November 8, 2024

 Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• 5K students blending words with digraphs, blends and an r-controlled vowel.  It is very cool watching them sound out words and applying in a short book!

• Our Rise students are working hard on short vowels in a variety of ways including applying to books.  I love listening to them read, learn and enjoy it at the same time!

• There have a been a number of conversations in the past week that I got to be a part of or hear about, that were full of collaboration to determine procedures/plans for students that are struggling with the most empathetic and caring professionals I've ever met!  Thank you all for being you!

• There are so many staff members pitching in to help out with duties, covering classes and supporting one another throughout the weeks.  I'm grateful for all of you that are helping out.  Thank you so much!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, November 11
• Bus duty: Klink, Arnes, Westphal, Schuett (3K/4K playground)
• Lunch Duty:
• 12:00 - Stampfl
• 12:30 - Mosher
• 1:00 - Schulte
• Jenny in a meeting from 8:30-9:30am
• Veteran's Assembly @ 9:30am in HS gym
• Recess for 3-5 - 8:45-9
• Recess for 4K/5K-2 - 9-9:15

• Tuesday, November 12
• Social Media Posts due to Jessica: Turcotte, Lucht
• Lunch Detention:
• 12:00 - Wagner
• 12:30 - Juech
• 1:00 - Klink
• Fundraiser Pick up from 3-6pm (If there are any staff members that are available to help after school to help hand out items to families, I could use help.  Just let me know.)

• Wednesday, November 13
• Workout Wednesday
• Staff Meeting in the IMC at 3:10pm

• Thursday, November 14
• Jenny at Cesa until 12:30-1pm
• Lunch Detention:
• 12:00 - Turcotte
• 12:30 - Open
• 1:00 - Fortmann

• Friday, November 15
• Pyramid Model Leadership meeting at 1pm in the Elem. conf. room

Nitty-Gritty

• Veteran's Assembly
• Monday, 11/11/24, is our annual Veteran's assembly in the HS gym.  It will start promptly at 9:30.  Please start arriving to the gym around 9:25 as the veterans like to welcome our students to the assembly in the commons.  It is Red/White/Blue day, but please dress professionally as we will have many guests in the building on Monday.  Recess will change for the day as well.
• Grades 3-5 will have recess from 8:45-9am (Supervisors: Lexi, Juech, Bingen, Fortmann)
• Grades 5K-2 will have recess from 9-9:15am (Supervisors: Mosher, Schweitzer, Reilly, Riege)
• Grade 4K - Same time as normal, 9-9:15am, unless you need more time for snack to get ready for the assembly, you can go earlier.

• Looking Ahead - Underground Spirit Week
• Our wellness committee organized a staff only spirit week.  This is just for staff and we are not sharing it with students.  Let's see if they notice!  Below is the flyer that they created.  Enjoy!

• PD Days for certified staff on 11/25-11/26
• Looking ahead to our professional development days...  The agenda for these two days will be out soon.  We have a number of things planned for the two days, we just have a couple of finishing touches to the agenda.  It will be out soon.  We will participating in grade level data meetings, work time for the next Act 20 lessons, a session with an Apple representative/trainer and time for collaboration and planning.

• Milk Tally Sheets
• Please make sure to take attendance, including lunch and milk count by 8:30 each day.  This gives the Food service dept enough time to get the coolers ready for the whole school.  Also, please make sure to fill out the tally sheets for milk for snack break each day.  It is important for the reporting that Natalie does at the end of the year.  In addition, if a child comes in late, please add to PowerSchool.  (Students can still go down to get a milk if they come in late.)

• 2025 Conservation Poster Contest
• The Dodge County Land and Water Conservation Department contacted me about a poster contest coming up.  The entries are due by Jan. 6th and the theme of the contest this year is "Home is where the Habitat is."  Click HERE for the letter with more information and HERE for the contest details/registration form.  This is optional, but I share in case your class or some of your students want to participate in it.

• ChatGPT Idea for Literacy
• Mrs. Johnson shared this article with me and I thought it was a great way to use AI for your students.  The article is about using ChatGPT to create a Reader's Theater script to use in your classrooms.  Reader's Theater is a great way to work on reading fluency, but sometimes finding the scripts is the hardest part.  Click HERE to read this article.

• NED's Mindset Mission Assembly
• I heard from a number of staff members that were interested in bringing the assembly to Dodgeland.  Mark your calendars: Friday, November 22 from 2:10-2:55pm.  The cost for this assembly comes from the sale of Yo-yos, which I know comes with a host of other things to deal with.  However, my thought is that they will be sale only after school that day.  (We can collect for any student that wants to purchase that day and hand them to teachers to hand out at 3pm when they all go home!  By the time they return to school, the yo-yos will be a thing of the past.  :-)

Behavior Specialist Information

Bucket Filler Information

Thank you for your continued support in positively reinforcing our students! To clarify a couple things:

• 4k is doing their own classroom incentive.

• 5k-3rd - please continue to use the poms to reward bucket filler behaviors (acts of kindness, being helpful, being responsible, etc)

• 4th - 5th - please continue (or start - lol) to use the orange tickets to enforce bucket filler behaviors. Students that receive an orange ticket should put their name on their ticket and the ticket in their class bucket. These count in the whole school program in lieu of the poms, but we will also pull names for individual incentives at 4th/5th.

• Green tickets are on hold. Those are for additional incentives as a boost. The next one will likely be in January.

Recess Information

Worth a Repeat!

Huge thanks to Lance for getting our recess shed built. Starting next week this is where our recess equipment

will be kept. There is a lock on it, however, all ES staff members' keys should work to open it.

It would be very helpful if the staff members on bus duty in the morning could open the shed at 7:45 when they

blow the whistle so the Junior Coaches could set up the equipment while the students are transitioning in.

When the whistle blows for the 12:30 recess,  the JC clean-up crew should put the equipment away back in the

shed and lock the shed door. Thanks in advance for helping me get this system going.

Please continue to hold our students accountable for taking care of our equipment, playing core games, and

using kind language. We are starting to see equipment being misused and more and more “imaginary” games

being the cause of conflict between students at recess.

TechKnow Tip

Padlet is a virtual pinboard that allows users to post comments, questions, and resources in one place. This virtual pinboard allows for mind mapping, collaborative group projects, discussions, photo gallery, and an interactive repository for resources to share with students. Here are 20 Ways for Students to Use Padlet in the Classroom. To get started, you can sign in to Padlet here with your Google account.

PD Spotlight

This week's letter is K for Kindness.  We are all kind people and especially with students. The hardest part of this is remembering that our stress comes out in our tone, words and actions that are sending a possible message that does not match how kind we truly are.  Plus our students need us even when they are searching for our love and kindness in a not-so-great way.  Kindness to those around us makes us all feel cared for, valued and contributes to a positive work environment.

Friday Funny

Last weekend, we celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary.  Part of this celebration was to look back in the past and share old photos. Mason took one look at one of our family pictures and just had to add his own caption.  It made us all laugh so much.  Hope you enjoy it too!

The aftermath of a group LASIK Surgery outing!