Week of April 1

 Spring Break is officially over.  I hope you all had a relaxing week that was filled with rest and joy!  This is a quick blog for this week.

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, April 1
• Bus Duty: Caine-Arnes, Chambers, Zastrow, Koenings (3K/4K playground)
• New Para Duties for the month
• Breakfast in Commons - Rose, Jenny/Samantha
• AM 3K/4K playground - Brittany
• PM Circle Drive - Reilly, Bethany T
• Review Universal expectations in your classrooms, HERE is the checklist.

• Tuesday, April 2
• Brewers Opening Day! - Wear your Brewers Attire.
• SEL and Academic Data mtgs for 5K 12:05-12:55pm
• Lunch Detention Supervision
• 12:00 - Schuett
• 12:30 - Open
• 1:00 - Bingen
• Paraeducator PD meeting at 3:15-3:45pm in the IMC

• Wednesday, April 3
• Workout Wednesday
• Jenny in meeting from 12-3pm

• Thursday, April 4
• Lunch Detention Supervision - All Times are Open, Let us know if you are available to fill in for one of the spots.

• Friday, April 5
• Happy Birthday Mandy!
• Run for State - 8:30AM
• Complete the Dodgeland Summit Survey by the end of the day. 

• Saturday, April 6
• Happy Birthday Stephanie Plewa!

Nitty-Gritty

• Recess Reboot
• Please don't forget to sign up for Teresa to come in to review recess expectations.  Paraeducators and Support Staff, please make sure to attend one of the presentations as well so that we can be consistent in our message and enforcement of recess expectations.  Sign up HERE.

• NEW IMPORTANT Milk Break routines
• After the auditors were here last week to supervise the elementary for the Food Service dept, there are some routines that need to be adjusted based on their report.  In order for us to meet the requirements, we will need help from classroom teachers. 
• For the remainder of the year, there will be a class list tucked into the blue milk crates behind the name card on the side. When students get their milk, a teacher/adult must check off each student that gets a carton.  (It is considered a point of sale and Natalie has to submit a record for the next 30 school days.). Please keep the sheet in the blue crate and each day pull it out and check off behind each student's name that has a milk that day.  These sheets will be collected and submitted as the evidence as required.  If you have any questions, please let Natalie or myself know.

Friday Funny

In honor of Easter, I hope you find this as funny (and maybe a bit corny) as I do!

March 22, 2024

 Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• For Week 1 of Forward testing, it went as smoothly as it could.  Huge shout out to Brad and Jessica who spent so much time on the phone and computers to get it working smoothly again.  Another shout out to all proctors who continued to encourage students to do their best work and be resilient and limit frustration when it could easily take over!

• This week's College and Career Week was another success.  I have had so many parents and guests comment on how much they enjoyed coming in to speak to the classrooms.  I know that you had to rearrange schedules for this, but it was a wonderful way to connect with our community and for our students to learn about all kinds of career options. Thank you to all of you for making this a great week!

• Shout out to Sophie Mosher for putting together a bulletin board of staff members for our students to see all of the colleges staff has attended and graduated from.  Our students love to learn more about us!

• A few of our students have behavior charts to help communicate to them and their families about their behavior at school.  Today a 4K student was brought in to the office to share his good news of all smiley faces!  Shout out to Jill for making him the superstar today and allowing Trisha, Leah and I to celebrate with him.  I love when he said, "I wasn't in the office at all today!"  :-)

• Shout out to Jahra for taking on make-up testing for third graders today.  I appreciate your help with this and also for providing a wonderful testing environment for students to work in.  Shout out to Alexandra for teaching the math lesson and Taylor for working with them to get her students in the testing group as well!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, 3/25-3/29
• Spring Break!!!
• Happy Birthday to Shanalyn on Wednesday, 3/27
• Happy Birthday to Brad on Saturday, 3/30

Nitty-Gritty

• Talent Show
• This year's Talent Show is in the planning stage.  The dress rehearsal is scheduled for Monday, April 22 with the event planned for Wednesday, April 24 at 6 pm.  (The art show is planned for the hour before.) If you would like to participate in the staff entry, please make sure to let Sue O'Toole know right away.  She always comes up with something fun and amazing for staff to do.

• Personnel Update
• After spring break, we will have a change in a couple of our classrooms. Karissa Wagner will be subbing for Stephanie Schuett while she is out on maternity leave.  While Karissa is teaching next door, Eneida Christner will be subbing as a para with Jill Koenings in 4K in room 107. She is a familiar face to some of us. Eneida has 3 children in the district, two of them in the elementary wing.  She is excited to join us.  She will start on April 1 and will be with us until May 31.  Please help make her feel welcome as a staff member!

• Dodgeland Summit Survey
• Earlier this week, an email was sent out from Christina regarding this summer's Dodgeland Summit.  The survey is very important and helpful for the planning of this event for staff professional development that occurs each summer.  Please complete the survey by April 5th.

