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!