Learning Ideas for Before Break

Staff,

I came across this post when looking for ideas to keep your students engaged throughout next week. Each idea included in this blog is presented in a written and audio/visual format. Also keep in mind some engaging ideas Kelli Hedlund has rolled out to you this year:  Breakout Edu and the Hour of Code activities. In fact one of the ideas in the post below is coding. I know she'd be more than happy to help you with either of these two active learning formats, if you'd like to try them out next week.

Ten Creative Alternatives to Showing Movies Before Break

Morning Meeting Sharing Tips

Staff,

    With the end of the semester just around the corner, I thought this Responsive Classroom article on ways to spice up sharing timely and also supportive of our students' speaking and listening skills. 

Keeping Sharing Fresh

 November 12, 2014  Categories: Classroom Management & Discipline / Energizers & Activities / Interactive Modeling / Morning Meeting

In my conversations with teachers I hear a common concern about Morning Meeting at this time of year—how to move forward with sharing. Teachers have long lists of varied ideas for greeting and activity and are growing more comfortable with embedding academic content into their messages in ways that involve students and get them excited about learning. But sharing has stalled out.

Many teachers began the year with highly structured, around-the-circle sharing with teacher-chosen topics, to help students ease into sharing. This structure worked well at first and students participated eagerly—but now teachers are finding that students are getting tired of this routine. At the same time, teachers know from observations during the day that many students aren’t ready to make the leap to a more open, dialogue sharing structure. This is a great time to begin using structured partner sharing—a format in which two students sit face-to-face and take turns talking and listening in response to a teacher-generated question. This structure provides an effective bridge to dialogue sharing and can be used throughout the year to keep sharing varied, lively, and engaging.

Partner sharing gives students a chance to practice the key skills of speaking clearly and concisely, listening carefully, and responding appropriately to each other’s ideas and experiences—skills that are essential for successful dialogue sharing as well as for other kinds of academic conversations. It might also be a safer format for children who are reluctant to speak up in front of the larger group, helping them build confidence and find their voice.

Following are some tips for introducing partner sharing:

When first introducing partner sharing, consider assigning partners. Are you needing to work on class cohesiveness? Then pair students up who don’t know each other very well and give them a “getting to know you” topic, such as “What’s one thing you like to do after school?” Or you might consider pairing students who are interested in the same academic topic. For example, if the class is studying animal habitats, pair students who are both interested in animals of the tropics.

Teach, model, and practice new speaking and listening skills. In around-the-circle sharing, students will have gotten lots of practice in responding succinctly to a focus question or teacher-chosen topic. In partner sharing, you can build on this skill by having them respond with a main idea and two or three supporting details. For example, for a topic such as a favorite book character, the person sharing would name a character and give a few reasons why this character is their favorite.

Students have also had practice in listening respectfully to each other. Partner sharing offers an opportunity to teach them how to listen and then respond to another’s sharing with a question that elicits more information (“Does your favorite character remind you of someone you know?”) or a comment that connects to the sharer (“Sounds like you really admire this character’s bravery”). Again, teach, model, and practice each of these skills.

As students become comfortable with teacher-assigned partners, build in ways for them to talk with a variety of classmates. One such structure is Inside-Outside Circles sharing. Here’s how to set this up:

• Have everyone count off by 2s.
• Ask 1s to stand and form a circle, facing out.
• Ask 2s to form a circle facing in, so that each 2 partners with a 1.
• State a topic or ask a focus question (“What’s one intriguing thing you learned about mammals in yesterday’s science lesson?”). Each person shares a thought.
• At a signal, everyone stops talking.
• Give a new topic or focusing question. Direct one circle to move to the right so that everyone has a new partner. Discuss the new topic.

Carol Davis is a professional development designer at Center for Responsive Schools.

Staff,

Here are the upcoming events for the week.

A reminder to complete the PLC survey I emailed out last week by the end of the day on Tuesday, December 5th so we can use your feedback to plan our late start staff meeting. Certified staff who are not grade level teachers, if you have not been pre-assigned to meet with Teaching and Learning staff, you still have the option to meet with your teams from 8-10am. Please make sure your team fills out your agenda topics and the building you'll be meeting at using the link below. Again if your team is not meeting on this day, I'd like you to attend our building PLC meeting at 8:05am.

