April 28, 2023

 Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• Staff and Students pulling together to help students complete their Forward testing sessions this week.  Now that that's over, it's time to start our district assessments next week! :-)

• Shout Out to Michelle who went above and beyond all week covering the many comings and goings in the office with the extra students coming and going for testing as well as more adults out of the building or covering said tests!

• 5K students learned how to use the equipment on the "big" playground.  They were so proud of themselves!  Thank you to their 5K teachers for going through the expectations with them!

• We have a couple of students tend to elope when they become frustrated or upset.  Thank you to all the staff that step in to assist in keeping them safe even though they are very busy.  The goal is to help them handle this differently, but while they are learning I appreciate the teamwork!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, May 1
• Bus Duty: Crane, Mosher, Murphy
• Elementary Gym is closed to students/staff (except Talent Show preview)
• Talent Show Preview: 2:30 in the Elem. gym
• Art Show @ 5pm
• Talent Show @ 6pm
• i-Ready and FastBridge window opens

• Tuesday, May 2
• 3rd Grade SEL meeting 12:05-12:55pm
• Social Media Posts to Jessica:  No one signed up this week, but feel free to submit a bonus one!
• Para Meeting in Elem. Conference Room @ 3:10pm

• Wednesday, May 3
• Workout Wednesday
• 5K Academic data meeting - 12:05-12:55pm

• Thursday, May 4
• Star Wars Day - May the Fourth Be With You!

• Friday, May 5
• Cinco de Mayo

Nitty-Gritty

• Elementary Gym work
• On May 1-2, there will be continued work occurring in the gym.  I appreciate Michael and all of you with your flexibility with the displacement of PE this year, including Monday and Tuesday next week.  Many things were back ordered that caused delays in the installation from the original plan.  Watch for information from Michael about where PE will occur on those two days.  (The preview of the talent show will still occur in the elementary gym starting at 2:30pm.)

• Playground sign up
• Now that the weather is getting nicer, many of us want to take our students outside for breaks or extra recesses as rewards.  If you are planning to do this, please check the sign-up schedule HERE to be sure that we don't end up with too many classes on the playground at one time.  Please remind students to follow the same expectations as all other recesses when they are on the equipment.

• Recess Reminders/Updates
• Soccer at Recess
• Grades 1-2: 
• Morning Recess - Soccer is CLOSED
• Lunch Recess - Jr Coach will run Hot Shot Soccer, no open play
• Grades 3-5:
• Morning recess - 3rd grade Soccer is CLOSED
• Morning recess - 4th-5th - Traditional soccer for both grades
• Lunch Recess - Rotation of grades, it will be posted on the 4th/5th grade doors each day.
• General Reminders
• There is NO version of tag or chase on the playground.  There is a tag zone for this.  This also includes made up games that require them to chase each other around the playground in a quest to capture each other in some way!
• Students should leave the trees alone at all times.  There is no reason to touch them, including picking off the bark or branches or leaves that seems to be occurring frequently.

• Library Lessons and End of the Year Planning
• The week of May 8th will be the last week of library classes and book checkout. The week of May 15th, library will be consolidated into one day, Tuesday, May 16th to accommodate our guest visitors, the librarians from our community public libraries. Books will continue to get picked up throughout the week of May 16th and 22nd. Feel free to keep any books that students are using for projects - last day for book pickup will be Wednesday, May 24th. Late notices will be sent home that night to families.

• On Tuesday, May 16th, we have special visitors from our community libraries who will be promoting their summer reading program. Flyers will be given to you for students to take home after the presentation. Below is the schedule for that morning. Thank you for your flexibility as we tried to accommodate our school schedule as well as the schedule of community librarians that are coming to us before the library opens.
• 8:15-8:45am - grade 4K & 5K
• 8:45-9:15am - grade 2 & 3
• 9:15-9:45am - grade 4 & 5 (recess will be pushed back to (9:45 for the day)
• 9:45-10:15 - grade 1

• iPad Turn In
• For the elementary wing, iPad turn in will be from Thursday, May 18 - Tuesday, May 23.  Christina and Brad will give more specific details at the next staff meeting.  However, as you plan for the end of the year, please think about when you will have students turn in their iPads for the school year. The available times are HERE.  Christina will be coming to classrooms to assist with this process again this year.

Tech Know Tip

Looking to connect your students outside their known world? Try any of these 12 Websites for Virtual Field Trips. One highlight on the list is “The Hidden Worlds of the National Parks” where you go on an interactive tour (including videos, audio recording, activities, and 360* views) with a park ranger at one of our beautiful U.S. National Parks. Another favorite from the list is Explore.org Live Nature Cams which has an endless variety of staffed nature cameras including a kitten rescue sanctuary in California, an osprey nest in Montana, a puppy nursery in Maryland, or inside a honeybee hive in Germany. Many of these relaxing livecams have soothing music accompaniments, making them great to use at the start of the day, during work time, or a way to calm down before quality learning.

Friday Funny

Spring is always a very stressful time of year for educators. There is so much to do and schedules that seem to be more and more packed every week. For me personally, it's also a time of year that brings back memories both bittersweet and quite frankly, difficult. One of the ways that I try to deal with this stress is by using humor. One of my favorite comedians is Nate Bargatze. I know I have shared about him before. (This weekend he is performing in Milwaukee and by the time I went to buy tickets it was almost totally sold out. Sigh.). So, I guess I will use YouTube to enjoy his jokes. Funnier yet, is that I know the punchlines, but I can still watch them all over and laugh like it was the first time I heard it. If you need to laugh, click HERE for an 9 min. video with some of his funniest stories. I hope you all have a great weekend!