The Cornelius Chronicle

October 16, 2015

Monday - Don’t forget to wear your uniform.

G&G Decisions:

All grade levels in agreement: Even though the Spanish Academia in Spain has decided that Ch and Ll are not letters, we agreed that we will include them in our student-generated alphabets and word walls, but teach the kids that they are sounds and not true letters.  Differentiate Ch and Ll by having them in a darker or lighter green color for the background.

We also decided that we will use the Spanish articles el and la in front of our labels in the classroom to help our native English speakers learn the difference between masculine and feminine words (as this doesn’t exist in English).  Laura Mannen has created a template on a Google doc for this, which she will share with everyone.  It would be a good classroom activity to have your students label all of your existing labels with el and la.

G&G Grade Level Share Outs:

• Kinder - They added to the label word list and looked at word wall displays.
• 1st -  They added words and deleted words for labels list, talked about which word would be the best Spanish word to use.  Sarah Bustamante created a Student Generated Alphabet (SGA) template and Tisa Meador is updating that for upper grades and Laura will share those with us.
• 2nd - They created labels with pictures of all things in the classroom, color-coded.
• 3rd - They created labels with both languages on one card and discussed where to put word walls, SGAs, etc. in classrooms.  Why shouldn’t content words be placed bilingually?  Discussed the differences between word walls and content bulletin boards.
• 4th/5th - They worked on SGAs and labels and focused on their environments.  They discussed how to incorporate labels & word walls into student writing.

Earthquake/Fire Drill

Great job with the earthquake drill!  All students and staff were protecting themselves under desks or in doorways!  The fire drill also went well - we still need to remember to shut doors when we exit the building during a fire drill to prevent the spreading of the fire.  Classes on the 14th Ave side of the building should exit out of the building through their outside doors rather than walking through a burning building.  Thanks!

Shannon McCaw Visit

Our Shannon McCaw visit went very well.  I appreciate all of your insights and comments during our discussions. It’s fun to be able to observe your own students when someone else is teaching them.  

Top Tips from our SMC Visit and SMC PD Day on 10/16:

• Expert crayons - during your warm up or problem solving, give out a limited number of “expert crayons” to students who solved it correctly - and then they can get up and help other kids or check answers and sign their initials in crayon.
• “Stand up if you think you know...” - “talk to someone who is seated.”
• Give two starters/warm-ups and then a challenge problem below the dotted line - or if you have a strip of, say, 5 problems, have students fold the paper to only show, say, 3 problems and the rest are challenge problems.  Students are never done...there is always something to do!
• Use sticky notes for students to mark their spot in their journals to be able to flip to the next open spot in their journal quickly.
• Turn in journals or Digging workbooks to the teacher open to the correct page to save the teacher time of flipping through to find the right page.
• Use Avery page protectors/envelopes (now purchased for all classroom teachers and lit specialists) as white boards with white board markers and inside of a file folder, you can keep all of your templates or graphic organizers and then students can easily pull out the template and put that under the Avery envelope to write on it over and over.  You can also have students practice the same time of problems over and over and then have them pull the page out of the envelope and they can write their exit task on the same prompt that they have been practicing with and turn it in.
• Use sentence frames to talk with a partner about math
• “My favorite wrong answer is...” and use it as an exit task - have students find out what the person did wrong and fix it.
• Ladder activity: a race from simple to complex tasks with a partner on different colored strips of paper.
• Write an “?” on work when you show it to the class, so that it’s a wrong problem and a kid who is “checked out” in class realizes that is NOT the right answer!
• Lots of student talk time!!  Opportunities for students to respond - partner responses, choral responses, not calling on volunteers!
• Look for EngageNY activities, SBAC resources, Performance Tasks and other resources at Shannon’s website: www.ccssmathactivities.com
• Have students create a math journal called a “Math Tool Box” with 2 pages per each lesson:  left-hand page is labeled “I do” and warm-up problems and partner problems go on that page; the right-hand page is labeled “Notes” and the learning target, key vocab words, key steps/processes are written by the student on that page, with space left at the bottom of the page for a “Summary” where students could write down what they learned that day in one sentence or solve an exit task.
• On the other side of the math journal (flip the journal over upside down) and write “Math Story Book” Give students a word problem on a strip and have students glue their problems into their notebook.  Make a T-table with math work on left side and sentence starters to share their communication on the other side in sentences.
• Fishbowl Problem Solving: Find a variety of pre-grade level and grad-level problem solving tasks and cut them up so that one item is written on a strip and place in the “fishbowl”.  Commit to pulling out at least 2 problems per week as problem-solving activities.  When students struggle with a task in a lesson, copy it on a piece of paper and place in the fishbowl to return to it later in the year (we must spiral review throughout the year).  What is your plan for a spiral review?  
• Can our students think flexibly about numbers?  Do students understand numbers sensibly and can they determine the reasonableness of their answers?  Use daily routines
• Fluency reminders:
• Efficient: 3 seconds per single digit facts
• Flexible: show that you know in different ways (eg. drawing pictures, number bonds/fact families,
• Accuracy: at least 90% accurate
• Practice fluency:  with fluency games - not fluency tests!  Examples from Engage NY - you can find these on our Math Resources portal & on Shannon’s website.
• Green light/Red Light
• Show me another way
• Beep Number
• Happy Counting
• Counting around the circle
• Roll, Count, Show
• “Say ten” push-ups
• Hide Zero cards
• Dot flash cards
• Sprints from EngageNY
• Make tens like “Go Fish” (take 10s out)
• Lots of math apps for fluency, like “Todo Math”

Our next Shannon McCaw visit will be Nov. 3rd.  During that time, both she and Laura Nelson will be doing math walk-throughs in the morning and then debriefing with teachers individually in the afternoon. We have ordered a roving half-day sub to cover your classes for 15 minutes for Shannon or Laura to meet with you in the afternoon.  Like all walk throughs, the goal is professional development!  They are looking for evidence of two math practices - #1: making sense of problems and persevering and #2: constructing arguments and communication.

