Progress Reports and ELA Professional Development

Staff,

One last time, here is the schedule for progress reports for this week. 3rd-5th grade teachers make sure your progress report envelopes include the individual MAP report and letter explaining it. K-2 you should also have these two documents, as well as the student PALS report and the PALS informational letter.

Monday - 11/30 - Grades in Skyward by 11:59 pm

Tuesday - 12/01 - Progress reports will be printed in the morning

Wednesday, 12/02 - Reopen the grade window @ 8:00 am until 11:59 pm to make any changes. Give Sue a list of students who need a progress reports reprinted

Thursday - 12/03 - Final printing and progress reports go home with students:  this will include MAP reports with MAP letter and PALS reports K-2 with PALS letter.

During the month of December, we won't have an All School Meeting because of our All School Sing Along on Wednesday, December 23rd. 

Finally, this week we wrap up our second round of district ELA planning. Once you have had your professional development, please connect with your SMART Team grade level member on what you believe is the most pressing next steps for ELA/SLO planning. The SMART Team and I will use this information to develop our building late start plan for Thursday, December 10th.  Here's the PD schedule for this week. 

Tuesday, December 01, 2015	District PD	Bldg	2nd	ELA/IUI leaders, LSS
Wednesday, December 02, 2015	District PD	Bldg	1st	ELA/IUI leaders, LSS
Thursday, December 03, 2015	District PD	Bldg	Kndg	ELA/IUI leaders, LSS
Friday, December 04, 2015	District PD	Bldg	5th	ELA/IUI leaders, LSS

Thanksgiving Week Fun

Staff,

5th grade has fun activities planned for our two day school week! Again here is the PBIS acknowledgement schedule. 5th grade will come to your classrooms at the scheduled time. Within the table below, I've also listed the differentiated activities based on each grade level. On Tuesday, Turkey Bingo will start at 10:25am and run until 11:00am.

	Monday, November 23rd	Tuesday, November 24th
10:15-11:00am	2nd Grade-Catapults	Turkey Bingo
11:15-12:00pm	4th Grade-Balloon Cars	3rd Grade-Airships
1:30-2:15pm	Kindergarten- Art (William Wegman)
2:30-3:15pm	1st Grade-Flight

The early release is set aside for you to work on your progress reports and to update your students' instructional reading levels in Skyward. If you have forgotten how to do this, my October 4th blog can help you out. Here is a review of the progress report schedule for this week and next. Wishing you all a great work week and five day weekend!

Tuesday - 11/24 - Early Release - work on progress reports and update your instructional reading levels within Skyward before you leave for the day. 

Monday - 11/30 - Grades in Skyward by 11:59 pm

Tuesday - 12/01 - Progress reports will be printed in the morning

Wednesday, 12/02 - Reopen the grade window @ 8:00 am until 11:59 pm to make any changes. Give Sue a list of students who need a progress reports reprinted 

Thursday - 12/03 - Final printing and progress reports go home with students:  this will include MAP reports with MAP letter and PALS reports K-2 with PALS letter. 

Day 6: Submitting SLOs and Growth Mindset in Math

Staff,

Tomorrow with your Day 6 time, please use this to finalize and submit your SLOs. If you've submitted your SLOs already, you may use this Day 6 for your most urgent planning. My goal is to finalize your SLOs next week, and I'd like them all submitted by the end of this week to make this possible. On a separate note, I wanted to share a great mindset video on math by Jo Boaler and some of her students. A few of us on the district math committee were able to see her speak last year regarding math and mindset. You'll notice familiar themes we've discussed previously in our building about the positive impact of a growth mindset, specifically through the lens of math.

Planning Your Next Steps in Guided Reading

Staff,

A week removed from your SLO data day many of you have reflected upon, made adjustments and finalized your SLOs. As you begin to implement your SLO action plans, this article from Fountas and Pinnell highlights a lot of the practices we've implemented and provides some tips you might want to include in your guided reading instruction. This is an article you may want to dig into over time or with your grade level teams. Guided Reading: The Romance and the Reality

Friday Data Day: PD on Teacher and Specialist Assessment Standards and SLO Creation

Staff,

This week our conferences are sandwiched by assessment:  Day 6 progress monitoring on Wednesday and our Data Day on Friday focused on the Stronge teacher/specialist assessment standards and SLO development. Classroom teachers, if you did not upload your instructional reading levels on Friday, please do so on Monday, so I can get our progress monitoring spreadsheet updated by Wednesday.

