Blog #33

April 25-29, 2016

Our Crew and Mrs. Thoreson's Crew singing and signing "What a Wonderful World" for the residents of HarborChase!
We also presented May baskets and had an opportunity to talk with the residents. Thank you to Lauryn for introducing the song, along with Kaiden, Julia, Maya, Rose and Jesse for leading the song.  The students also took a tour of the
dining room named "Atwater", the memory area and to see how HarborChase incorporated historic Shorewood into its decor.  It was a memorable and positive experience for all of us! Thank you to Mrs. Levick for chaperoning the trip with us!
Click here for pics and video.  (I am sorry that the ends of the group were cut out-I didn't realize it until afterwards.)

Finn leads us in "Who's the Boss?"
We're been giving many step ups and
shout outs during Crew meetings and
extra crew meetings about behavior
during recess, during transition, with
guest teachers, and during group work. 

Piper and Parth do EL protocol front to
front, back to back. Click here for pics. 
We focused on our goal of showing
kindness during transitions and our
individual kindness goals. 

Kaiden looks at a book at the
Scholastic book fair. Click her for pics.

Thank you to Mrs. Travanty for being
a Mystery Reader and reading The
Dragon Snatcher by M.P. Robertson!

     Our Crew is finishing up their Publishing Center stories, word processing and reviewing parts of speech.

     In Math, Mrs. Malloy's class is working in division with remainders.  Ms. Sakai's class is learning about the parts in 3-D objects and symmetry.  The Vets took the Forward assessment with Mrs. Malloy for science.

   

Mr. Hughes demonstrates different
instruments and talks about band.
We talked about how fortunate we are
to have such an amazing music program
in Shorewood. 

Mrs. Nolan demonstrates
the cello and discusses or-
chestra. The SIS Orchestra,
led by Mrs. Honigman gave
a wonderful concert this week. 

Mary Jane, Zhi, Liam and Noah work
on their final invasive species poster.
Click here for more pics. 

Lucas Barry, our NHS volunteer,
answers questions from our crew. 

Lauryn uses the rain stick during
Mindfulness. Click here for pics. 

Noah leads us in Brain Breaks using
the choice sticks. Click here for pics. 

  This week was also bring in a
$1.00 for the WI Humane Society to wear a hat, the BOB pizza party and Atwater's Got Talent, along with a pizza dinner!

Go Noodle! Click here for pics.

 Notes for Parents: 

    I was so sorry to miss seeing some of crew perform at Atwater's Got Talent!  Thank you to Shawn Brown for all of her work with this!  I planned to help with the pizza dinner and then stay for the show but Miya hurt her ankle (again!) so John and I took turns staying home with her.  She missed all of her competitions this weekend but her ankle is healing quickly!

    There was a guest teacher in my room on Tuesday afternoon because I, along with quite a few other staff members, including Noelle Shanks, are on the newly formed Crew committee led by one of the EL trainers, Penny Rossetto.

     Please email the office if there is anything that comes up on Thursday or Friday (May 5+6) as I will be flying to CA on Thurs. for my grandma's memorial on Friday.  I will check email when I can!

1.  Thursday bags, reading logs fact packet or Xtramath 3 times due by Monday.

2.  With the cold and flu season, we are on our last boxes of tissues.  I'll bring some in and if you have any to spare at home, we'd appreciate it!  

3.  Practicing for Forward Exam:  The link is below. 

Vets only will take Social Studies this week.

https://wbte.drcedirect.com/WI/portals/wi/ott1

Dates for testing are: Vets only- 5/4  (SS)
(Testing dates may change if something comes up or someone needs to switch.)


4.  Book fair: Atwater's book fair is still open on Monday, May 2 from 8:00-8:30 am. 


5.   Field trips: We still have three bus field trips to go!  The Urban Ecology permission slip is due Wed., May 4th. Thank you for keeping track of it all-the end of the year will be busy and fun!


6.  Publishing Center help: We are finishing up our Publishing Center stories and Shawn Brown has many more classes to finish.  If you can help out our crew, we are mostly available 9:00-9:50, 11:15-12:15 and 2:15-3:15 on most days (unless we have field trips.)  If you are available to help the next few weeks, please let me know and I'll arrange the times with you.  Thank you!


