May 1, 2020

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• Students submitting pictures of themselves taking their "Flat" teacher with them.  Students loved to share their days with their teachers.

• Teachers using the chat box as a formative assessment technique and to pace the lesson when they can't see all of the students during the lesson.

• Staff members checking in and supporting parents of their students with encouraging words and affirmations.

• Students helping each other learn new math vocabulary words by using their own words and relating to real life things in their homes.

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, May 4
• National Teacher Appreciation Week starts
• We all appreciate you each and every day, but this week we can't wait to show you all how very much you are appreciated.  Enjoy your week!
• Fort Day - Construct your best fort creation with blankets, legos, drawings, etc
• Self-Care Academy @ 3pm (click here to sign up 24 hours before)
• Tuesday, May 5
• Virtual Talent Show meeting at 11:00 on https://bluejeans.com/782539236
• Dance Party - Organize a dance party for you and your family.
• Self-Care Academy @ 8am (click here to sign up 24 hours before)
• Wednesday, May 6
• Virtual Staff Meeting @ 11:00am
• Coach Jena will be joining us at the beginning of the meeting.
• D.E.A.R. Time - Drop Everything and Read Day! Share a photo of you and family reading together.
• Thursday, May 7
• Dress-Up or Face Painting Day - Get out some dress clothes, costumes, parents' clothes or play clothing and dress up.
• Friday, May 8
• Game Day - Get out the game boards, deck of cards, puzzles, etc and play!  Create some laughs as a family.

Nitty-Gritty

• Virtual Dodgeland Family Spirit Week
• This week we will have another spirit week to encourage families to spend time together having fun.  Each day will be posted on Class Dojo and on FaceBook.  Encourage kids to share how they are participating each day either in person or with a photo.

• Talent Show
• Our talent show is being planned for our students.  Please consider joining the staff entry for the talent show.  Sue has a great idea and it will be fun to participate!  The meeting is on BlueJeans on Tuesday at 11:00am.

• May Virtual Activities
• I started a calendar of activities for students to connect with each other in fun activities.  Click here to see the Calendar.  If you would like to add an activity to the calendar please let me know before Monday, May 4.  I will then share the document with our families.  These are purely optional, but one way to help our students stay connected.  

• Momentum for May
• Students across the building/grades are struggling to maintain momentum for virtual learning.  Some students' sleeping schedules are way off, some are finding it difficult to focus on lessons, and so much more.  This is one of the reasons we are adding in spirit weeks, virtual recesses, and why Jena is going to join us for the staff meeting to support your work and provide ideas to continue to provide play in their lessons.  I know this is hard, and I know that it is not our preference, but I am so impressed by your incredible work the last 6 weeks.  Please take care of yourself, and reach out if you need help with a student or personally.

PD Spotlight

There is a theme for this week's blog, and it is about how to end our year strong.  It is not even close to the year that I thought we would have. We have one more month to help our kids learn and progress and grow.  Together we can still have a memorable year filled with fun, laughter and learning. This will only work if we take good care of ourselves.  Stress affects so many areas of our lives, our mood, relationships, reasoning, etc.  This article was helpful for me to reflect on my home schedule.  I hope it helps you as well.

Friday Funny

In my case, it will be super curly and gray!  :-)