central location and then have it automatically sent out to staff that need to know about it.  Now that I know this, it will be a much more efficient way of keeping staff members in the loop of the incidents that arise.

• Parent/Teacher conferences are next week!  This is our opportunity to connect with our students' families.  A strong home/school connection helps our students tremendously.  If you would like my attendance for any conference please let me know.

• Garth will be here to work with us to continue our work on prioritizing and creating the DES Target-Based Grading system for part of the PD day.  The agenda will be out soon to describe the full day of learning/work that will include other pieces of the day as well.

PD Spotlight

This week's PD Spotlight is slightly different.  I am relating what I am researching and what I've learned in the past with the realities of the weekly actions of our students. I am reminded that our students have already told us that an issue at Dodgeland in every part of our district, is that students are not nice to each other.  I believe this is contributing to the culture of the building, the preoccupation with social conflicts, and ultimately, the difficulty of attending to learning tasks.


I am finding in the last few weeks that I am spending much of my time sending the same message to student after student.  I know that Mindy in GG and classroom teachers send the same message.  My simple message is this:

At Dodgeland, we expect students to speak kindly to one another at all times, to respect each other's differences and use the words "please stop" when something is happening that is bothering them.

Lately, I have been hearing many unkind words being slung around from student to student.  In some cases, this is the start of more physical incidents as well.  It is never okay for students to use their hands/feet on someone else in anger (or really anytime).  Most students that I speak to know that hitting, punching, kicking, etc is wrong, but they don't have other ideas of what to do instead.  When I ask, "What could you have done instead?" is answered with either "I don't know" or "Don't hit."

Children by nature are mimics.  They mimic what they see, what they hear, including responses to stress that they have witnessed.  They are also impressionable and ready to learn new ways of behaving and responding.  We have the opportunity, and yes, the challenge of helping them to develop healthy social skill habits, regulation skills and coping strategies.   This is part of our work.

I am aware that GG lessons have centered around kindness and bucket-filling.  I believe that students understand what this means and can discuss these ideas in detail in classrooms.  The generalization and application is where the breakdown seems to be occurring.

So, I have been thinking about how I could piggy-back off of Mindy's GG lessons.  Is there another way that I can send the same message, but through my lens?

One thought I have is to prepare a short lesson that I can deliver to your classroom in the coming weeks.  Or, I could prepare a video to show students with my message.  Behind the scenes, I have been and will continue to send the message of expecting kindness/respect.  I will share the same message with every parent that I interact with and consistently ask students to practice tone of voice, kind words, and resolving conflicts using the problem solving wheel.

Please speak to me if you'd like my assistance with this in your classrooms.  In the meantime, thank you for continuing to expect kindness, praising students that exhibit kind words and actions, and modeling for them how to treat all people in our school with respect and kindness.  Remember, there is always a student (or 2 or 3...) that is watching us.  What a fantastic job we get to do each day!



Friday Funny

You may already know I like Marvel Comics and the SuperHeroes genre, but did you know I am a HUGE Golden Girls fan too?  This is why I love this picture/caption below!

October 11, 2019

What a week huh?  :-)

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• Students teaching Mrs. Huelsman all about their routines in their classrooms.  Every class I got to be with this week knew the routines and procedures.  Great job everyone!!!
• Problem-solving as a team to help students in crisis.  Teamwork will yield results for the whole system, not just that student.
• 4th grade Jr Coaches are getting our 5K students to follow the lunch dismissal routine quicker and quicker every week.  They may be teachers in the making!  They are consistent and kind and calm!
• A new guest teacher to our district told Marie and I how much she likes coming to Dodgeland.  She stated that everyone is so kind and helpful to her.  (Of course, we knew that, but it was nice to hear!)

What's Happening at Dodgeland

• Tuesday - Field trips for 5K and 1st grade
• Wednesday - Field trip for 4K and Grade Level meeting for grade 2 and WORKOUT Wednesday!
• Friday - 3rd grade field trip
• Is that all???  (Let me know if I missed anything!)

Nitty-Gritty

• The bus company contacted me this week with a concern.  While they are dropping off in the morning, there often are balls rolling across the bus lane. No one wants a student to get hurt, so if you are on bus duty outside, students can start to play with basketballs, kickballs, etc after 7:40am to avoid this issue. 

• I could still use one more person to help me with the fundraiser pick-up after school on October 30 at 3pm for 45min to an hour.  If you are interested, please let me know.

• WIN should be starting soon.  If you need any help with planning, please let me know.

