September 24, 2014

Curriculum Connections...

Happy Wednesday to everyone on this kick-off to the four-day weekend - WOOOO HOOOO!! Happy Holidays to anyone celebrating this weekend - Happy New Year! Hope it is a healthy and happy celebration. For all of us not celebrating, enjoying the time for some R&R! I am excited about this upcoming weekend because I get to spend time with Paul and then on Saturday afternoon I head to DC for the Bammy Awards. Aside from being nominated this year, I am also co-hosting the Red Carpet Pre-Party, which is going to be a blast! It such an incredible opportunity to connect with some of the most awesome educators in our profession. I cannot wait to share some stories.

As we reach this final week of September the idea of HW begins to become a more pressing matter - especially for the families. How much are you giving? How often? What are the non-negotiables? What are the most important? What can be cut away? I challenge you to consider and reconsider all those questions and even discuss them as a grade level. I am a firm believer in the idea that if we are going to give HW, it must be meaningful, manageable and important to the students... and finally, we must be checking it and giving feedback! 

Here is a great short article that argues both the reasons FOR and AGAINST HW... click here! 

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 #EDUWINS...

• MaryAnn engaged the fifth graders in a whole lesson about the nervous system as it related to the brain and being mindful! It was great to watch Mare incorporate a School House Rock video about the "telegram system" (aka nervous system) and then challenge the students to think about neurons and dendrites. Awesome to see almost every child in our school has done some work with the brain and mindfulness. 

• Rande's class did exit slips in the form of paper tweets as part of reading workshop. The children did an excellent job generating ideas and supporting them with evidence!

• I had the pleasure of sitting in on the Grade 3 lunch planning meeting on Tuesday with Christine, Meryl, Donna, Melanie and Carolyn and needless to say, it was awesome! To listen to the flow of information, exchange of ideas and genuine enthusiasm about upcoming activities definitely served as an inspiration for me - THANK YOU! I am particularly excited to hear that they are planning on launching student led book clubs (with support) next week... AWESOME!!

Tech Tip of the Week...

As a follow up to our conversation yesterday about empathy at the faculty meeting, here is a short video (less than 3 minutes) featuring Barak Obama speaking about the importance of empathy...

http://youtu.be/Ft_M5tXRx28 

SCHEDULE OF THE WEEK... 

Monday, September 29 

"A" Week
Happy Monday!

Tuesday, September 30

NO F.E.O.
Photo Day - the Gym will be CLOSED for the day for pictures!
SEPTA Meeting - 7pm at the MS

Wednesday, October 1

Happy Wednesday!
Gr. 2 Trip - Queens County Farm

Thursday, October 2 

PTA Executive Board - 9:30am
Carvel Pre-Order Sale!

Friday, October 3

Happy TGIF!
EMERGENCY EVACUATION DRILL - Early Dismissal

Kids' Korner

While visiting a fourth grade classroom I heard the following exchange between two boys...
Kid 1: "Hey, what are you doing?"
Kid 2: "My math work. You?"
Kid 1: "I am busy pinching my nipples..."
Alrighty then! 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

September 12, 2014

Curriculum Connections...

Happy Friday to everyone as we head into the last few days of summer! I hope everyone had a wonderful week. It was a busy week that featured our annual Meet The Teacher Night last night and our New Family Breakfast and PTA Meeting earlier in the week. It was so great to have the families in the building because they are all so excited about the school year! Thank you for creating that positive buzz and nurturing a space that makes our kids happy and inspires them each day. I received so much positive feedback from our families this week because of your work so THANK YOU! 

A special thank you to MaryAnn for sharing all that important information with us at the F.E.O. on Tuesday about some of our classified kids and their needs. It is so important that we have that type of information because it helps us best meet the needs of our children. Of course, Mare just touched on a portion of the students who have special circumstances because we also have a bunch of unclassified students who have backstories that we should be aware of moving forward. If you know one of those backstories from last year because you had the student, please share it with the current classroom teacher because it could make a huge difference. Thank you in advance for your support in doing what is in the best interest of our children.

By the way, if you did not get a chance to read MaryAnn's latest post, click on the following link because it is an incredible read that could be helpful to all of us... Getting Your Kids To Talk

This week, as I walked around #Cantiague this week, I spotted the following #EduWins...