• Virtual Field Trip Option
• The International Wolf Center is offering free virtual field trip programs to schools.  There are a few options to sign up for.  If this would be something that would fit with your instruction and you think your students would like it, please check it out HERE.  The tip from the center is that the wolves are usually more active in the mornings.  Just putting it out there for your consideration. 

• AI in Education
• I want to make one more message about encouraging you all to explore the AI tools that Sam, Christina and Brad have been presenting on for the past month.  I didn't get to go to all of them, but the ones I did attend were incredibly helpful.  Sam has spent a great deal of time adding a section with research, resources, tools, etc about AI onto the Staff Resources page.  Take the time to check them out and see if you can find a tool that just got faster by using it.  This past week I experimented with it to help me write a reply email to a parent and it was very helpful and efficient!  The staff resource page is HERE.

PD Spotlight

Spring Break is here.  If you are like me, you are planning to get some extra sleep this next week!  I wanted to share with you about the importance of self care and spring break is a great time to practice it!  This article HERE comes from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing and describes some tips for self care.  It is not meant to only be done on breaks from work though.  I hope this helps give you some ideas for how to care for yourselves.  You are always giving so much of yourselves, your time and your talents, that I want to make sure that you have enough left in the tank for yourselves.  You are important!  My wish for you all is to have a relaxing, peaceful, and safe break.  See you all on April 1st!

Behavior Specialist Information

Please take some time to review universal expectations with your class after break. Here is the checklist.

Recess Information

Please sign-up for recess reboot after break. Paraeducators, please try to make one of the presentations as well so we can be consistent in our enforcement of recess expectations. Sign-up

Junior Coaches will be gone on a field trip on April 10th.

TechKnow Tip

This week’s mini-learning session centered around utilizing AI when interacting with parents. The best place to start is a solid prompt and HERE is a great list to start! Remember that prompts are meant to be a starting basis and are most effective when you tailor them specific to each individual situation.

Friday Funny

In honor of the 2024 baseball season that starts this next week, here is a funny meme with Hank Aaron, one of the best Brewers to play the game! (I can't wait for baseball to start again!)

March 15, 2024

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, March 18
• Bus Duty: Klink, Lucht, Wedel, Schuett (3K/4K playground)
• Future is Bright Day - Wear neon/bright colors
• Forward Testing for Grades 3-4-5 - Please be quiet in the hallways!
• EP Meeting at 3:15 in the IMC - Documentation log
• Pops Concert @ 6:30 - Our 5th grade Band has their 1st performance!
• School Board meeting @ 7pm

• Tuesday, March 19
• Happy Birthday Chris V!
• Forward Testing for Grades 3-4-5 - Please be quiet in the hallways!
• Rest Up for your Future - Wear Pajamas
• Elementary Lunch program audit - There will be visitors watching the lunch line, and may be asking questions about snack milk or the after school snack program.
• Last AI mini-session in the IMC at 3:15 on Parent Communication/ChatGPT
• Social Media Posts due: Donovan, Schwoerer, Zastrow, Schuett
• Lunch Detention Supervision
• 12:00 - Schwoerer
• 12:30 - Rollins
• 1:00 - Rollins

• Wednesday, March 20
• Workout Wednesday - Wear College Gear
• Forward Testing for Grades 3-4-5 - Please be quiet in the hallways!
• Last day of the Elementary lunch program audit
• Combined SEL/Academic Mtg for 1st gr 12:05-12:55pm

• Thursday, March 21
• Happy Birthday Brittany!
• Wear Your medals or something you are Proud of
• Lunch Detention Supervision
• 12:00 - Rollins
• 12:30 - Rollins
• 1:00 - Rollins

• Friday, March 22
• Jenny has a dr appt at 8 am.  She will be in right after that.
• Dress For Success - Wear What you want to be when you grow up
• College and Career Parade - Watch for details next week
• Progress Reports - Send home any reports to families for any students that are struggling today.

Nitty-Gritty

• College and Career Week
• The committee has been working hard on planning for this week and have some exciting things in the works for next week.  One of the things that is coming up is guest speakers, special bulletin board about staff and also a Career Parade.  
• If you haven't filled out the Google Form for the bulletin board, please do so today.  The link is HERE.
• If you have a parent or are looking for a guest speaker for your class, check the google doc that the committee has put together.  Click HERE to add or see options for speakers to your class.  When they arrive to speak, they should all sign in the office and Trisha will run their ID through our raptor system and give them a visitor badge.