7.  Summer garden care takers: We're looking forward to planting our class garden plot next month and would love to have a few families water and weed it over the summer.  Last year, Piper, Maya and Rose's family did this and they are Vets. We will plant summer harvest veggies (you're welcome to them) and ones for the Fall so we can enjoy them with our crew.  Thank you to Aiko's family for volunteering to take care of our garden plot over the summer! If you are also interested in this, please let me know. 


8.  End of the year book:  The Crew will be creating their end of the year book filled with pictures from this year.  (You contributed $5.00 at the beginning of the year for this.)  We we looking for a couple of people to bind the books for us. It takes about two hours total and I will train you.  They will be ready on June 7 or 8th. 

Important Dates

Monday, May 2nd:  reading log, Xtra Math or pack and Thursday bag due, last day of book fair 8-830 am

Tuesday, May 3rd: band and Trash Free Tuesday

Wednesday, May 4th;   Urban Ecology field trip slip due, Forward assessment-SS (Vets only), Leitich Smith author visit

Thursday, May 5th;  orchestra lessons, Ms. Sakai out today (funeral in CA)

Friday, May 6th;   Ms. Sakai out today (funeral in CA)

Monday, May 9th-Thurs. bag, reading log and fact packet or Xtramath due

Tuesday, May 10th:  Trash Free Tuesday and band lessons and lunch rehearsal

Wednesday, May 11th:  

Thursday, May 12th:  orchestra lessons, Atwater Celebrate Clay Night

Friday, May 13th: 

Thank you all so much for all that you do to support our Crew-I could not do my job without all of you and I am truly grateful!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Deb

Blog #32

April 20-22, 2016

Bennett, Liam, Jesse, Zhi, Matthew, Cole, Parth and Tristan
picked up garbage at recess for Earth Day!

Teddy and Noah show their certificates from Mrs. Russick for
attending PrinciPals!

Cole talks about Ms. Wurtle, a 3-toed box turtle, while Zhi,
Aiko and Teddy look on. Cole's turtle is visiting us for a
while! The Crew created kindness expectations for her,
watched her eat and enjoyed interacting with her. See pics. 

Lauryn, Cole, Kaiden, Finn, Zhi and Bennett play La
Crosse at recess!

      Our Crew's target for this week and next is: I can focus on kindness during transitions.  Each crew member also chose a new individual kindness goal.  

Teddy and Noah took notes about kind-
ness examples before the PrinciPal's
meeting and shared what they learned
afterwards. See pics.

Our Crew does the EL protocol: Mingle
Mingle. See pics. 

Miss Herritz, a Marquette education
student, is fulfilling math required
hours by working with students
during math.  She is an Education
and Poly Sci major hoping to teach
3rd and 4th grade. Our Crew enjoyed
asking her questions and learning more
about her. 

    In Math, in Ms. Sakai's class,

students learned how to measure angles using an angle measurer. They also received their tic-tac-toe choice for homework.  Mrs. Malloy's math crew is working very hard on angle measuring and multiplication.

For the upcoming field trip to Betty
Brinn, students learned more about
the history of animation before starting
to create their own flip book. A kineo-
graph or flipbook was created in 1868.
See pics. 

     We also Forward tested for

ELA 2+3. 

1. For Earth Day and to
think about our garden plot,
our Crew used an EL
Protocol called Interactive Word Wall
to place a few words about our garden
plot on notecards and then add their
own.  Each group decided how they
would divide the words to put on each
card. Eleanor, Matthew and Noah are
working together to brainstorm words.
See pics. 

2. The EL Protocol continued when
each group created an interactive word
wall to show how the words are
connected to each other. Liam,
Tyndall and Parth show their word
wall.  See pics.

  

3.  Then the Crew took a Gallery Walk
to look at each Word Wall while look-
ing to see how groups connected their
words.  This was a silent walk.  Piper,
Julia and Rose look at a word wall.
See pics. 

4.  Mary Jane is explaining her part
of the interactive word wall to
another group. The students reflections
after we finished were
wonderful. See pics. 

Using EL Protocol fish bowl,
Jesse shows us one way to sit during a
tornado drill. The entire school
practiced a tornado drill.  See pic.

