November 8, 2013

Curriculum Connections...

Happy Friday to everyone! I hope we are all ready to enjoy a much needed three day weekend. I am so excited about having Monday off because I have a major part of my dissertation proposal due Sunday night, which means that Monday will be a day for some fun, rest and relaxation. My fingers are crossed that Paul does not have too much HW this weekend! 

Please note that this Fast Friday Focus will cover the next two weeks so please hold on to it for the next two schedules of the week!  

 I want to thank you all for an amazing day yesterday. As many of you know, my friend and mentee (all through Twitter), John Fritzky, spent the day at Cantiague and we literally spent the entire day visiting every classroom in this building. Words cannot begin to describe how proud I felt as we walked around this building. Our staff is really the most incredible in the world and our collective dedication to doing what is best for children and in ensuring that our children are feeling happy, respected and valued is awesome to observe... truly AWESOME! What we value as a school community was visible everywhere - we value 1:1 instruction; we value small group instruction; we value sound literacy instruction rooted in the gradual release of responsibility of learning from teachers to students; we value empowering and challenging our students with varied learning opportunities; and, most importantly, we value taking risks with our teaching and learning! BRAVO! Thank you for your collective dedication in aligning our instruction from kindergarten through 5th grade so that our children have learning experiences that build on one another - it was so clearly apparent to me yesterday. Our growth as a team over the last six years (and we were pretty amazing to start) is indicative of our dedication to excellence. THANK YOU!

Another special thank you to Joey and Joe for making our Blue Ribbon wall become a reality in the inner lobby. It looks AMAZING because of these gentlemen! This would not have been possible without Lois' artistic vision - thank you! I cannot wait to see the finished product!  

Last week I forgot to mention that November is National Picture Book Month. It is always exciting to celebrate some sort of literacy event and what is more perfect than celebrating picture books at the elementary level. I am hopeful that between the Making Meaning resource and any other fun picture books each of us chooses, that our kids might hear a picture book each day this month! If anyone is interested, I would be happy to stop in and read a picture book to the children - just let me know when and let me know if there is a specific book I should read. Click on the following link to GOODREADS for a list of great picture books - it would be great for our oldest children to hear some of their favorite books that they heard in the primary grades - how awesome would it be for our fourth or fifth graders to analyze a book like The Giving Tree with their current skill set? In my 17 years as an educator, I am constantly reminded about the instructional power of picture books so let's have some fun this month!     

Over the last week, as I walked around the building, I spotted these awesome things...

• Melanie's class was launching their writing workshop experience. They listened to the picture book Wilford Gordon McDonald Partridge, one of my favorite picture books of all time and then they gathered on the rug and shared a personal item that was important and meaningful to them. Melanie modeled sharing using her grandfather's rings and then showed them how to create a memory chain using the rings as the inspiration to show that she didn't necessarily have to write about the rings but instead any memory the rings could spark. The kids then went off and created their own memory chains and ensuing entries - they did an impressive job using their special objects as a motivation. While the children worked independently, Melanie facilitated a small group conference and then met individually with a couple of students all the while taking notes on her iPad - IMPRESSIVE!!

• Rande introduced a rubric to her class for their reading responses. Rande asks the children to write her a letter periodically and has explicitly laid out what she expects them to include in their letters, which she reads and then responds to each one in detail. The rubric was a wonderful way to explicitly show the students what they needed to do and include in order to achieve a Level 4 Reading Response - I encourage everyone to stop by her room and learn more about the process!   

• Jill was working with her first graders in the area of mathematics and was launching a unit on geometry. This initial lesson was so comprehensive and in the 45 minutes or so, Jill explained the difference between plain shapes and solid shapes, showed the children a video about shapes in the real world and had the children do a scavenger hunt looking for specific geometric shapes in the classroom. As if that weren't enough, she then explained the concepts of sides and corners and challenged the students to classify and sort the shapes based on varied parameters! I was so impressed by the students to synthesize all this information and apply it correctly - BRAVO!

• In case you missed it, here is the Video Update of the Week featuring Melissa's students - please show it to your class...

Tech Tip of the Week...

As an alternative to writing in the traditional sense, why not offer the children an opportunity to create a comic strip? Comics are a powerful and appropriate way to challenge kids to tell a story with all the necessary components. If this is something you want to try, maybe even for enrichment or a challenge to have a child retell a chapter book in comic strip form, check out ReadWriteThink Comic Creator!  


SCHEDULE OF THE WEEK... 

Monday, November 11

"B" Week
SCHOOL CLOSED

Tuesday, November 12

Faculty Enhancement Opportunity (all staff) - JoEllen McCarthy, literacy consultant, will be our guest presenter!

Wednesday, November 13

STAFF PHOTO - 7:50am
Shared Decision Making - 3pm

Thursday, November 14

CST at 1:20pm
PTA Executive Board
Cultural Arts
Staff Recognition Ceremony

Friday, November 15

Happy TGIF!
Tony at Penn - out of the building all day!

Monday, November 18

"A" Week

Literacy Forum hosted at Cantiague (Library & Computer Labs closed for the day)! 

Tuesday, November 19

PTA Meeting - 9:30am
Faculty Meeting - get ready for Curriculum Fair - Math Night

Wednesday, November 20

Happy Wednesday!

Thursday, November 21

CST at 1:20pm

Cultural Arts
Curriculum Fair & Bd. of Ed. Meeting at Cantiague

 

Friday, November 22

Happy TGIF!

Carvel Sale

Kids' Korner

Yesterday, while walking around the building and visiting classrooms with John, a student came up to us and introduced himself to John and then proceeded to say, "Are you going to come and work for Mr. Sinanis? If you are, wear comfortable shoes because all he does is walk around all day!" 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 - NOVEMBER 8