October 6, 2023

 Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• Shout out to Trisha Pieper who went through every single one of the fundraiser slips for us.  I can not thank you enough!

• Our first SEL and Academic data meetings went well this week!  Thank you for your professional participation in these important meetings.

• Shout out to Bethany Turcotte, Reilly DuPruis, Brenda Caine, Mitch Wedel, Sue O'Toole and Patrick Schwoerer for helping cover for staff in a number of places around the school.  I truly appreciate your teamwork! 

• 5th grade students working together to create a jump rope routine in PE.  I love watching our natural leaders come out, but even more importantly is listening to them create together and letting everyone's voice be heard.  It was awesome to see some growth for this group today!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, October 9
• Bus Duty: CaineT, Riege, Juech, Vertz (3K/4K/5K playground)

• Tuesday, October 10
• SEL Data meeting for 1st grade in Elementary Conf. room 12:05-12:55pm
• Social Media Posts due to Jessica: Braunschweig, O'Toole, Mook

• Wednesday, October 11
• Seals on Wheels starts in the elementary conference room
• Jenny in a meeting 8:30-10am
• Book Fair Starts in the IMC
• P/T Conference from 4-7:30
• Pasta Showdown in Commons from 4-7pm, cost $4 for teachers

• Thursday, October 12
• 4th Grade Walking field trip from 11am-12:30pm
• John Schlender will be in the district for those working with him for EP

• Friday, October 13
• Picture Retake Day
• Reading corps meeting which will affect tutoring sessions 9:30-12:30pm
• XPD registration is due to Kimi

Nitty-Gritty

• Watson Wednesdays
• This year, Christina and her dog Watson, a registered therapy team, will be working in the school district to help support people's social and emotional health, cognitive health and general wellbeing.  You can find more information about how this might support your students/you or schedule time with Watson and Mrs. Rollins using the Staff Resource Page.  Click HERE to get to that page in the IMC Resources tab on the page.  I know that there have been many times where Watson was just what I needed for just a few minutes for a quick brain break!  I encourage you to use this resource if it fits with you or your students' needs.

• Cracked Screens on iPads
• We had our first (and hopefully last) cracked iPad screen from a desk lid.  Please remind students of where to store their iPads to avoid this type of situation.  If the iPad is destroyed, there is a cost for replacement, especially if it is from negligence or carelessness.  

• EmpowerU Family Engagement Option
• I am sharing with you a resource that we have access to for a limited number of families called EmpowerU Healthy emotions, Happy Families.  It is an online program with 11 lessons that can be done in 15 min. time periods as well as a journal with fun at-home activities and audio calming tools to use as well.  Click HERE to see a summary of the program. Do not introduce to families as that is something that I will do to make sure we have enough, but if you have a family that might benefit from it, please see me. Families that are searching for ideas to help their children with regulation, emotions, stress management and friendship skills, might be candidates for this type of thing.  It is free for parents as we have purchased the subscriptions and parents have access to the course throughout the school year after enrollment.

Behavior Specialist Information

Bucket Filling Clarification

Classes or individual students can earn poms for their class bucket. Specials teachers and paraeducators primarily give the students/class the poms when they notice bucket filling behaviors.

The main focus right now are:

• Level 0 voices and walking in the hall.

• Kind words/actions

• All of the lockers closed and clean floors outside of the entire class

• All students focused and engaged in learning.

• Other bucket filling behaviors can also be included as adults see fit.

The reason we didn’t give classroom teachers poms is because we know that most of you already have a classroom management/reward system and we didn’t want to override anything within your own classroom; however we will get classroom teachers some poms too so that you can recognize other classrooms for bucket filling.

Conferences

Please let Teresa know if there are any conferences you would like her to attend with you and/or if you need any resources for conferences.

Recess Information

Bus Duty Procedures

When you have bus duty, please grab the towels from between the 4k or 4th/5th grade doors and wipe down the swings, slide, and merry go round.

Please remind the students:

• In the morning, students are allowed to play on the playground, in the tag zone, or chat with their friends by the class cones.

• After school 5k-3rd MUST play on the playground, 4th and 5th MUST play basketball, 4 square, or gaga ball, 4k is walking/playing with the Junior Coach/teacher. As soon as staff see the buses come around the corner, blow the whistle and ALL students MUST line up in class lines to be dismissed to buses. Please remind 4th/5th grade they MUST put the balls away prior to lining up for the bus. 

5k Recess Expectations

The 5k transition to the large playground has been going well. Thank you for all your help to make that transition go smoothly. 5k students are allowed to be on any of the playground equipment that they can access by themselves. For example, if they are tall enough to go on the monkey bars they can use them, however if they can’t reach them on their own, they should not be lifted up to be able to go on them.

Now that the junior coach program is running, 5k students may join the junior coaches to play core games. We are also working on updated videos for each of the core games that can be used for reteaching game expectations for any student. Once they are ready, I will share them.

TechKnow Tip

As you prepare for Parent/Teacher conferences, keeping a student’s information confidential is required. Teachers should not show a live PowerSchool Gradebook with parents. It is recommended that parents log into their Parent access account to view their students’ progress and grades. If they do not have access to PowerSchool, another option is using PowerTeacher Grade book Reports. PowerSchool Reports can assist you with conversations with your students’ Parent/Guardians. To run an Individual Student Report, take a look at these directions.

• Individual Student Report
  Missing Assignment Report
  Standards Grades Report

PD Spotlight

Sue O'Toole shared this article with me and I thought it was VERY helpful.  First it was an easy read, and second, it had some practical pieces of advice.  The article is called "Tips for Calling Parents." It describes 8 specific tips that we can use when we call parents.  We know that parents are an important part of a child's educational journey, so having a strong parent/teacher relationship is only going to benefit our students.  Please read through this article and see if any of these tips would be helpful for your own practice.  I am going to make sure to remember to do number 4 each time. 

Friday Funny

Sometimes being vertically challenged is VERY hard and fairly embarrassing for my daughter.  Last night, Ella took me out for supper, (her treat!!) and we were seated in a booth on the far side of the restaurant.  As soon as I sat down, I realized I am going to have a problem.  I could not TOUCH the floor, and it was unbelievably far from my feet.  I couldn't even stretch!  So, I asked the server if we could move to a table where I knew I would be able to touch the floor.  She kindly found us a place, but Ella told me that I am so embarrassing and all I could say, was "At least I won't fall out of the seat when I leave!"  Now that would have been embarrassing!  :-)

Those pesky too high seats!  :-)