• CESA 6 President's Day Proposals - Dr. Thompson emailed out earlier this week details about proposals to present at this year's President's Day Spring into Success PD day.  If you would like to present, please submit a proposal to me by Friday, October 18. Below are the details sent from CESA.
• The expectations for presenting include:
• If selected, you will present up to four times (same presentation) at two different locations.
• The presentation time is one hour.
• Your presentation should be motivational with the following structure:
• Story hook
• 1-3 strategies participants can walk out with and use immediately
• Turn and talk time

• The directions to batch print the i-Ready reports for families is here.

• To follow up from the staff meeting, if you want to look over the discipline flow chart, click here. (It is on page 11-12.)

PD Spotlight

Earlier this week, I shared this video at the Mentors/Mentees book study.  It is only 2 min. but it has stayed with me all week.  It's the very end of the video that gets to me.  I reflect on this in my home, with my family and yes with our students.  This is why it is so important to me that we work together to help our students build SEL skills and problem solve around what our students need.  What is their behavior communicating to us?  We have the opportunity and a compelling reason looking at us each and every day!

Friday Funny

 This week's funny is a true story from my life.  Below are two screen shots of a conversation between Lexi (green) and my son (gray) who is in Milwaukee.  The conversation was just before 11pm last night.  Enjoy!

October 4, 2019

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• Staff giving high fives and hugs to our students as they leave for the day.  This helps our students want to keep coming back every day!
• Staff working together to plan WIN groups based on student need so students have what they need each week.
• Communication about concerns and celebrations in a professional and problem solving way.
• Staff working together to create and follow plans for students that are struggling in school.

What's Happening at Dodgeland

HOMECOMING WEEK! (Dress up day schedule)

• Monday (10/7) - 
• Mentors/Mentees Meeting at 3:15 in the IMC
• Read180 starts in grades 4-5
• Tuesday (10/8) - Jenny will be gone until 10:15 am.
• Wednesday (10/9) - 
• Grade Level Meeting for 3rd grade
• Staff meeting at 3:10 in the IMC
• Thursday (10/10) - 4th grade walking field trip to Juneau Utilities
• Friday (10/11) - 
• Homecoming assembly @1pm
• Early Release at 2:20
• Parade Line-up starts at 3:30 to start at 4pm

Nitty-Gritty

• Homecoming Friday:  Next Friday the Pep assembly is starting at 1pm.  If 3-5 teachers can meet us in the commons at 12:55 to escort students to the gym, we can alleviate extra transitions.  The assembly is scheduled to finish around 2:00-2:10.  This year, students will be sitting on the floor in front of the bleachers in front of the MS/HS students.  Students in K-2 will need to be dismissed from recess early as well in order to get to the  HS gym on time for the assembly. More clarifications will come next week as well.

• As you complete your WIN groups, please record them on the WIN document. Along the side indicate the plan for the week.  Which days will be reading, which days are Math?  Who is in a SEL group?  What is the focus of that SEL group?  Are any students getting EL support during WIN?

• Student of the Month - So I may have overlooked this earlier this week!  Click here to fill in the Student of the Month for your class.  I plan to announce this on Wednesday, October 9. 

• XPD's - Have you registered for XPD's for this year?  If you need to change or want to add any courses, just log in with the password you created when you first registered.  It will give you the option to remove courses you have already registered for, or the check boxes to add courses.  If there is a limit to the number of participants, it is listed next to the course.  The site is:  www.regpacks.com/XPD

• Attendance Initiative - If your class fills in each box of the October attendance chart, please take a picture of the class with the sheet and send it to me to use for an attendance collage.  If you have any questions or concerns or need help with the classroom prize, please let me know!

• Thinking ahead:  Fundraiser pick-up is on October 30 after school.  If there are 2-3 people that would be willing to help for 45min-1hr after school, I would very much appreciate the help.  The company sorts it well, we just have to find the numbered box for each family as they come in. 

PD Spotlight

This week for the PD Spotlight, I decided to share this video.  The video is about 8 min. long.  If you do not have enough time to watch the whole thing, watch from 5:40 to 6:50.  The purpose of this video is to share ideas of how to help parents reinforce and teach SEL skills within their homes.  Many of our students will mimic things they see or experience in their homes.  I found some of the pieces of this video to be helpful as I interact with parents as well.  During Parent/Teacher Conferences later this month, you may choose to share about our SEL instruction this year.  The 5 ideas presented here may give you ideas to talk with parents about.  

As we continue our work this year on learning about our own SEL skills, and how to help our students gain and improve their skills, I am reminded that this learning is not just a 30 min. weekly lesson in GG.  This is how we interact with each other, with all students, and the overall culture of our building.  Without this carry over, students will struggle to consistently use healthy and positive SEL skills when under stress.  I believe that over time, our students will not only thrive in the culture we are creating together at Dodgeland, but also be ready to learn.  Their achievements in school will continue to improve as well.

Friday Funny

https://www.gocomics.com/offthemark