Great Things Noticed:
- Connecting Our Schools - Students from the Preschool program came over to work in one of our classrooms. There were two different groups that came over and I was lucky enough to catch a piece of this. Our 8th graders were teaching the little guys and girls how to play some holiday games. Our students were so encouraging, kind, and empathetic you would have thought they were in a Christmas movie. I know sometimes students can challenge us, but we really do have tremendously caring students in this school and this was just one example of this.
- Student Choice -- A teacher has a rotation system set up to ensure he meets with students in small groups. While the students are not with the teacher they have a total of nine activities to complete. The students must choose and complete 6 of the 9 activities accurately by a certain date for full credit. The students loved the power they had in their class to say ‘No’ to certain activities, and the teacher was not only teaching math but time managements skills as well.
- Show Me - On In a science class students were creating contour maps, which have lines of elevation all over them and are really difficult for me to read. The teacher had the students use containers of water to help SHOW the students this concept instead of just tell them. The final product was amazing!
- Make it Hands On - In another science class students were not just talking about the definition of a living thing, they were examining specimens to determine what characters of a living thing each had. This is an activity that could have been completed simply by reading the text-book and asking the students to memorize definitions, but the teacher make the learning experience much more hands on and it is one the students will remember well after the test.
- Make it Memorable - In another science class the students were attempting to separatea a mixture that one student described as discussing. The students had to create a plan to separate the different materials and then execute this plan, all while trying to avoid turning the science lab into a huge mess. The students will then have to write a lab report about the experiment. All of this occurred on the Friday before break, great to see the learning taking place even during the Holiday Season.
- We are Lucky - Blown away by the student and staff participation in the daily activities that were decided on by the student council. From dress like a twin day to pajama day to ugly sweater day it was fun to see so many people involved. I think Mr. Vogel is a fan favorite, everyone wants to dress like him.
- Thank you to everyone who pitched in and helped with the benchmark testing this week. It was by no means picture perfect, and I know it was a bit crazy the first time we did this and the connection issues we had. We are working to fix these issues and I am glad we were able to identify them before the PARCC. I am so impressed with how far we have come. Last year we were killing tons of trees copying the New York State tests and giving them to the students. Then had you spend hours grading these assessments. This year we had the students take the tests online saving paper, and had the software correct the answers, to allow you more time to develop engaging lessons.
Events This Week:
Dec 22: Faculty Meeting after school - Bring a Gag Gift - Max $10
Dec 23: Halfday
Dec 24-Jan 4 School Close Winter Break
Jan 5 School opens
Nuts and Bolts:
Any student who was absent for Plato testing please have them take it today or tomorrow. As a team you can decide when the best time for this would be.
Enjoy the 12 days off!
Tech Tips:
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Have you ever been in traffic and said to yourself you would rather just move, even if you had to travel farther? Take a look at these amazing activities with real-world application where the students have to find the data necessary to solve the problem. These problems scream Turn Me Into An Algebraic Expression!! know this activity is designed mostly for upper level math classes but I thought the concept could be spread to other subject areas.
6 Best Google Docs Apps for Writing Productivity and Collaboration
Google Docs has been one of the most powerful editing and collaboration tools for years. And it’s free! The built-in ability to create documents, invite editor and collaborate in real time is awesome. The rest can be achieved through helpful add-ons that are available all over the web.
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