Late Start Agenda Link

North Hudson WI School Report Card

Staff,

During Thanksgiving break the WI School Report Cards were released to the public. Below is the link to North Hudson Elementary Report Card. Our overall score is a little higher than was previously communicated out, but it is still within the Exceeds Expectations range.

North Hudson 16-17 School Report Card

I also wanted to share with you a visual of our reading and math trend data for the past three WI School Report Cards in the areas of achievement, growth and closing the gaps. 

During the month of December, we will not have an All School Meeting on the first Friday of the month. Instead this All School Meeting will be replaced with our December All School Sing Along on Friday, December 22nd.

Gratitude Game

Staff,

Be ready to answer the following questions tomorrow as part of the Gratitude Game. I wanted you to have the questions prior to our staff meeting at 8:05am. Please forgive the typo on the gameboard :). 

Report Card Timeline, Math Meeting and Year Two Surveys

Staff,

Here is your report card schedule for this week.

• Grades due in Skyward by 11:59pm Monday, November 13th.
• Report cards are printed by 9:00am on Tuesday, November 14th.
• Report cards that need to by reprinted will be done on Wednesday, November 15th.
• Report cards sent home on Thursday, November 16th. 

Our Tuesday staff meeting is focused on EDM4. Please bring any questions you have for Lisa from the last round of district EDM4 training. 

Finally probationary and continuing year two teachers, your student survey growth plans are due to be submitted by November 30th. Prior to completing your growth plan, you'll need to either survey students (teachers) or clients (specialists). 

Forum and Report Cards

Staff,

On Monday at 8:05am, we have our first forum on the year in the media center. Also on Monday it is the NH PTO's all day Pita Pit fundraiser. Marcie Andrews is willing to pick up orders placed by North Hudson staff on this day, and bring them back to school. Tuesday is the November NH PTO meeting, and it will be held in the art room.

On Friday the early release is set aside for report card work and uploading instructional reading levels into Skyward. Below I have included the guidance on report cards sent out by Sandi Kovatch last Friday.

As you prepare for first-trimester grading and reporting, Skyward is now open and there is a specific designated time for you to work on report cards next Friday at the early release. The Office of Teaching and Learning is re-sharing these documents, which are found in your grade-level essential documents folder, so we can continue to provide high levels of support as we transition to standards-based grading, this year in mathematics and next year in all other subjects.

Even though the report card shared with you shows overall grade marks and standard/ skill marks, Skyward would not allow us to differentiate. Overall grade marks by subject will continue to be 4, 3, 2 or 1.  Grade marks for standards/skill marks will be +, M, D or -.

Report cards - November 2017 version

Kindergarten

First Grade

Second Grade

Third Grade

Fourth Grade

Fifth Grade

To assist you in determining grade marks for ELA, the progress report rubrics have been updated to reflect +, M, D and -.

ELA Progress Report Rubrics

This is for your reference only - not to be shared with parents or students.

In addition, to support math grading this year, Lisa created the following progress report document - Tri 1 EM4  (for teacher use only) to provide clarification in reporting on student progress for the first trimester. There is a tab along the bottom for each grade level on this document.  You will note that the standard language aligns with the report card. The statements listed under each unit are taken from the star statements from the teacher manual and/or the mastery tracker. At the bottom, you will also find links to the priority standards and mastery tracker, please refer to your ACIs and assessments for more specific information. From your Tri 1 EM4 document, any area that is shaded for all three units is automatically an NA on the report card.

Tri 1 EM4

SLO Submissions and PLCs

Staff,

By the at the end of the day on Tuesday your Professional Goal Setting Plan is due to be submitted. The next Educator Effectiveness item due pertains to Year 2 teachers, and it is the Survey Growth Plan due November 30th.

On Wednesday, November 1st common planning time will be devoted to essential learning work. Here's the current google document teams are using to catalog PLC planning for the year so far:  NH 17-18 PLC Products.

Below is the update from grade level teams regarding their PLC work in October.

• K: Letters/sounds and level A sight words and getting ready to move to Level B sight words. 
• 1st: Making connections and responding to texts. 
• 2nd: Text to self connections
• 3rd: Choosing just right books, sticking with chosen books, reading stamina and moving into connections.
• 4th: Getting students into books that engage them and moving onto text features.
• 5th: Text features and determining levels of understanding.

Finally remember we have our 3rd-5th grade dress rehearsal on Thursday afternoon and the November All School Meeting on Friday at 2:50pm.