Liam leads us in Mindfulness. See pics. 

Go Noodle-Baby High Five!

Nadia and Aiko create a "I"m Going
on a Picnic."

Piper and Maya try out People to
People Brain Break. See pics.

Parth creates "Seven Shakes."

We enjoyed the SIS/SHS band led by Justin Olson and
Nick Castonguay!

Thank you for reading our blog!

   Notes for Parents: 

    Our second day of inservice was led by Penny Rossoto. We learned about the Habits of Scholarship using different EL Protocols and made connections using the Interactive Word Wall protocol (the same ones your children used.) We also worked in teams to write Crew targets for perseverance (next month's PERKS trait.) Both days were active, enjoyable, educational and worthwhile.  It was a pleasure spending two days with our wonderful teaching staff, including Mrs. Russick!

1.  Thursday bags, reading logs fact packet or Xtramath 3 times due by Monday.

2.  With the cold and flu season, we are on our last boxes of tissues.  I'll bring some in and if you have any to spare at home, we'd appreciate it!  Thank you to Teddy for bringing tissue in!

3.  Practicing for Forward Exam:  The link is below. 

Both Rookies and Vets practice ELA Session 1 and 2 and Math.  We took ELA 2 +3 this week. 
Vets only practice science and social studies, too. 

https://wbte.drcedirect.com/WI/portals/wi/ott1

Dates for testing are: Vets and Rookies:  4/25 (math) , Vets only- 4/28 and 5/4   (science and ss)
(Testing dates may change if something comes up or someone needs to switch.)


4.  Here is a rec. class that our wonderful aide, Mr. Isaacs, is offering called Mindful Acting.  It is for grades 3-6. It begins on Monday, April 25th and there is still room and time to sign up.


https://shorewoodrecreation.org/ViewCourseActivityDetails.aspx?id=C39857


5.  We are taking a buddy bus field trip to HarborChase Assisted Living Center on Wed., April 27th (8:50-10:05 am) with Mrs. Thoreson's class.  Our Crews made welcome cards for the residents and we are invited to meet them!  The permission slip was due on Friday, April 15th.  Thank you to Mrs. Levick for volunteering to chaperone our trip!


6.  Mr. Karbel has arranged an author visit from Greg Leitich Smith on Wed., May 4th. Order forms for his books are due on Tues., April 26th. 


7.   We still have four bus field trips to go!  Field trips slips upcoming for three of them. Thank you for keeping track of it all-the end of the year will be busy and fun!


8.  I'll be in CA on May 5th and 6th for my grandma's memorial. She passed away at the end of last year, at 102 years old, and the family waited for the memorial/celebration.  I'm only mentioning this because if there's anything you'd like me to know for those two days (vacations, doctor appointments, leaving school early, etc.) please let me know as soon as possible so I can write it in my sub plans. I'll be on planes Thurs., May 5th,  and Sat., May 7th, plus with family on Friday, May 6th.

9.  We're looking forward to planting our class garden plot next month and would love to have a few families water and weed it over the summer.  Last year, Piper, Maya and Rose's family did this and they are Vets. We will plant summer harvest veggies (you're welcome to them) and ones for the Fall so we can enjoy them with our crew.  Thank you to Aiko's family for volunteering to take care of our garden plot over the summer! If you are also interested in this, please let me know. 

Important Dates

Monday, April 25th-Thurs. bag, reading log and fact packet or Xtramath due, Forward assessment, book fair 3-5 pm

Tuesday, April 26th:  Trash Free Tuesday and band lessons and lunch rehearsal, class book fair visit-students may bring money, author book order due, Ms. Sakai's math crew fact practice, Family Night and + Math and Science Night, book fair 8-12 and 1-5

Wednesday, April 27th:  field trip to HarborChase with buddies (8:50-10:05 am), Vets-Spanish homework due with parent signature, book fair 8-12, 3-8 pm

Thursday, April 28th:  orchestra lessons, Forward assessment science-Vets only, book fair 8-10 am, 12-4 pm

Friday, April 29th: BOB pizza party (Bennett, Maya and Rose), Atwater's Got Talent show, Bring $1.00 to school to benefit the WI Human Society-receive a sticker and wear a crazy hat in school, book fair 8-12 pm, 2-7 pm

Monday, May 2nd:  reading log, Xtra Math or pack and Thursday bag due, last day of book fair 8-830 am

Tuesday, May 3rd: band

Wednesday, May 4th;   Urban Ecology field trip slip due, Forward assessment-SS (Vets only), Leitich Smith author visit

Thursday, May 5th;  orchestra lessons, Ms. Sakai out today (funeral in CA)

Friday, May 6th;   Ms. Sakai out today (funeral in CA)



Thank you for all of your continued support! 