• Forward Testing
• Starting Monday, students in grades 3, 4 & 5 will be taking the ELA portion of the Forward Assessment.  This test is very important and needs all of our staff to support the students and staff that is proctoring this test.  One way that we help our students do their best work is to set up the testing environment in a way that helps our students do their best work.  This means that it is an all hands on deck situation.  Many spaces are used for the testing, their are many small groups to limit distractions, and schedules are disrupted.  Thank you in advance for all of your help and flexibility.  The testing will be occurring in the building each morning from 8-11:30 Mon-Wed.  If our K-2nd graders can send words of encouragement (think short video from your classroom...) to our 3-5 gr classrooms, it would make the students day!

• Library for the Week
• In the spirit of all hands on deck, and needing spaces for the small testing groups, library lessons for elementary classrooms will be canceled this week. However, each class will still have a 15 minute book checkout time.  Please click HERE to sign up for a 15 min. time slot.  In addition, Christina will send you an activity that you can do with the kids at a time that is convenient for your classroom schedule.  Thank you in advance for your flexibility and doing your part to give our students what they need to be successful for this year's testing season!

• Summer School
• The summer school booklet will be ready for families in the coming week.  Registration will not start until April 8, but I wanted you to know that it is coming up soon! This year's registration will require a parent portal from PowerSchool.  If you have any parents asking about this, please have them contact Trisha or myself to help them.

TechKnow Tip

Today, more than ever, we need to remember that we are assessing the learning process, not just the product. The learning targets you have set in place help break students’ learning down in order to guide instruction and ensure student understanding. Quick checks or progress checks on longer projects can ensure timely feedback, early detection of misconceptions, and overall enhanced engagement. This week’s AI mini-learning session talked about two Chrome extensions that help aid in monitoring student progress when working in Google Docs. These tools are meant to help teachers guide their students through revisions as well to ensure that students are not just copy/pasting from generative AI. Be sure to take a moment to check them out!

• Draftback: This Chrome extension can be used on Google Docs that lets you playback the revision history you can edit. 

• Revision History: This Chrome extension can be used on Google Docs to help see students’ process through a playback function, as well as timestamped revisions.

Friday Funny

On a daily basis, there is a lot of activity happening in the elementary office. Many times it is not necessarily entertaining though. However, today, we had one of those situations that by the end of it, most of the adults in the office couldn't help but laugh. I was on the phone with Roni going over the yearbook proof that she sent me. The next thing I know one of our 4K twins walks in, starts talking to me and picking up pretty much everything he saw. (Yes, I am still on the phone.) Then Ella comes in to guide him back to his lunch and the next thing I know, the other twin is in my office. Pretty soon in runs the first twin with Ella hot on his tails. She is trying to communicate with both of them with the Spanish words that she knows and get them to leave the room. The twins have lots of energy together and they move very fast, so it is quite entertaining watching Ella trying to corral them into the front office. The twins continue to move all over the office and finally Ella walks out, the room is quiet, the door is shut. And then, just like that, up pops a twin from behind the easel in the corner of my office. Meanwhile, Ella is searching the front office trying to have both twins in the same place at the same time. I am now off the phone and start to help the situation so that the twin in my office can get to his lunch. I walk to the door and there is Ella who says, "Do you have a twin?" She was so exhausted by this point that I am pretty sure she would have been glad to take a nap! It was like herding cats in there today!

March 8, 2024

 Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• The turnout for the Reading and Math night was so incredible.  Watson was a big hit, as were the reading "forts" and the math games.  I can not ever remember being at a reading/math night where we ran out of snacks.  60 snack bags are usually PLENTY!  Shout out to the team for making the night so successful!

• We have two little ones that need to eat each day before they leave.  Every day I am so proud to be a part of this school, but watching the coordination that happens to make sure that this happens reminds me of how great my colleagues are.  From Bethany T filling out the Google Sheet so that Natalie and team can prepare the lunches, to Amber picking up the lunches and delivering them, Ella and Trisha supervising and helping them with the food, Karisssa, Stephanie, Jill and Brittany working together to get them packed up and brought to the office and then Bethany T for collecting the trays at the end of the period.  It's like this amazing dance of a system that just works and it is not easy to corral this energy to make this happen, but I know that the family and these boys appreciate it!

• Shout out to Rose Fobes for helping two new students get enrolled in to our school and communicating with parents to help them get started with their new school.  I can't wait to see him fall in love with his new school.  We know it'll happen!  :-)

• I watched some first graders excited to show off their automaticity with reading sight words.  The huge grins on their faces made me so happy!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, March 11
• Bus Duty: Bingen, Ruplinger, Stampfl, Donovan (3K/4K playground)
• 5th Grade Field Trip

• Tuesday, March 12
• Social Media Posts due: Stampfl, Turcotte, Jenkins
• SEL Data meeting 2nd gr - 12:05-12:55pm
• Lunch Detention Supervisors
• 12:00 - Huso
• 12:30 - Juech
• 1:00 - CaineT
• AI mini-session with Tech Dept from 3:15-3:45

