December 8, 2014

Great Things Noticed:

So many times we have heard teachers requiring students to show direct evidence from the text.  Language arts teachers we are thrilled about this and even more excited that it is happening in classes like science and social studies as well.

The 5th graders have an amazing competition going on with the Ren Learn program.  Students are so motivated I overheard 2 students discussing how they budget their time at home so they can fit more reading in, awesome!

Google Classroom has made assignments more manageable for many of our teachers.  It allows teachers to create a doc and share with students MUCH more easily.  When students turn the assignment in they are all in the same folder wonderfully organized.  

Some teachers are taking advantage of the new technology afforded them to increase communication with parents.  Several teachers have begun using Kidblog.org as a blogging platform for students to reflect on what they have learned.  Parents then log in to see the progress their students are making and leave comments for the class.  Other teachers have begun creating newsletters to explain upcoming events so parents can stay informed.  Two free and easy ways to create these newsletters are Smore and Tackk.

This week we began posting many of the other great things you do to our school Facebook page.  For those parents who are not on Facebook, we also emailed a collection of these pictures via Storify.  We received a great deal of positive feedback from parents about the learning experiences you have created for theirs students.  Thank you!!

Events This Week:


Monday: Faculty Meeting Tuesday:   Progress Reports available to parents

Tuesday Band and Choral Winter Concert

Day Time - 9:30 Lakes students

10:30 BIS students

Evening - 7:00 PM

Thursday: BEA Party at St. Moritz

Friday: 7th & 8th Grade Dance 7-9 PM

Nuts and Bolts:

Plato Testing -

This is designed to give us a benchmark test to see where students are and what skills they need reinforcement on.  This data will help to inform you about what lessons need to be continued, added, or skipped to ensure students are moving at an appropriate pace.  We have scheduled two dates when the test will be administered in December and two more in the beginning of February.  During these days students will be assigned teachers to administer the test and we will proceed at a delayed opening schedule.  This will allow us to test our band-width while giving the students an opportunity to take a PARCC-like assessment.  Information for how to have your students log on and take the test will be coming soon.  

December 17th ELA

December 18th Math

February 4th ELA

February 5th Math

PARCC Dates (subject to change)

• March  2nd-5th  Grades 7-8 Math then ELA
• March  9th-12th Grades 5-6 Math then ELA (Make ups for grades 7-8)
• March 16th-19th Grades 3-4 Math then ELA (Make ups for grades 5-6)

It's the Most Wonderful Time Of The Year..................Yep, QSAC

This means we need to ensure that our rooms are up to code.

• Please make sure there is nothing hanging from your ceiling
• There can be nothing closer than 18 inches from your ceiling so if you stack things on top of closets you can no longer do this
• If you have a secret coffee pot hiding somewhere you need to remove it
• If you have a secret refrigerator hiding somewhere you need to remove it
• If you have a secret snow-cone maker hiding somewhere, make me one first, then remove it
• There can be no wires exposed where students could trip

Byram Spotlight Dates:

• December 19th
• Jan 23th
• Feb 13th
• March 13th
• April 17th
• May 8th
• June 12th

Tech Tips:

Google Drive:

• In Docs, you can already customize tables with different colors and line thicknesses, and now you can also merge cells together to get your table just right.
• Plus, you can now customize images right inside your document by recoloring them, changing the transparency, brightness, and more.
• In Slides, you can now add slide numbers to help guide you and your audience through presentations. 

Get Kahoot - A Kahoot is a collection of questions on specific topics. Created by teachers, students, business-people and social users, they are asked in real-time, to an unlimited number of “players”, creating a social, fun and game-like learning environment.