Classroom observations in AM

Time	Laura Nelson Observations K-2	Time	Shannon McCaw Observations 3-4
10:00	Lourdes Medina 1st	10:00	Kathy Murillo 3rd
10:20	Dora Godinez K	10:30	Linda Wolf 4th * Math needs to be taught in the AM instead of PM today!
10:40	Daisy Heredia K	11:30	Jacob Bustamante 4th
11:00	Rosa Rincon 1st	12:00	Chelsea Aillon 4th
11:20	Merry Hansen 2nd

Debriefs with 1 roving sub covering classes for each teacher to meet w/Shannon & Laura

Time	Teacher Debrief with Shannon & Laura
12:30	Lourdes Medina 1st
12:45	Dora Godinez K
1:00	Daisy Heredia K
1:15	Rosa Rincon 1st
1:30	Merry Hansen 2nd
1:45	Chelsea Aillon 4th
2:00	Kathy Murillo 3rd
2:15	Jacob Bustamante 4th
2:30	Linda Wolf 4th

3:20 - 4:00 pm Optional idea exchange time K-2 with Laura (in the conference room) and 3-4 with Shannon (in the TRC).

Staff Equity Happy Hour & Staff Dialog

Our Cornelius Equity Team (Lourdes, Jacob, Alondra, Janelly, and Angella) would like to invite you to our first-ever Equity Happy Hour on Friday, 10/30 from 4 -5 pm!  We won’t have a formal agenda; it will simply be a time to be together, get to know each other, talk about any situations involving race or other issues that have come up for us recently.  Later, it can turn into a true happy hour and people can stay as long as they want.  We are thinking of having it at Prime Time in the upstairs private room.  We will be using our staff meeting on 10/28 at 8:45 am to have our first equity dialog of the year and get feedback from you all about what you would like to do this year for equity staff development.  Please see a member of the Equity Team with any questions or feedback!

SLGGs - Training and Individual Meetings

At our CIT time on 10/28, we will review Student Learning Growth Goals (SLGGs) for certified staff.  I will set an individual meeting with each certified staff member between now and Dec. 1st to have a goal-setting conference.  

Parent Club News

We had 26 folks attend our October Padres en Acción Parent Club meeting.  The parents are going to be showing their gratitude for our wonderful teachers by providing dinner on Oct. 20 & 22 for parent conferences!  Also, we are going to have our first Padres en Acción event - a movie night - on  Friday, Nov. 6th at 6:00 pm and we will be showing a new DVD release “Inside Out”.  Movie is free for families and families can bring sleeping bags/blankets/camping chairs and/or food/beverages.  Students can wear their pajamas.  We will have concessions for sale.

News From The Sunshine Committee

1.  Mid-day on Friday you will find in your box 2 choices to choose between for this year's Cornelius pot-lucks.  Choice one involves monthly potlucks with a theme.  Choice two involves every-other-month potlucks with a theme.  Please check your choice and place your vote in Melissa Timm's box by the end of the day on Tuesday.

2.  Sunshine Committee Treasurer, Pam Pierce, reports that 51% of our staff have paid their Sunshine Committee Dues.  Please bring your payment to Pam Pierce in Room 16 or Melissa Timm in Room 7.  Alex, Pam and Tony will be meeting in the next few weeks to budget out the fun for the year.  Please submit your dues so their budgeting can be accurate.  

3.  Cornelius Holiday Ornament Exchange and breakfast CAN be Wednesday, December 16th at 8 am IF all teachers agree to do their Data Team cycle meeting at another time and submit their Data Team notes to Angella.  Please contact Melissa Timm or Angella Graves if you would prefer to do Data Team on December 16th in the morning rather than the Holiday party and if you object to doing Data Teams at a different time.  

Thank you!

Melissa & the Sunshine Committee

Reminders:

• Teachers - don’t forget to do your We Lead survey by 10/23!!!  Please!!  Only 10 out of 21 certified staff have completed it.  I’d like 100%!  :)
• No Halloween Dress Up/Parade/Parties this year!  Halloween is on a Saturday!!!  Yay!!!!!  No sugar crash at school!!!
• Promote ice cream Friday in your classroom!
• Scholastic Book Fair - Nov 30 - Dec 3

Bus Duty: 1st & 3rd grade teachers, and the “regulars”!

Calendar:

10/19 3rd & 4th Grade Student Leaders Announced!

10/20 8-9 am Referral Team

10/20 4 pm - 8 pm Parent Conferences

10/20 5:30 - 8 pm Adelante Chicas Family Night for CO & ES Girls at ES

10/21 8:00 am CIT -Data Teams - Collaboration time in grade level teams (in classrooms)

10/21 12-4 pm Elementary Principals

10/21 12-3:30 pm Camino Al Exito training - Daisy & Maoha (@ES)

10/22 8 am - 8 pm Parent Conferences - No school!

10/22 1:30-2:15 pm Cornelius Equity Team Meeting (Alondra, Jacob, Lourdes, Janelly, Angella)

10/23 No school - Parent Conference comp day!

Looking ahead:

10/28 8-8:45 am CIT - Review Student Learning Growth Goals (SLGGs)

10/28 8:45 am Staff Meeting - Equity Dialog

10/30 4 pm Staff Equity “Happy Hour”