Fast Friday Focus: Issue 13

Curriculum Connections...

Happy Friday! I hope everyone had a wonderful first full week of the year. It was a hectic week and today I am off to Penn for some more fun this weekend - the learning never ends for me but I can honestly say that I love it so much and wouldn't trade it for anything (except maybe a Twix bar or Mountain Dew)! Whether I am learning in your classrooms, or from our students, or on Twitter or through my experiences at Penn, I feel like everything comes together and helps me develop an even deeper understanding of my work as an educator. Please don't forget about the importance to keep learning because your continued growth only has positive affects on your students and the entire school community. Please try something new next week - a new book, a new website, a different type of HW assignment, whatever - try at least one new thing next week and see how it feels and share the end result! This week I had the pleasure of sitting in on 4th Grades meeting with Lisa and they were discussing a revised reading response experience because they wanted to try something new (thank you Rande for the inspiration). I also happened to walk past Julie's room while she was using her iPad with a group and she couldn't want to share her experiences with an app that she used with one of her K students and how it had a positive impact because she tried something new (thanks for that awesome email Julie detailing those great apps)... so lets try it... next week... the challenge is to try something new (let me know if you need ideas)... maybe we are not doing something totally new but doing something we planned in a different way!! Next week is the week of NEW at Cantiague!!

This week was also hectic because of our Kindergarten Registration, which is going nicely (we have over 30 students registered already). Special thanks to Laura and Joan for overseeing most of the work during this experience and thanks to Pam for holding down the Main Office all week while Laura worked in the Conference Room.

As we discussed at the Faculty Meeting please dont forget that first thing Monday morning, at 9am, we will be having our first Stay Put Drill of the year. Please follow the directions laid out in the memo and after the experience please let me know if there is anything we could be doing better moving forward. Special thanks to our awesome Health and Safety Team - Joey, Rob, MaryAnn, Lesley, Carolyn and Joan (and Mrs. Newman) for their work as part of this team!

Also, a special thank you to Mandy, Jill and Carolyn who shared their students with the Math In Focus presenter and the teachers from across the district for some model lessons. I was so incredibly proud of our kids because they did an awesome job and it is thanks to their incredibly dedicated teachers - BRAVO!

Finally, I had some time to spend in different classrooms and spaces over the last couple of days and I cannot think of a better way to kick off the new year! During my visits this week, I...

Spent some in Mandy's room during their literacy work and I was completely blown away by how much they accomplished in a short time. Within a twenty minute period they read a poem, looked at specific sight words and Mandy introduced the idea of the Star Student and the entire time, the children were focused, attentive and engaged, which is no easy accomplishment when you have 26 kindergartners in one space - BRAVO!!

Spent time in Marissa and Tali's room while the children were editing and revising their Feature Articles and getting them ready for publication. Every teacher in the room was engaged in a 1:1 writing conference and the rest of the children were engrossed in their work - not one person looked up the entire time and the children were asking thoughtful questions of their own writing and whether or not it made sense - IMPRESSIVE!

Spent time in Jill's room while the children were making Mind Movies as part of the visualization experience. The children were highly engaged in their partnership work where they shared what they visualized and I was blown away by their comments as Jill made her way around the carpet and listened in on specific conversations - such important work! It is amazing to watch the consistent skills and experiences our children are having and how they help scaffold them for success - these kids were doing such an awesome job because they had similar experiences in Kindergarten!

I spent some time in the Art Room with Lois and Melanie's class and I was so impressed with their work. They were painting and filling in geometric shapes and as I walked around the room I was blown away by the focus of the conversations on their work and color choices and the exciting buzz that filled the room - LOVED it!!

The 2nd Graders and their awesome teachers (Lesley, Carolyn, Carly and Nancy) must be recognized for their impressive poetry unit of study that is currently nearing the end! The children are incredible poets who are using things like metaphors, rhythm, white space and personification to bring their poems to life and the results are IMPRESSIVE and there was so much to be proud of because the children's growth as writers is AWESOME!!

Tech Tip of the Week...

Instead of the traditional tech tip this week, I wanted to share a one minute video of a student in Carolyn's class, Shiv, explaining his thinking about how to use the Bar Model to solve a subtraction problem (this video will not work on your iPhone). I think its impressive...

Schedule of the Week...

Monday, January 14

Happy Monday

"B" Week
Stay Put Drill at 9am

Tuesday, January 15

Faculty Meeting at 3PM

DNA In-House Visit - Gr. 5 (see Elaine's Schedule)

Gym & Me Event at 8:40am

Wednesday, January 16

WRAP Testing
CST at 1:20pm

PTA Meeting - Intro to Twitter @ 7:30pm

Thursday, January 17

WRAP TestingGym & Me Event at 8:40am

Board of Education Meeting at Seaman at 7:45pm

Friday, January 18

Happy Friday - three day weekend!

WRAP TestingCarvel Ice Cream Sale

Kids' Korner

On Wednesday during lunch I was eating with some 5th graders when one of them asked me, "So Mr. Sinanis, what do you do all day? It seems like a pretty easy job!" Really? Well, I guess if I can make it look easy to the kids then I may be doing something right... or I'm doing something wrong and they think I do nothing all day! LOL!

Pics of the Week...