January 9, 2015

Curriculum Connections...

Happy TGIF and here is to an awesome weekend that will hopefully not be as brutally cold as the last couple of days! Happy New Year again to everyone - hard to believe that this is our first Fast Friday Focus for 2015. I wish everyone nothing but health and happiness in 2015. Let's remember to dream BIG this year and take risks with our own teaching but more importantly, with our own learning! 

Make it a goal to learn a little something new every single day. Maybe something you will use or maybe something you don't agree with or maybe something that aligns perfectly to your current practice... whatever the approach, resource or case, try and learn something new every single day. You know I have been preaching about the power of Twitter for years and I applaud so many of you for getting connected to share the amazing stories of your learning spaces but maybe the time has come to digger a little deeper into the Twitterverse and start using it as a tool for your personal and professional development. Use it to connect with like minded educators; use it to read the blogs as a way to push yourself out of your comfort zone; use it as a way to find resources and materials that could enhance your craft; or who knows... maybe start tweeting about your own ideas, passions and beliefs! Check out my Twitter Getting Started Guided if you are ready to take the next step! 

From my perspective, the bottom line in the world of education is that we should not be mainly focused on the teaching but instead we should mainly be focused on the learning of everyone in the community!

Meanwhile, I am so glad we all survived one of the coldest weeks ever. Thank you to Joey, Joe and the crew for keeping everything running smoothly! Thank you to Kim, Lorraine, Lois, Lisa, Maureen, Rob & Phil for standing outside in the frigid cold weather this week to make sure our kids got in safely - you braved the cold weather with a smile on your faces - THANK YOU! Hopefully the worst is behind us in terms of the cold weather. With that in mind, I will say this... I will take cold weather over snow any day!   :)


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

• I saw several examples of peer tutoring where one child was helping another child work on a specific skill or address a specific issue. For example, from Adam's class I watched Rin work closely with Alan to help improve his English - whether it was working on his writing or reading, Rin supported him with patience and smile. I also watched Sara from fifth grade "tutor" Ivy from fourth grade because Ivy, who came here from China last year, is not progressing at the rate we would have hoped. Well, Sara was truly an amazing teacher both times I saw the girls together... she was a true Lead Learner - AWESOME!

• I spent some time in all three of our kindergarten classrooms this week during Writing Workshop and was blown away by how maturely the children handled getting ready to publish as part of the List and Label unit of study. They were looking through writing folders and examining their own pieces to decide what was worthy of being published - they are truly budding authors!

• Allison and Marissa have done an amazing job integrating Google Classroom into their instructional practices and their nonfiction writing unit has flourished online. The kids are doing such impressive and mature writing and the conversations between teachers and students during conferences have left me in awe. Yesterday, there was even a discussion about digitally publishing their work and making it accessible to the world... WOW! 

• In case you missed it, here is the national video our kids participated in where they shared their BIG dreams for 2015...

Tech Tip of the Week...

It seems that the integration of Google Classroom, Google Docs and other Google based educational resources are permeating many of our learning spaces. With that in mind, I offer the following resource: 5 Time Saving Ways Teachers Can Use Google Forms!


SCHEDULE OF THE WEEK... 

Monday, January 12

"A" Week
Happy Monday.... Make it the BEST Monday of the week!
#NYedchat at 8:30pm to discuss PLCs... join or watch the discussion on Twitter!

Tuesday, January 13

Extended Faculty Enhancement Opportunity - teachers only!
See the email from Helene for details!

Wednesday, January 14

Happy Wednesday!
Grade 3 Earth Balloon

Thursday, January 15

CST @ 1:20pm
Cultural Arts

Friday, January 16

Happy TGIF!
Happy Three Day Weekend!

Kids' Korner

While walking around with my Jericho hat on Thursday someone commented that I looked GANGSTA...Yup... that's me, the 40 year old Greek Gangsta! 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