Have a wonderful weekend,

Deb

Blog #31

April 15-19, 2016

Thank you to Ms. Janet for teaching us Mindfulness lessons!
We will miss her!  The crew presented her with thank you
notes and Mr. Isaacs sent her the video that he made of the
Crew reading the notes.  We also saw the video! Impressive
job, Ms. Isaacs!

Our Mystery Reader was Lucas Barry (Mrs. Barry's son and
my former student!)  He read Dream Snow by Eric Carle.
Lucas is also helping out in our classroom for National
Honor Society. 

Teddy shared about his trip to Florida and all of the places that
he visited.

Look who came to visit and share a birthday treat with our
Crew.   Happy Birthday, Mr. Rinka!

     

Nadia writes ideas during Crew about
what kindness looks like. We worked
on our crew goal; I will focus on
kindness during and after recess."  Each
crew member also made an individual
kindness goal and checked in every
day with their accountabuddy. 

Aiko leads us in "Who's the Boss?" Our
Crew is also learning to sing and sign
"What a Wonderful World" to perform
to the HarborChase residents.
  Click here for pics.

Aiko and Tyndall use the EL protocol
back to back, front to front to discuss
kindness.

Lauryn and Matthew find the phrase and
definition that match each other. Some of
the phrases were "mostly about/mainly
about" or "right before or after" which
are common phrases on assessments
such as the Forward assesssment.
Click her for pics. 

Liam, Tyndall and Tristan work as a
group to match phrases and definitions
that might be found on the Forward
assessment. Our Crew also took
ELA 1.  Click her for pics. 

Jesse shared his Publishing Center story.

   

Bennett, Tristan and Lauryn create one
set of May baskets so they can help
their buddies make their own.
  Click here for pics. 

Eleanor, Mary Jane and their buddy
create a May basket.  Our Crew will
give May baskets to the residents at
HarborChase and some to Shorewood
residents. Click here for pics.

     Our Crew brainstormed for words for friendship and changed a "Recipe for Friendship" to include their own words and measurements.  They also created final copies for their May baskets (and their buddy's May baskets, too!)

Liam and Anna are looking for parallel
line segments. Click here for pics. 

Liam, Nadia and Piper are creating dif-
ferent quadrangles and polygons with
rope. Click here for pics. 

 Mrs. Malloy's math crew is continuing to focus on division strategies and measuring angles.

Finn is categorizing quadrangles
(quadrilaterals) into parallelograms
and not parallelograms during math
workshop. Click here for pics.

Mary Jane and Cole peer critique each
other's invasive species animal by
writing a compliment and suggestion.
Students created 3-4 drafts with peer
critiques before illustrating their colored
final illustration. Then, they self-critiqued
their illustration using a rubric. This EL
protocol is the High Quality Work
Protocol. Click here for pics. 

Maya, Rose and Tyndall work on a
copy of their invasive species animal.
These illustrations are for their invasive
species poster. Click here for pics. 

     Betty Brinn Children's Museum is conducting research on how "maker" experiences help students learn. Students filled out a short survey about how movies connect to books and started to learn about the history of animation.   Students will participate in a "Be a Maker: Animator Field Trip to learn about two types of animation. Students will also explore the museum and receive bus transportation for free!


   

Julia and Aiko help Nadia celebrate
her birthday. Click here for pic. 

Lauryn and Cole help Teddy celebrate
his birthday. Click her for a pic. 

Cole leads us in Mindfulness.
Click here for pics. 

Brain Breaks! Click here for pics. 

Finn and Tristan think of "We're Going
on a Picnic."

Julia leads us in Seven Shakes. 