• Tali read the book Fireboat and facilitated an amazing conversation about September 11th! The conversation wasn't only informative as it related to the historical facts, but Tali seamlessly connected the day's events to the importance of being a HERO. #PowerfulReadAloud

• Jessica leading a conversation in her 5th grade class about author's tone and slant. One child asked for clarification about what the word slant meant and instead of defining it for her, Jessica asked the children to turn and talk to their partners to decipher the meaning. In the end, the children did a great job coming up with a collective definition with some support from Jessica!

• Laurie did an awesome activity in the Science Lab with the fourth grade where she used a cupcake baked with different color cake to teach the children about the earth's geology - it was AMAZING!

Please refer to this post (especially for the Schedule of the Week below) for the next couple of weeks! 

Tech Tip of the Week...

As I mentioned in an email yesterday, there is an awesome LiveBinder that focuses on Genius Hour that is worth exploring if you want to try implementing it at some point this year. Although there is a lot to explore in that virtual binder, definitely check out this link to one post in the elementary tab that would be most helpful to getting started (there are also tabs in the binder separated by grade level)... 5 Ways To Help Students Think Creatively.


SCHEDULE OF THE WEEK... 

Monday, September 15

"A" Week

Tuesday, September 16

NO F.E.O.

Wednesday, September 17

Happy Wednesday!
Constitution Day - try celebrating during the day!

Thursday, September 18

CST at 1:20pm
Bd. Of Ed. Meeting - 7pm

Friday, September 19

Happy TGIF!
PTA buys Pizza for Kindergarten
Tony is at PENN - out for the day!

Monday, September 22

"B" Week
Kindergarten Hot Lunch Begins 

Tuesday, September 23

F.E.O. for all staff - 3pm

Wednesday, September 24

Happy Wednesday!
Happy Holidays to anyone celebrating... have a great 4-day weekend!

Kids' Korner

During one of my classroom visits, on a particularly hot and humid day, one of the kids turned to me and said, "Wow- it is hot in here and I am sweating in some really private places!" I nearly fell out of my chair laughing!! 

Pics of the Week...

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

CANTIAGUE WEEK IN TWEETS

September 5, 2014

Curriculum Connections...

Happy Friday to everyone after an awesome first week of school - it feels like we never left (in a great way)! I hope we all had a wonderful short week and that everyone has some great plans for the upcoming weekend (maybe stopping by the Gr. 5 Car Wash??). The start of the school year is such an exciting and invigorating time - a whole other fresh start to try new things, learn from failures and have fun! This is our year to incorporate more things like project/passion based learning, explore the possibilities of a Genius Hour, maybe consider a school-wide Innovation Day or Week (not something we really discussed but something to consider because we have the resources to make it happen) and allow for deeper connections between reading and writing workshop as we look to solidify an actual literacy block! Bottom line - it is going to be an AWESOME year!  :) 

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 moving spaces at the last minute, 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 days of school so successful and powerful for all of our students - new and returning. We started everything off on the right note on Wednesday 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... Ally, Jessica, Grace, Sara, Christina, Kerry, Maureen and Kelly (and anyone I missed) - 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 #EDUWINS...

• Marissa and Allison challenging their students to work in pairs to figure out how they could stand on the same piece of newspaper without being able to physically make contact - it was incredibly challenging!

• Grade 1 students reacting to their first day after reading the First Day Jitters book... fortunately, very few of them actually had the jitters! Many of them were happy, excited and joyful!

• Grade 2 and 3 students writing about how they could be Bucket Fillers! Thank you to everyone who incorporated these types of activities to remind the children about the importance of being a Bucket Filler... it is a way of life here at #Cantiague!

Tech Tip of the Week...

I know I have mentioned this before, but if you have not done so yet, you should create a Diigo account (something I reminded everyone of during our summer in-service) 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 8 

"B" Week
Gr. 1 - 5 Playdates Begin

Tuesday, September 9

Faculty Enhancement Opportunity (F.E.O.) - 3pm 
PTA Meeting & New Family Breakfast - 9am

Wednesday, September 10

Happy Wednesday!

Thursday, September 11 

Meet The Teacher Night...
Gr. 3 - 5 at 6:30pm
Gr. K - 2 at 7:30pm

Friday, September 12

Happy TGIF!
PTA MOVIE NIGHT 
Homecoming Weekend activities!

Kids' Korner

During lunch one of our kindergarten students told me that lunch at Cantiague was the best because it was loud and noisy! LOL! Ain't that the truth?!

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