The Flyer: March 2018

Monday, March 26, 2018

Week 27 - Spring Break is Heaven

Great Things I Noticed:

Ada using Pear Deck and Flash Card Factory to teach about explorers!
Judid using Pear Deck and Flash Card Factory to reinforce vocabulary!
Raquel using a Choice Board to dive deeper into the Wonders selection!
Kristi signing up to present Thinglink at out PL training on Tuesday!
Kindergarten growing plants and butterflies!
FOSS Science throughout the campus!
TK Students working hard at learning through academics and play!
Ms. Ramirez's students working hard on Country Presentations!
Our PL staff being impressed and "Wowed" by what they see happening at Hawthorne!
3rd grade Solar System projects!
Honor Roll and Perfect Attendance Parties!
Movie Night for our families!

Nuts and Bolts:

The Lockdown drill went very smoothly this morning. Thank you for prepping your students and following protocal. We appreciate your professionalism!
The district will be coming through tomorrow to perform an Asset Count. They are counting anything that is valued at $500 and above - please leave your cabinets open and accesible to the team. The lead night custodians will lock everything up.
Christina Summerford from Rivera is our new 6th grade team member - taking Marcia's spot as Marcia goes off to the bliss of retirement...
Open House is THURSDAY!

4:30-6:00 Food Available
5:00-5:30 PTA Meeting/Student Performance
5:30 - 6:30 Classrooms Open

3-6 Grade will be completing the "Dry Run" for our CAASPP Assessment on Wednesday at 9:00

3-6 Grade Teams please have your action plan to me by the end of the day TODAY
Please, if possible, stay off of all devices from 9-10 Wednesday morning
More information regarding the Interim Assessment can be found here

When communicating with parents please encourage them to complete the Community Feedback Survey

The community feedback survey is the survey that we will use as you as you complete your needs assessment for your 18-19 school plan. Here is a link to a flyer that you can distribute advertising the survey https://drive.google.com/file/d/1avdeVcOyxxS8Q7QE661Z1PUJmconH_ue/view?usp=sharing
Here are the direct links to the surveys (English and Spanish) that you can send to your parents. English http://bit.ly/2FuNWnp Spanish http://bit.ly/2oS05Jm Please feel free to send the links through your remind, Dojo app or other communication.

Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE) - we are starting a parent engagement class on April 24th - more information at April 18 staff meeting
FYI Grade 3-6:

REMINDER: WONDERS FOR NEW TEACHERS/TEACHERS NEW TO 3-6 WONDERS: McGraw-Hill has offered to conduct a workshop on May 29, 2018, Thursday, for teachers new to 3-6 Wonders and/or teachers moving to 3rd – 6th grade and have not been trained or taught Wonders. Please encourage your teachers to sign up on the HUB > Instruction 00-06 > McGraw-Hill Publisher training.

Elementary Summer Camp Update

Now that Trimester 2 report cards have been completed, it is time to start making an “Invitation List” of students who would benefit from attending Summer Camp this year. Summer camp is designed to enrich a student’s background knowledge with science experiences that will enhance their academic development. Reading, writing, and math experiences will be infused throughout the science content.
Who should be invited:

Students who have been retained or are at risk of retention. (We will no longer be offering ASIP in the fall. This intervention will take the place of ASIP.)
English Learners
Intensive, Strategic, or Benchmark students who are at-risk of “sliding back” during the summer.
TK-6 Updates

Invitations are being sent to Publications next week, so you should be able to start inviting students after Spring Break.

Kids Art Riverside

Do you want your classroom’s artwork featured on Mayor Bailey’s social media? Here’s an opportunity to help us highlight Riverside events and themes in a fun way that includes our youth! It’s as easy as:

1. We will send packets with return envelopes and ideas for the drawings to your classroom on a quarterly basis.
2. Have your students create their masterpieces using the topics provided, then drop them in the mail back to us.
3. Watch Mayor Bailey’s social media for your art to be showcased! Click here for more info.

Focus:

Kristi Forsythe shared this Personalization vs. Differntiation vs. Individualization Chart from Barb Bray with me last week. For me, this provides a clear picture of what Personalized Learning is and how it differs from the other ways we "personalize" student learning. Personalized learning is student centered and the other two are teacher centered. As a PL school we work towards finding a balance between fully personalizing learning and maintaining the ablity to differntiate and individualize.

If you have questions or thoughts about this chart - Post in Comments below!

If you come across something interesting - send it my way and I will share!

Upcoming Events:

3/26 Interviews 2nd Grade
3/27 6th Grade Field Trip
3/27 PL Day - All Day - PL Team
3/28 CAASPP Dry Run - 9:00
3/28 Lunch on the Lawn - 11:30
3/28 Preschool Parent Meeting - 11:00
3/28 Asset Inventory
3/28 Leadership - 2:55
3/29 GATE Testing - 2nd Grade
3/30 SOTM Assemblies

8:45 TK/K
9:20 4-6
10:15 1-3

April 2-6 SPRING BREAK
4/10 Chromebook Inventory
4/11 Coffee with the Principal
4/12 School Site Council - 3:10
4/13 6th Grade field trip

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Week 26

Great Things I Noticed:

The Science word wall in Mrs. Borza's class!
School Smarts classes on Wednesdays in the library - Parents are learning about how to support thier students TK- College!
Masi's class making their Zern goal!
Instructional Rounds with our SLT Team!
Writing across the curriculum and content areas!
Exit Ticket procedures and tools in several rooms!
Caterpillars in the butterfly garden and outside of Mr. Wible's room!
A 100% perfect visit from our Attendance Auditor - NICE JOB IRENE and the OFFICE STAFF - YOU ROCK!!

