Issue 1 - Sept. 7

Curriculum Connections...
Happy Friday to everyone and welcome to the first ever Blog Edition of the Fast Friday Focus! I hope we all had a wonderful second week of school and that everyone has some great plans for the weekend. I am personally thrilled about the start of the NFL season and although the Jets aren't looking so great, I still can't wait to watch some football!

First off, thank you for being the most amazing people that I have ever had the honor of working with in my career. Thank you for making our school such a fun and positive place no matter what we are dealing with on any given day. Whether it was the intense heat over the last few days or some behavior problems in different classrooms or the fact that a few of our classes are at full capacity, there was never an issue because we always kept positive energy flowing through our building and joy consistently filled the space - THANK YOU!! Also, thank you all for making the first couple of weeks so successful and powerful for all of our students - new and returning. We started everything off on the right note last week with all specialists and support staff members joining me in front of our school as the munchkins came off the buses. It was the first year I saw such few tears on day one and I was especially impressed with our kindergartners who came into school ready to learn (and have some fun)!

Additionally, I want to welcome all the Cantiague newbies one more time... Deborah, Joe, Milissa, Ilene, Jacquie and Laurie! We are so lucky to have each of you on our team because you have all helped make Cantiague an even better place!

The first couple of weeks provided us many opportunities to implement various hands-on learning experiences to help nurture a sense of community throughout the building. Last week I had the chance to spend some time in four different classrooms (Risa, Rande, Levermans and Alites) where the children were participating in some variation of the Marshmallow Challenge (or something along those lines) that stressed the importance of problem solving through collaboration and it was amazing to watch (I even tweeted some pics). We have spent so much time talking about the Common Core Standards and the idea of College Readiness with a great emphasis on the students' performance on standardized assessments (unfortunately this is what happens when politicians, not educators, are making decisions) when in fact we should be focusing on these types of activities - what says "I'm ready for college!" better than I know how to work with others to solve a problem??

I also had a chance to spend some time in the Library where Lorraine used Wordle to have different classes generate ideas about what the Library means to them. This is such a great resource, it can be a wonderful summary tool for a class discussion, because it allows someone to enter the words generated during a share and then it creates a "work of art" based on the words entered. The power of this tool comes in the fact that the words that are entered repeatedly will come out larger in the final Wordle so that the whole class can see what words, themes or ideas were the most common and powerful threads during a given experience... I definitely think its worth a try during a book talk or at the end of a unit of study!

I have also seen some awesome writing workshop work in Melanie, Christine and Donna's classrooms where the children were introduced to the concept of the writer's notebook and then had a chance to decorate their own. It was so great to watch the three teachers share their own personal notebooks and artifacts - the kids were clearly hooked! Then I got to watch Tali and Marissa do some great work linking reading and writing workshop where the children were assigned reading partners and they had to create Venn Diagrams comparing and contrasting themselves. Then they had to use the information from the graphic organizer to create "juicy" sentences (ask one of the Leverman kids to explain what a "juicy" sentence is - they are great!)! Finally, I had a chance to watch team Marsen (Nancy and Carly) do some great small group/station teaching. They recently introduced place value by giving the children place value mats (from Math In Focus) and challenging them to "build" numbers and watching the children work was impressive! I could go on and on about all the amazing things I saw in the last few days but I have written too much already... I will save some for next Friday!

Tech Tip of the Week...
Google Docs is a wonderful resource to use to promote collaboration among staff and students when working on a common document. First off, if you haven't created a Google account, get on that ASAP because between the power of sharing documents, blogging and other awesome resources, Google is a resource that can take your teaching to a whole other level! In regards to Google Docs, check out this blog about the power of using this tool in a collaborative way. 

Schedule of the Week...

Tuesday, September 11
New Family Breakfast @ 9AM
PTA Meeting @ 9:45AM
PTA Executive Committee Meeting @ 10:45AM
Faculty Meeting @ 3PM

Wednesday, September 12
CST @ 1:20PM
Meet the Teacher Night: 

1. Gr. 5, Brotman & Leverman - 6PM
2. Gr. K & 1 - 6:40PM
3. Gr. 4 - 7:20PM
4. Gr.  2 & 3 - 8PM

Friday, September 14
Constitution Day - Possible Outdoor Pledge

Kids' Korner...

1. During the first week of school one of our new second graders walked up to me at recess and said, "Mr. Sinanis, I really love this school because all the teachers are so nice - they make coming to school so much fun!" Thank you to each of you for making that comment possible!
2. While explaining to some new kindergarten students how they might remember her name, Lois B. shared that they should remember that if they get to close to a hot stove they might get BURNed. As they were leaving at the end of the session she reviewed her name with each child and when she questioned the last child the student responded, "Your name is Ms. Stove!" LOL!!

Pics of the Week...

                    

                 

Upcoming Board of Education Meetings...

• Thursday, Sept. 20th
• Thursday, Oct. 18th
• Thursday, Nov. 15th
• Thursday, Dec. 13th
• Thursday, Jan. 17th
• Thursday, Jan. 31st
• Thursday, Feb. 7th
• Thursday, Mar. 14th (this one is at Cantiague)
• Thursday, Apr. 18th
• Thursday, May 23rd
• Thursday, June 13th