December 8, 2023

 What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, December 11
• Candy Cane Day - Wear Red and White (Comfy Countdown starts for Staff)
• Happy Birthday Broedy Soter!
• Winter Concert Rehearsal
• 8:45-9:15 for 5K/2nd/4th
• 9:30-10:00 for 1st/3rd/5th
• Morning Recess Schedule
• 9:00-9:15 for 4K/1/3/5 with Mook, Ehlenbeck, Schweitzer, Chambers
• 9:15-9:30 for 5K/2/4 with Schweitzer, Zastrow, Wedel
• NO 9:30 recess
• Mentor/Mentee Meeting for Year 1 certified staff and their mentors from 3:15-4:00pm in IMC
• Concert night for grades 5K/2/4 at 6:30pm (kids arrive by 6:15 in classroom)

• Tuesday, December 12
• Grinch Day - Wear Green
• SEL Data meeting for 5th grade - 12:35-1:25pm in Conf rm
• Concert night for grades 1/3/5 at 6:30pm (kids arrive by 6:15 in classroom)

• Wednesday, December 13
• Early Release schedule (No morning recess)
• Jenny in meeting from 8:30-10:00am
• MyView Literacy coach will be here from 9-3pm
• 3K/4K consultant (Golshan) from Healthy Minds, Healthy Children grant will be here from 12-2:30
• Workout Wednesday
• Staff Meeting CANCELED - See Below for details

• Thursday, December 14
• Mad about Plaid Day
• Jenny leaving for an appt at 3:45pm

• Friday, December 15
• Purple Pride or Holiday Color Day
• Pyramid Model Leadership meeting 1pm-2pm

Nitty-Gritty

• MyView Literacy Coach visit
• We have a different literacy coach coming in this week. Her name is Blanca Campillo. This is the last time someone will be here in person to answer questions from MyView.  Please complete this survey to help her plan for her visit.  I will be creating a schedule for her to visit classrooms/teachers to talk about your individual classroom(s).  The schedule will have grade levels meeting with the coach throughout the day.

• Proactive Strategy Brainstorming
• If you haven't had a chance to add to the brainstorming doc for behavior strategies, please add them here before Wednesday, 12/13. I changed the format of the document so that we can add ideas easier to it.  If you sent me ideas, I put them in the document for others to read too.

• Staff Meeting on Dec 13
• On Wednesday, anyone that is interested in meeting to go through the ideas that were submitted or suggested for proactive strategies, we will be meeting in the IMC at 3:00.  The purpose of the meeting is to discuss possible system ideas that we can put in place and to discuss what is viable options for us as a team to put in place in our school.  

TechKnow Tip

Are you ready for a little fun?! BreakoutEDU is an immersive learning game platform with both physical and digital puzzle elements to solve. A physical BreakoutEDU “room” can be time consuming to set up, so that’s where a digital BreakoutEDU “room” can come in handy. BreakoutEDU is provided to all classroom teachers through the IMC- that means you can use the pre-created materials from the site, you can create digital breakout “rooms” specific to your content, and you can create classes of students to view progress and statistics of any of the BreakoutEDU puzzles. Digital BreakoutEDU puzzles can be shared with students via link or QR code- what a fun thing to do as a soft-start/bell ringer, study hall, or end of the day fun. It is a great opportunity for cooperative learning, problem solving, encourages persistence, and an outstanding alternative to movies. For those not already connected, you will receive an email to get started sometime today. Until then, check this one out as an example!

Behavior Specialist Info

As you all know, the closer we get to the holidays and break, the more excitement and in some cases behaviors we see. Please continue to encourage Bucket Filling and use our poms as reinforcement in addition to your classroom management systems.

Recess Info

Oh Wisconsin Weather!

This winter feels different in that the weather has been so much more variable making it really

difficult to have a consistent snow pants/boots rule that makes sense.

Here’s the scoop (at least until the next snow):

• Morning bus duty - staff on duty please continue to monitor the equipment in the morning and close the play structure if it is too slippery/wet.
• Recesses during the day - Boots are required for grass. It is recommended that students continueto dress appropriately according to our weather recommendations (here)
• After school bus duty - K-3 should be playing on the playground or standing in their lines. 4-5 should be playing 4 square, gaga, basketball or standing in their lines.
• No students should be on the snow hills or grass past the end of the blacktop at any time of the day.

Friday Funny

This week's Friday Funny comes from last weekend.  Mason (most know, but he is my middle child that lives in Milwaukee) came to the musical on Saturday night to support his sisters.  At the end of the performance, he waited a little bit, but only saw Ella.  He then decided to go to Kwik Trip to get something to drink for the drive home.  Lexi comes out to the gym and asks where Mason is.  I tell her he left so that he can get back before it starts to snow.  She then calls him, asks where he is and gives him a guilt trip for leaving before she got to see him.  He says, "Do you want me to come back?"  She says, "Yes" and so HE DOES!  This is the picture I took of his return to the school. As you can see, he is not super pleased, but Lexi sure is!  He tells her, "You know when I asked if I should come back, it was to be nice.  Most people would say, 'No, that's okay.' not YES PLEASE!"  I'm not sure if I find it more funny or more sweet that he 1. showed up to support his sisters to something he is not a fan of or 2. that he actually returned to see his big sister whom he had seen for now three weekends in a row or 3. that Lexi is so dang proud of herself for getting him to come back just for her!