September 13, 2013

Curriculum Connections...

Happy Friday to everyone after a hot and awesome first full week of school! I hope we all had a wonderful week and that everyone has some great plans for the weekend. I have a few papers to write but will definitely make some time for some rest and relaxation because we worked so hard this week! BRAVO TO US!

First off, thank you for being the most amazing educators and individuals that I have ever worked 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 tech issues 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 seven days of school 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 - from my vantage point, it was the BEST start of the school year EVER!

Additionally, I want to welcome all the Cantiague newbies one more time... Adam, Anne, Kim C., Lois, Amy, Rachel, Gillian and welcome back to Melissa - our team is now complete! We are so lucky to have each of you on our team because you have all helped make Cantiague an even better place!

In an effort to respect the idea that LESS is MORE, I will try and keep the Fast Friday Focus brief, specific and positive! This week, as I walked around the building, I spotted these awesome things...

• Adam introducing Shared Reading to his students and on the day they practiced ENVISIONING, they drew the most beautiful trees with an incredible amount of detail, which spoke to how closely they read the text - AWESOME!

• Melissa introducing the layers of the earth, which in themselves are not necessarily so interesting, but the way that Melissa described them hooked the children and when it was time for gym, they didn't want the geology discussion to end - awesome example of what engaged learning looks!

• Jill working with her children during writing workshop where they wrote about what makes them special. Jeanne and Linda were in the room at the same time and each adult worked individually with children during some meaningful and powerful conferences - WOW!

Tech Tip of the Week...

I know I have mentioned this before, but if you have not done so yet, you MUST create a Diigo account where you can save your favorite websites to the "cloud" and access them from any and all computers. The best part of Diigo and it's new features is that you can create "GROUPS" and theoretically grade levels can be part of the same group and everyone has access to each other's awesome sites! Here is a Diigo Tutorial to help launch the Diigo experience!


SCHEDULE OF THE WEEK... 

Monday, September 16 

"B" Week

Tuesday, September 17

Faculty Enhancement Opportunity - 3pm 
Constitution Day - click here for some resources!

Wednesday, September 18

Happy Wednesday!

Thursday, September 19 

CST Cancelled
Gr. 5 Trip to the Mets Game - 11:30am departure
Board of Education Meeting!

Friday, September 20

Happy TGIF!
Carvel Sale
PTA MOVIE NIGHT 
Tony goes to DC for the Bammy Awards on Saturday- stay tuned!

Kids' Korner

During recess, one of our new third graders came up to me and said, "I hear you are the guy to talk to about problems in this place!" LOL! Really?!? Who told him that? LOL!

Pics of the Week...

Check out Cantiague's Week in Tweets - click on the following link to see our Pics of the Week...

WEEK IN TWEETS

HAVE AN AWESOME WEEKEND!