Friday Focus - Week of Nov. 2nd - 6th

“The future depends on what you do today.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Great things are happening this week as we move toward our goal to be a Leader in Me School.  First, we will be taking another round of folks to a Leadership Day at Harrison Elementary on Thursday.  Our Building Leadership Team will be attending (along with Denise, our new Culture Team Member), as well as Lydia Jackson, our PTO President, Brendalyn Love, Janet Avery, Lori Johnston, and a couple of guests from the United Way.  We were also asked if we would host an administrators' day.  So Wednesday we will be hosting about 30 area administrators at the District Office.  All of these things, plus the work you are doing at staff meetings and with the book study are putting us in a very good position to apply for the grant next month!  As part of that work, we will also begin the formal roll out of the habits at Jefferson next week.  Please begin planning with your team about how this might look.  I've put a new spot on the right side of the blog as a reminder of when we will aim to all focus on the same trait.

I am very thankful for all of you and the way that you keep planting for the future of our kids.

Angie

Dual Immersion Dinner
El Sombrero from 5:00-8:00PM

Progress Monitoring this Week
Reading and Math this week.  Please report no later than Sunday, Nov. 8th.  We will be trying to pull reports for data teams and RtI.

Dual Immersion Dinner
This Thursday is the Dual Immersion Fundraising Dinner.  Please let me know if you plan to attend.  We would love to have your support, plus, you get someone else to cook dinner for the night!

Playground Doors - Bathroom - Unlocked, Relocked
Please remember, we need one person to ensure that the outside doors for access to the bathrooms are unlocked for students and then relocked and pulled tight after recesses.  2nd/3rd Grade Staff:  It is ok to leave the 'outside' bathroom doors unlocked and just unlock and lock the breezeway door by the cafeteria.  This will help a bit with keeping the hallways warmer as the temperatures drop.

Veteran's Day - November 11th
Veteran's Day is coming soon.  There are some great picture books that are a nice way to introduce this topic to your children.  Please take a few moments to acknowledge the day.  This is a very big deal to our locals posts and an easy way to help teach kids to honor those who have paid a high price for their freedom and ability to learn.

Counseling Groups
Please don't forget to recommend your students to Deb for small groups.  Send her names and concerns (put please leave the names out of the memo line of emails for FERPA reasons...just the body of the email).  We will also be looking at the Office Discipline Referral data to make sure we have tier 2 behavior supports in place for our kids showing patterns, thought many of you are already working with Deb for these kiddos.

New Apps
Chris as pushed some new apps.  These are primarily for letter name/sound recognition, but might work as an intervention for the right students.

• Letter School
• Star Fall ABCs
• EPIC

Number Sense Progression
A really nice easy to read list about number sense and how it builds for kids.

http://www.mathcoachscorner.com/2012/09/07/place-value-building-meaning-behind-the-numbers/

3rd Grade Only
We need to visit about getting all of you through the TA Certification Course (SBAC) before Christmas Break! This course is mandatory this year for all Test Administrators. Once individuals complete the course, TIDE will automatically be updated to indicate course completion and access to administer test sessions. I'll visit with GayLyn about this in the next week.

Upcoming Events

October – T-shirt Sales - PTO
Nov. 2nd - Culture Team Meeting @3:30
Nov. 4th - MTSS Meeting @ 3:30
Nov. 4th - Dual Immersion Fundraising Dinner - El Sombrero

Nov. 13^th – Jefferson Gives Day – Food Bank donations

Nov. 17^th – Jefferson Literacy Night & Cookie Dough Pick Up

To Do

• Turn in Professional Development Goals by Nov.2nd
• Turn in Weekly Class Schedules