September 23, 2013

It was a beautiful, beginning-of-fall weekend.  Autumn is my favorite season, and I am looking forward to Term 2 (already!).  Have a great week!

Faculty Meeting
If you have not made your choice for Monday's faculty meet, please click here to do so.

October's Thinking Strategy: Questioning
The Reader's Toolkit contains tools that can be useful in all content areas and for all students.  Students' abilities to ask questions is related to the effective use of several Marzano strategies, including those that require students to identify critical information, encode their understanding, and reflecting, to name a few.

During Discovery intervention time, the Reader's Toolkit is especially useful with those students who have ILIPs because they are struggling readers.  Discovery teachers should choose at least one tool and use assigned reading from their content to teach students how to utilize the tool.

Click here to go to the resources for next month's Thinking Strategy: Questioning.

One Place
Parents have expressed concerns to teachers and to me about the number of web sites and blogs and other things of which they must keep track on behalf of their student(s).  "Can there just be one place?" they ask. Members of the LMT and I had a discussion about how we might streamline this for them.  Since most parents have access to and are familiar with the Parent Portal this is the most obvious "one place".  We discussed two options, then:

1. Place a link to your homework in the Portal and keep posting your homework as you have been (perhaps the easier option) or
2. Start using the Portal to post homework.  

These instructions will help: click here.  Please complete 1 or 2  above by Monday, 10/7, so parents can be informed at conferences (although I'll publish this to parents as well).  If you need or would like assistance with setting up your first homework assignment in the portal, please ask a building LMT member.

You're Invited to PTO Meetings and Principal Coffees
Our PTO really appreciates when teachers are able to visit.  A couple of teachers have noted to me they hear thanks and requests from more than just me, we might be more likely to get more specific support in areas that we need.  Please consider visiting during one of our meetings.  Click here to see a list of dates and to sign up, so to speak. The time commitment is generally an hour or less.

On Hixson's Facebook Fan Page

• The link to register for conferences,
• A reminder about how our new grading practices might affect grades parents are used to seeing, and
• A link to a flyer for next week's Hat Day.

Jam World Record

Care to be a part of a Global 1-Minute Fitness Break with Schools? If so, click here to watch the video and plan to participate on 9/26.  Our own Dr. Miller, assistant principal and district PE coordinator, is a big fan of brain breaks.  Why not be a part of a global brain break on 9/26? Dr. Miller will make a reminder announcement at 1:35pm on 9/26.

Next week, I will be out of the building all day on 9/25 to participate in a vertical learning study.  I'm also looking forward to reading Wonder in Discovery classes I visit over the next couple weeks.  August (Auggie) Pullman, about whom Wonder is written, says, "Here's what I think: the only reason I'm not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way."