• Wednesday, March 13
• Workout Wednesday
• Early Release Day
• Jenny in meeting from 8:30-10am
• Staff Meeting for all staff that will be proctoring a Forward test this year @ 2:30pm in IMC

• Thursday, March 14
• Lunch Detention Supervisors
• 12:00 - Open
• 12:30 - Turcotte
• 1:00 - Open

• Friday, March 15
• Run for state - Time TBD
• 4K SEL meeting 11:35-12:25
• Pyramid Model Leadership mtg - 1-2pm
• KnowB4 Training due to be completed by end of the day

• Saturday, March 16
• FFA Pancake Breakfast at Dodgeland in commons (6:30-11am) $12 tickets at the door

Nitty-Gritty

• Vocabulary Parade
• Please note that Friday morning the Vocabulary Parade will start at 8:10.  This way it will not impact the recess schedules.  Brenda and Teresa sent out emails on Thursday.  If you need to see the information regarding the procedures they are HERE.  Please note that the time has been changed to 8:10.

• Forward Testing
• Forward ELA testing will be the week of March 18 for grades 4-5.  The exact schedule and proctor groups will be shared early next week.  3rd grade will be taking the ELA portion after spring break during the 2nd week of April.  For all that will be proctoring a group, please plan to attend the proctor training on Wednesday afternoon in the IMC starting at 2:30.  If you are not sure, please come see me.  This is important per DPI's rules and so that you know the plans for the testing season this year.

• College and Career Week
• This year, College and Career week will be from March 18-22.  The committee is working on some exciting additions to the plan for our students week.  We are aware that it is also Forward testing, but we still want to get our students thinking about their future plans.  The more they are thinking about this, the more purpose they find in what they are doing at school including social and emotional skills.  Please watch for more details to come from the committee including the dress up days, and special events.

• Mark your Calendars - End of the Year Picnic
• An end of the year picnic is being planned for this year.  This year the picnic will be on May 28 from 4:30-6:30 on our blacktop/playground/grass area.  The committee is working on plans for carnival games, music for dancing, yard games, and food trucks on site.  If you (and feel free to bring your families) are available, please join us to celebrate the school year and enjoy each other's company!

• Only Two more AI mini-sessions left
• This week's AI session made me wish I had a classroom to teach in.  The tool is so cool and I am sure it would be VERY engaging for students.  Plus, when I watched Sam and Christina model it for us, it looked so quick and efficient for creating as well. (See the TechKnow Tip for more details about this tool) Honestly, I remember spending OODLES of time creating interactive slides for Read180 when I taught, and I was pretty proud of them, but they were nothing like what I saw today and took a fraction of the time I spent on them.  I know I have said this before, but these mini-sessions are completely optional but have the potential to save you SO MUCH TIME!  There are two more left this month, March 12 and March 19 at 3:15.  Mark your calendars so that you don't miss them!

• KnowB4 Training
• This month's training is on Social Engineering Red Flags.  The training is estimated to take about 13 minutes to complete.  It is due to be done before March 16.  Please make a plan for when you will complete this important training.  Not only does it help keep our digital files safe at work, but it also arms you with information to keep you safe in your personal life too.  Win-Win!

TechKnow Tip

This week’s AI mini-learning session was all about utilizing generative AI in slide deck creation- specifically with Curipod. Curipod is a tool to help generate slide decks with interactive elements to encourage student creativity, reflection, and critical thinking. Interactive elements you can add include polls, word clouds, drawings, open questions, and AI feedback. As you teach through your slides, students connect to your presentation via their iPad with a quick code. They can then participate in the predetermined activities set by you, while you see real-time responses and can give instant feedback. Matt Miller, author of Ditch That Textbook, has a great post of 10 Ways Curipod Engages Your Students With AI. In the post, he highlights you can even import existing slide desks into Curipod and it will suggest activities throughout!

Behavior Specialist Information

Mrs. Chambers will be out on Monday accompanying the 5th grade at their field trip.

Friday Funny

This one comes straight from the Huelsman Family anecdotes.  And it is a doozy!  Last weekend, Ella dragged Lexi out to a store that Ella wanted to go to, but Lexi did not.  After rearranging the cars in the driveway and arguing about who is going to drive, they run to the other side of Beaver Dam for a quick trip.  When they return, Lexi gets out of the car and says to Ella, "That's weird.  Do you hear that?"  What is the noise she heard?  It is the Jeep that Ella moved so that they could get out of the driveway.  Ella parked it, got out of the car, and walked away leaving it running. the WHOLE. time. they. were. gone.  I know I told Ella that I'd like her to get rid of this car, but she could make it just a SMIDGE easier for someone else to get it.  I was thinking more like selling it, not essentially leaving a sign on it that says, "I'm all YOURS!"  :-)