December 2, 2013

I hope you had a happy and peaceful four-day weekend.  Wherever you were, with whatever joys or challenges you carried, I hope you were able to find time to relax and think about those people, experiences, and things for which you are grateful.

My weekend was spent primarily with my mother, and I had lot of time to be reflective.  I am thankful to return to school, to you, and to all of our students.

Summarizing: December's Thinking Strategy

I asked a friend how his Thanksgiving was. He started like this, "Well, Wednesday after noon around 1pm . . . ", and stopped around 4:30pm on Thursday, after what, I hope, was a polite interruption from me.  

He certainly could have benefited from this month's thinking strategy: Summarizing.  Click here for more information as well as the Reader's Toolkit, Think Mark, and Mini Lesson.  When students summarize, you can better judge the desired effect of some of our Marzano strategies, namely: Identifying Critical Information, Reviewing Content, and Practicing Skills, Strategies, and Processes.

I wonder if this strategy from the Differentiated Instruction tab might be helpful to students learning to summarize.  It's about partner re-telling.  Click here to read more.

Mid-Year Check-In

I'm looking forward to our mid-year check in.  It's a great way to summarize your year so far and your work toward your growth plan.  ;-) If you haven't scheduled time with me yet, please do! Both WGSD and SSD staff should click here to do this. I will use our 15 minutes for the following:

• How's your progress toward your growth plan (or what revisions will you be making to it)?
• What's going well that you are glad to share?
• What else might be on your mind for me to know?

Team Representative Meeting

I apologize for not sharing this reminder earlier.  Team representatives (just one from each team, although the everyone is welcomed) and I will meet after school on Monday, 12/2, at 3:30pm in Sherri Evans' room.  We'll build the agenda at the beginning of the meeting.  I have two agenda points so far:

• Spring Conferences, 2014.
• Discovery Check-in/Check-up

Since Spring conferences will affect all teachers, any teacher who is interested is welcomed to attend.

Hixson Holiday House Tour

I hope you will take some time to enjoy the House Tour this weekend.  It's the PTO's biggest fundraiser.  They use the proceeds from this to support our work and our students.