The Dodgeland Download (DES): January 3, 2020

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Since it is such a short week, I have very little for this spot this week.
HOWEVER, it was so great to see everyone today. I missed the kids and all of you during break. I hope you had a great first day back!

Our next PD day will be focused on our target based grading work. I will be following up with an email to help prepare for this work so that we can be efficient with our time on Jan 17. Let me know if you have any questions related to this process.

As I stated in the last blog, I will be providing information and feedback on literacy instruction to support your SLO and PPG goals. One of the challenging parts of Units of Study is keeping the Mini-lesson--mini so that there is a lot of time for students to practice. I like how the pie chart to the right visually shows a goal of how literacy blocks are spent. Because mini-lessons are at the beginning of a lesson, it has the potential to throw off the timings of the block.

Our staff meetings are the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month. However, the 4th Wednesdays in Jan, March and April have been cancelled so that you all can participate in the self-care academy. (On the Elementary Google Calendar, the meeting is described as a Self-Care Academy date for those three months.) These sessions are designed for adults to learn and practice their own self-care. Our profession is very stressful and complex, and self-care is not always a top priority, even though it maybe should be. This is our opportunity to fit it in to our schedules. Attendance at the Self-Care Academy is optional.

Self Care Academy Flyer (See the email from Kalise Horst for more details.)

I wanted to give a heads-up about an event that is occurring at our school on January 28. Representatives from the Office of Children's Mental Health and the Greater Watertown Community Health Foundation, along with a number of other agencies related to student SEL skill development including First Lady Evers will be visiting Dodgeland Elementary to see the initiatives that we have in place regarding SEL. This visit is in the early planning stages. As more logistics and details are developed and planned, they will be shared. At this time, you should be aware that there will be many visitors in the building that day.

This week the PD Spotlight is a VERY short article that I would like you to read before Wednesday's staff meeting, January 8. The article will give you some background information for the presentation that Andrea Schulte will be leading for us during the staff meeting. I liked that the article acknowledges how difficult it is to teach a mini-lesson from UoS, but it also gives some helpful advice on how to work on getting it mini in our own classrooms. This blog is one of my favorites. Feel free to subscribe to it yourself if you are interested.