Below I have attached a link to a video tutorial reviewing how to complete your self assessment (step two) in the EP professional goal setting plan followed by completing the SLO process (step one). I will walk staff through the process in person on Friday, but I also wanted to give a virtual option for those who felt that was all they needed.

Standard Reflection and SLO Development

Parent Teacher Conferences

Staff as you prepare for your conferences this week, below I  shared some tips I found helpful from the Harvard Family Research Project.  Also remember we have a District Forum on Tuesday at 8:05am, and your Day 6 collaboration time is set aside fo you to prepare for your conferences. Have a good week and a great start to your conference nights!

Entering F+P Instructional Levels into Skyward

Staff,

This year instead of entering your F+P Instructional levels on the T drive, you'll be entering them in Skyward through your class options under test scores. The video below will walk you through the process, and on Monday there will be a hard copy of the directions in your mailbox. The first update of F+P instructional levels is Friday, October 16th. Please do not start entering into Skyward until I verify ITS has aligned each F+P test score session with our assessment calendar dates.

A reminder that your collaboration time will be on Wednesday with Kelli instead of tomorrow. She will first review Big Universe and the other platforms available through the media center homepage. Then she will have time to plan with you regarding what blended learning support you'd like to develop within your class/grade level. 

Finally, Monday is the start of using minor communication forms for reteaching below the line behavior. The reteaching video will be shown on the news tomorrow.

Importing Reading Data into Skyward

Staff Meeting: Conference Scheduling and PBIS World

Staff:

Duing the first part of Tuesday's staff meeting, we will review Parent/Teacher Conference scheduling through Skyward. In the afternoon on Thursday, Sue will open up the conference scheduling to parents. Before then, you'll want to block off some breaks within your schedule, and reach out to parents you'd like to pre-schedule. This was done mostly for parents with students who also had an IEP case manager.

During the second half of the meeting, we'll be digging into the PBIS World website which is one of the tabs on this blog. Please come to this meeting with a student in mind who you'd like to provide more behavioral support to. You'll be working with another colleague at this staff meeting using this website with that student in mind. If you like, feel free to play around with the PBIS World website prior to the meeting.

Day 6: ELA Lesson Planning

Staff,

First-fifth grade teachers had very productive ELA PD days with time to work collaboratively on first trimester lesson planning. As a reminder, this Friday's Day 6 will be set aside for you to continue to develop your specific lesson plans digging into how you may gradual release these learning targets to your students. Please let me know what would make this time the most beneficial for your team. Below I have linked each grade level's lesson planning document created at your PD. Feel free to also use your grade level planning time on Wednesdays for this work, if your team so chooses. As we begin our week, remember there will be a 9:10am fire drill on Monday.

1st Grade ELA Sept-Oct Lesson Plans

2nd Grade ELA Sept-Nov Lesson Plans

3rd Grade ELA Sept-Nov Lesson Plans

4th Grade ELA Sept-Oct Lesson Plans

5th Grade ELA Sept-Oct Lesson Plans

Big Universe and District ELA/IUI Staff Development

Teachers,

One last reminder on the district staff development which begins this week. 

• 5th Grade - Sept. 14
• 4th Grade - Sept. 15
• 3rd Grade - Sept. 16
• 2nd Grade - Sept. 17
• 1st Grade - Sept. 18 
• Kindergarten - Oct. 1

You can also view the district staff development for the year using the PD Calendar for Scheduling Subs tab on this blog. 

This week's staff meeting focus has changed. Kelli Hedlund is going to give you a tutorial on using the Big Universe digital book library (new this year)so please bring a laptop or Chromebook to the meeting. Students can access this digital library from a device during independent reading time in Readers Workshop, teachers could utilize these resources for guided reading (if you have enough devices for students)and students can access these books away from school for at home reading. If you would like to learn more about Big Universe prior to the staff meeting, below is a youtube video overview.