Notes for Parents: 


     It was a full EL Staff Development day today with Linda D'Aquisto! We reflected on our progress as an EL school with an Implementation Review and I worked with Meg Malloy on crew targets and cooperative group activities that encourage perseverance (our next PERK trait.)  The afternoon was spent taking a gallery walk to look at high quality work from our own classrooms using attributes.  My take-away from that was the amazing work from all grade levels and that I enjoyed seeing work samples from K-4 through sixth grade.  Personally, I would like to work on connecting projects with more real life audiences. With EL, there is always time to discuss and share with colleagues from different areas and grade levels.  It was also great to have lunch with the fifth grade teachers, Mr. Hamann and Mrs. Daniels.
     At tomorrow's inservice, we will learn more about crew!

1.  Thursday bags, reading logs fact packet or Xtramath 3 times due by Wednesday.

2.  With the cold and flu season, we are on our last boxes of tissues.  I'll bring some in and if you have any to spare at home, we'd appreciate it!  Thank you!

3.  Practicing for Forward Exam:  The link is below. 

Both Rookies and Vets practice ELA Session 1 and 2 and Math.  We took ELA 1 last week. 
Vets only practice science and social studies, too. 

https://wbte.drcedirect.com/WI/portals/wi/ott1

Dates for testing are: Vets and Rookies: 4/21 (ELA 2 + 3) (new date)  and 4/25 (math) , Vets only- 4/28 and 5/4   (science and ss)
(Testing dates may change if something comes up or someone needs to switch.)


4.  Here is a rec. class that our wonderful aide, Mr. Isaacs, is offering called Mindful Acting.  It is for grades 3-6. It begins on Monday, April 25th and you can still sign up as the class is starting later.

https://shorewoodrecreation.org/ViewCourseActivityDetails.aspx?id=C39857


5.  We are taking a buddy bus field trip to HarborChase Assisted Living Center on Wed., April 27th (8:50-10:05 am) with Mrs. Thoreson's class.  Our Crews made welcome cards for the residents and we are invited to meet them!  The permission slip was due on Friday, April 15th.  We could still use 1-2 chaperones if you would like to join us.


6.  Mr. Karbel has arranged an author visit from Greg Leitich Smith on Wed., May 4th. Order forms for his books are due on Tues., April 26th. 


7.   We still have four bus field trips to go!  Field trips slips upcoming for three of them. Thank you for keeping track of it all-the end of the year will be busy and fun!


8.  I'll be in CA on May 5th and 6th for my grandma's memorial. She passed away at the end of last year, at 102 years old, and the family waited for the memorial/celebration.  I'm only mentioning this because if there's anything you'd like me to know for those two days (vacations, doctor appointments, leaving school early, etc.) please let me know as soon as possible so I can write it in my sub plans. I'll be on planes Thurs., May 5th,  and Sat., May 7th, plus with family on Friday, May 6th.

9.  We're looking forward to planting our class garden plot next month and would love to have a few families water and weed it over the summer.  Last year, Piper, Maya and Rose's family did this and they are Vets. We will plant summer harvest veggies (you're welcome to them) and ones for the Fall so we can enjoy them with our crew.  If you are interested in this, please let me know.

Important Dates

Monday, April 18th:  No School-Inservice Day

Tuesday, April 19th: No School-Inservice Day

Wednesday, April 20th;   reading log, fact pack or Xtramath 3 times and Thurs. bag due

Thursday, April 21st;  orchestra lessons, Forward assessment, PrinciPals (Noah and Teddy)

Friday, April 22nd;   

Monday, April 25th-Thurs. bag, reading log and fact packet or Xtramath due, Forward assessment

Tuesday, April 26th:  Trash Free Tuesday and band lessons and lunch rehearsal, class book fair visit-students may bring money, author book order due, Ms. Sakai's math crew fact practice

Wednesday, April 27th:  field trip to HarborChase with buddies (8:50-10:05 am)

Thursday, April 28th:  orchestra lessons, Forward assessment-Vets only

Friday, April 29th: BOB pizza party (Bennett, Maya and Rose), Atwater's Got Talent show

I hope you enjoyed some beautiful weather outside!  I took a long walk in a nature preserve
only a two minute walk from Miya's dance studio while she was at lessons.  Bring on the spring!

Deb