Nuts and Bolts:

This morning Clarissa and I gave a short presentation to about 12 parents regarding school safety. One had particular questions regarding teachers talking to students regarding school violence and tradegies. I restated that we focus on how we keep students safe, our procedures for keeping students safe and maintaining a normal routine as much as possible. We will be sending a "safety letter" to parents in the coming week and you might get some feedback. Feel free to cascade the above message or send the inquiries our way.
Please continue to walk students to the front at dismissal. This maintains and adult presence with our students and is part of our safety plan.
It is important that students are arriving to lunch on time! Especially for our 5th and 6th graders. Please ensure the students are arriving at your designated times for lunch so we can get them through the lines and out to the playground.
Thank you for your patience as we work through the process to have our supervisors become permanent employees. We will be looking to hire two more positions as soon as possible.
New Soccer Goals: Student are able to play soccer on both fields if there is supervison for both fields
Open House will include an opportunity for families to have dinner and we are hoping watch out 4th graders play their melodic recorders! The tentative times for Open House are 4:30-5:30 (Dinner, Show and PTA Meeting) - 5:30 Session 1 - 6:00 Session II - 6:30 close it down
Lunch on the Lawn is the last Wednesday of the Month through May
Testing Season has commenced! Here is the tentative timeline for our testing grades 3-6:

March 28 Dry Run 9:00am
March 28-May 4 Interim Assessments/Practice Tests
May 8 - 10 CAASPP Summative ELA Assessment
May 15-17 CAASPP Summative Math Assessment
May 21-25 Make up testing

Keep in mind that our reading intervention and RSP services will be suspended during the summative assessment and make up times. We will do our best to get our services back on line as soon as possible.
We have new SHIRTS! We want to create a culture that amplifies the message of doing our best and taking the tests seriously - we have bought shirts for both classified and certificated staff to wear during our testing window - more information to come!
NEW FOSS/Intro to NGSS Day 1. Our first of two days of training for teachers who just started using an NGSS-aligned FOSS science module during Third trimester will be March 27th followed by in-class coaching. Please ask teachers to sign up for trainings on PD hub and to give secretaries the sub code located on PD Hub’s course description. Please contact Shannon Dadlez for additional information, sdadlez@rusd.k12.ca.us.

Focus:

Hillary found a great article on Listening and shared with me... so I am sharing with you!

Thanks, Hillary!

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/training-the-brain-to-listen-donna-wilson

If you come across an article you think is worth sharing, send it my way!

Upcoming Events:

3/20 11:30-1:30 PL Site Visit
3/20 Fundraiser Assmeblies

1-3 Grade 2:00
4-6 Grade 2:25

3/21 2:55 Staff Meeting - Active Shooter Training
3/22 K-12 Principal Meeting (Carrie Out 8:00-1:00)
3/22 3:10 School Site Council
3/23 Progress Monitoring
3/26 9:00 Lockdown Drill
3/27 Fire Drill
3/27 PL Planning Day (for team that attended last meeting - sign up in PD Hub)
3/28 Lunch on the Lawn
3/28 2:55 Leadership Meeting
3/29 GATE Testing 2nd Grade
3/29 Open House 5:30 Classroom Start Time (tentative)
3/30 Student of the Month Assemblies
4/2-4/6 SPRING BREAK!

Awesome Idea for March Madness!

http://brownbagteacher.com/book-madness-march-book-display/

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Week 25

Great Things I Noticed:

Read Across America Week! Thank you for your enthusiasm and flexibility - It was great to have so many community members coming to read for our students!

Nuts and Bolts:

Early Literacy Conference Writing Contest entries due to Marie Coover on 3/9
Writing Assessments need to be uploaded by 3/16 (Opinion Writing)
The slidedeck presented at the Math Adoption Committee meetings can be viewed here. Thank you to Doree and Carol for presenting the materials on Friday!
MOY Opinion Writing Assessments Middle of the Year Opinion Writing Assessments have been delivered by Publications to sites. The window for uploading scores will open this week from PowerSchool Learning. All teachers should have received an email with detailed instructions on how to upload to Illuminate. Questions? Contact: Marie Coover.
Kids Art Riverside Do you want your classroom’s artwork featured on Mayor Bailey’s social media? Here’s an opportunity to help us highlight Riverside events and themes in a fun way that includes our youth! It’s as easy as: 1. We will send packets with return envelopes and ideas for the drawings to your classroom on a quarterly basis. 2. Have your students create their masterpieces using the topics provided, then drop them in the mail back to us. 3. Watch Mayor Bailey’s social media for your art to be showcased! Artwork on the theme of “Juan Bautista De Anza” is due March 9, 2018. Click here for more info.

Classroom Focus:

What does AVID look like at the Elementary School? During our AVID walk through this week with Sarah Zuetel we visited our primary classes to look at the strategies already being used... your classrooms are already AVID-ized!

AVID Elementary focuses on these areas of focus:

Embedded "best practices" throughout the day
Organization and Responsibility
Philosophy on learning for ALL students
Writing, Iquiry, Collaboration, Organization and Reading (WICOR)
Student success skills (speaking skill and study skills)
Partnerships with families and communities

As we expand our AVID program we will continue to find that our classrooms will cultivate a culutre of intrinsic motivation. Our students will be able to visualize academic success and carry that through middle and high school and collectively we will sustain the belief that academic rigor is expected, possible and attainable.

Here are some Pinteresting resources and ideas regarding AVID Elementary -