Week of September 11

Thursday Thoughts September 11

It is hard to believe that the tragedy of 9/11 happened thirteen years ago.  For many of us, it is still very vivid in our minds.  Like many of you, I can recall the exact moment that I heard the news.  My assistant principal walked to every classroom and told the teachers that a terrible tragedy had occured in New York.  He said that there wasn't much information to share but that we should pray for our country.  My assistant principal was not usually a very serious guy so when I saw the look on his face, I knew something unspeakable had occured.  Although I was worried, confused and unsure of what was going on, I wanted to make sure that my students couldn't sense that anything was wrong.  As loving and nurturing educators, our first thoughts are always our students and how to shield them from the cruel realities of the world.   Just think, the children that we are shielding now, will grow up and serve as first responders, pilots, educators, military personnel and any number of other important roles in this country.  As this days draws to a close, I hope that we all remember that what we do today matters.  The lives we touch today matter.  We will never forget that fateful day and the lives that were lost.  But the best way that we can honor their memory is to live each day making a difference in the lives of others and teaching our children the importance of service.

Staff Spotlight

This week three ladies, Liz Nguyen, Katie Skelly and Ashley Mason have been nominated for their efforts with Genius Hour in 1st grade by Leigh Martin.   They are facilitating the Genius Hour enrichment activities for 1st grade.  They have read books, played kindness games and helped students brainstorm kind phrases.  They are currently helping each class brainstorm a Random Act of Kindness project that students will do for someone else in our school community.  Genius Hour is definitely an "outside the box" activity and they have been creative and excited to help.  Leigh also wants to acknowledge all participating grade levels for diving into Genius Hour and taking it very seriously.  It is truly exciting to see this become a success!

 

4C's: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking Skills

 

4Cs: How to Teach Collaboration

 This blog is written by Mary Beth (couldn't find last name anywhere) from the July 29, 2014   http://runteacherrunriley.blogspot.com/

A series on the 4 Cs.

Creativity. Critical Thinking. Communication. Collaboration. What do these mean in your classroom? I put them in the shape of a puzzle because it's hard to complete the 21st Century vision without one of these pieces.

For our school, the 4Cs are a part of our district vision. It's a part of us making our vision come to life in classrooms. So our next step was asking ourselves how we not only make sure we include the 4 Cs for 21st Century learning in our planning and instruction, but ultimately how we are going teach our students to use them and transfer these skills. Thus begins my series on the 4Cs and how you can bring them alive in your classroom! I do not personally have the answers, but I hope that I can summarize what I've learned in other places, from other people, and from professional development.

This Week's Focus:

So I will start with Collaboration, a piece I feel is critical for the start of the school year. We often incorporate team building components at the start of the school, but we don't intentionally teach students how to collaborate and work together. We just have them do activities with the hope that it will happen.

As our school dives into PBL and providing our students with more opportunities for critical thinking, a huge piece of this is collaboration. We have realized that our students are much better prepared for working with their peers when they are taught specific pieces of collaboration and then given opportunities to put them in action.

The #1 Resource I have come across is by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frye (if you don't know Fisher and Frye, they are the Gradual Release Gurus!). They write a tremendous article about mini lessons you can use to teach your students how to collaborate and cooperate in group settings. They divide these lessons into 3 different categories of group work:
• Personal Responsibility
• Respectful Discourse
• Collaborative Problem Solving

Do you not love these First 20 Days? Seriously, Fisher and Frye nailed it again. I strongly urge you to read the article (short and succinct, but rich with content!). You will be so glad you did - especially before school starts!

This is another graphic they use in the article to get students to see what their contribution is during group work. Again, just easy-to-use resources.

I'd love to hear what others do and use to teach collaboration within your classroom!

 

Technology Tidbits

http://www.mrcpl.org/literacy/lessons/sight/index.html- Sight word activities for the lower grades

http://www.dogonews.com/- Online current events articles for kids with comprehension questions after the articles.  Science and Social Studies articles are on this site as well.

News & Notes

We have been given a concrete date!  The projectors are scheduled to be installed in the classrooms here at Medlock during the last week of October.