Fast Friday Focus: Issue 4

Curriculum Connections...
Happy TGIF!! I hope we all enjoy the wonderful three day weekend - I am so excited about that extra day off because I might be able to catch up on some of my HW for Penn! If anyone is in Queens this weekend and is looking to experience some fun Greek culture and some tasty treats, there is a Greek Festival at Paul's Greek school - St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church on 196th Street and Northern Blvd (right off the Clearview Expy and west on Northern Blvd).

I want to begin by wishing Colleen Ferry good luck in her new teaching position in Fire Island. They are so lucky to have you and the children in that district will learn so much from you! Thank you for all that you have done for the children of Cantiague over the last two years - we will miss you! I also want to take a moment to welcome some of our new staff members. First off, Casey Carey, who has been in our building this week as the floater aide, will be working with Meryl and taking over for Colleen - good luck Casey! Additionally, we have Dawn Camilleri, who is our new permanent sub this year and will be present more often in the coming weeks. Dawn joins us from the Baldwin School District and we are so lucky to have her. Finally, welcome to Alana Goldberg who will be working as our floater sub covering the team meetings throughout the week. Welcome Casey, Dawn and Alana - the Cantiague community is lucky to have you!

I also want to thank all the teachers for our important Faculty Meeting the other day. It was so critical for me to hear about all the things that people are struggling with on a daily basis. Even though I try to be in your classrooms as much as possible during the day, I know there is so much more everyone is juggling and I thank you for working so hard to shelter our kids from the stress that we are all dealing with each and every day! I also want to thank you again for inspiring my most recent blog post... I do believe that we will be able to start this revolution for our kids! :)

This week has provided me with many more wonderful opportunities to visit in all of your classrooms and learning spaces and see some awesome stuff (thank you)! I had a chance to spend some time in the Art Room with Lois and a 5th Grade class. Lois did an amazing job scaffolding the students for independent success in creating their own Artist Trading Cards. The children saw the directions written out then they got to watch a YouTube video spotlighting how to create the ATCs and finally, Lois explicitly modeled the process for the students. The children were so excited about this experience because they couldn't wait to express themselves as artists in the form of a trading card (check out the picture below). I also had a chance to spend time in Ginny's room during the independent reading block and was so impressed by the tone in the room. All of the children were scattered around the room in their independent reading spots and engaged in their books while Ginny was conferring with different children at the back table (there is a great picture below to check out)- it was a model for the independent reading block! Additionally, earlier this week I had a chance to spend time in both Mandy's and Allison's rooms watching MaryAnn implement the Mind Up curriculum with our kindergarten students and I was literally blown away (check out the picture below of Maryann with Jeffrey). Our kindergarten students are able to label various parts of the brain and explain their function. If that wasn't enough, the children then created illustrations of actions they completed while being mindful and they came up with some awesome stuff that they were excited to share with the whole class at the end!

I also had a chance to spend time in the Science room with Jacquie and the second graders and had a lot of fun working with cereal and removing the air from the cereal. The children learned that this solid substance was filled with air and by crushing it, we could remove the air and decrease the volume - impressive stuff! Furthermore, I started the week in Tali and Marissa's room for the Reading Workshop experience where they launched an exploration of the features of nonfiction texts. Within 30 minutes, they team taught the experience where they shared a PREZI spotlighting the differences between fiction and nonfiction texts; they taught a mini-lesson; they provided the students an opportunity to work with a partner to explore books and analyze how the text features helped them understand the book better; they conferred with students while they worked in pairs and finally gathered at the meeting area for a whole group share - all within 30 minutes - talk about awesome time management skills! Then I had a chance to visit Meryl and her class while they were discussing the title of one of the chapters in their shared text, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key. Meryl facilitated an amazing conversation where the children were challenged to go back into the text to decipher why the chapter was entitled Bad Seed. Although many students had theories, Meryl held them accountable for proof from the text, which they produced. I also had a chance to visit Carolyn in her classroom yesterday while the children were reading a book about Christopher Columbus. The children were actively listening and Carolyn would periodically stop and ask questions at different levels to help the students solidify their understandings. The reality is, I see amazing things everywhere - Melanie doing an incredible activity connected to the Envisioning portion of Shared Reading; Donna and Christine doing an awesome team teaching of how to create a Level 2 Post-it where the children have to go Back to the Book; Janine implementing an exit slip at the end of the math lesson to assess the students' understandings of adding using estimation; Alex and Rosanna having the children create a hands-on project to share their knowledge of three branches of government; Jen and Joe implementing stations for the first time and successfully differentiating the learning experiences for specific students within each group; Carly and Nancy setting up math stations where the children practiced 3-digit by 3-digit addition using different techniques and then the children self-assessed at the end to determine which technique best suited them; Lesley engaged in small group math activity with three students who needed additional support; and the list could go on and on and on - thank you for sharing these amazing learning opportunities with me!

Finally, to all our amazing teacher aides, thank you for all that you do for our children with special needs. You each get to know your kids so intimately and you are incredibly dedicated to doing whatever is necessary to help them meet with some levels of success. As a parent of a child who has an aide in school, I can assure you that we are always nervous about whether or not our kids are in good hands but with each of you, I know our kids are in AMAZING hands! Today is the last day for Paul's aide who is moving on to attend school full-time. The aide has been with Paul since first grade after his first major surgery and we will forever be grateful to him because he took care of our son as if he were his own child -- just like each of you does each and every day -- THANK YOU!

Tech Tip of the Week...
In case you haven't heard, several of the teachers in our building have started a blog as a result of the Blogging 101 session I faciitated last week. Instead of spotlighting outside tech resources, I would like to share the wonderful blogs started in our school...

Alites - http://alitesgrade5.blogspot.com/

Korrow - http://korrowsclasshappenings.blogspot.com/

Colucci - http://somethingspecialinschoolpsych.blogspot.com/

Please check out the blogs and leave some comments - everyone would appreciate it! I also look forward to sharing more blogs in the future!

Schedule of the Week...

Tuesday, October 9

Faculty Meeting - Teachers Only - 3PM in the Library
Hot Lunch Begins for Kindergarten
Team Montonelli - Trip to Safety Town

Wednesday, October 10
CST at 1:20pm

Thursday, October 11
Maione - Trip to Safety Town
Compact Committee Meeting - 3PM in the Conference Room

Friday, October 12
Payday
Happy Friday!

Kids' Korner...
On Tuesday, Rob had to leave and I had to cover the last gym period with Melanie's class. Even though I am pretty confident I did a pretty ineffective job, a couple of days later, one of the students from that class came up to me and said, "Mr. Sinanis you should probably stick to being the principal - not sue if the gym is for you." LOL - right on kiddo! :)

Pics of the Week...