Busy... Busy... Busy

We are all so busy during this time of year but we must not lose sight of why we are in the profession of teaching. One person who does this so well in our school is our Guidance Counselor, Ms. Tammy Lee. Many of you have found she is always willing take a moment to listen to you or your students and make you feel important. She cares for you and each child in our building. All these conversations and tasks make her a busy person, but she keeps her focus and time on our kids and we are thankful for her! Happy National School Counselor Week, Ms. Lee! We are thankful to have you as part of our PVES Family. 

Guidance Lesson

AdvancED Update

All AdvancED work is due by Friday, February 5th. Thank you again to Committee Chairs who have worked diligently to complete the narratives for your committee. The district will be reviewing our submissions. In March the AdvancED Committee will visit the district and certain schools. More information will come about this at a later date. Jessica Preisig spoke about some of this during her technology session this week. 

February 9th Faculty Meeting

Our upcoming faculty meeting is a very important one with several updates regarding testing and other important information. Please plan to bring your iPads to complete a survey at the beginning of the meeting. The meeting is on the calendar for 3:10-4:10 so please make plans accordingly. We will be meeting in the library for this meeting. 

Literacy Corner

We have some great things happening this month with literacy. Reading Coach, Kelle Martin sent out her PVES Reader to share specifics of upcoming information. If you did not receive an email of the newsletter or get a chance to read please click on the link to get another copy. Below are some highlights:

• Reading PD with Kelle Martin will be in our PD Room. 

Date: February 8 (5th Grade Teachers) Start Time: 8:00 a.m. End Time: 11:00 a.m.
Date: February 8 (4th Grade Teachers) Start Time: 11:30 a.m. End Time: 2:30 p.m.
Date: February 9 (3rd Grade Teachers) Start Time: 8:00 a.m. End Time: 11:00 a.m

Lunch will be provided. Be sure to bring the following items: 

1. Data from a student that is not progressing (running records, reading log, anecdotal notes, SEI, interest inventory, etc.)
2. Recent guided reading levels to update the data wall
3. The Next Step in Guided Reading book
4. Grade level copy of The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo

• Literacy Night: Our school wide Literacy Night is scheduled for Tuesday, February 23rd. Dinner will be available for families to purchase from 5:30-6:00 in the cafeteria. The sessions will begin at 6:00 and run until 7:15. We need YOUR help to make this night a success. Make plans to participate in some capacity for this evening and look for a Sign-up Genius soon to find a way you can assist. Homeroom teachers, please share this information in your newsletters and classroom communication. 
• World Read Aloud Day: February 24th we will be celebrating as a school. More information is to come! 

Happenings at PVES: 

Jet Toys Competitions: Fifth graders are wrapping up their class competitions with Jet Toy Cars. Classroom winners will head to Spearman Elementary on Friday, February 26th for a district competition. Our fifth grade teachers, students, and Mrs. Clary have worked very hard over the past several weeks preparing. We are wishing our students all the best! A special thank you to Mrs. Clary for assisting with set up at Spearman on the Thursday afternoon before the event.  

Mrs Wayne has students in Mrs. Golden's Class test their cars. 

Mrs. Golden's homeroom students waiting their turn and cheering on a classmate in the School Spelling Bee. 

Spelling Bee: Thank you to Mrs. Golden for heading up our School Spelling Bee last Friday. Mrs. Thomas helped with judging and ringing the dreaded "that is incorrect" bell. Our students performed very well. Fifth grader Niko Rossi came out on top as the school winner. Harrison Jefferies was the school runner up. Following the event the parents were able to join their children for refreshments in the cafeteria. It was exciting to see so many of our students tuning in to the live stream footage of the Spelling Bee. Many of you tweeted out to share. Thanks! We used our new Padcaster and Discover Video to make this happen. We realized there were some issues and we are working on those. It is exciting to know we will soon be able to share these events with our school community. 

Harrison Jefferies (runner up), Mr. Moore, and Niko Rossi (school winner)

Time of Transformation: In case you have not noticed our library is changing. Below are some of the pictures taken by Mrs. Booth of students enjoying some time in the library before school. 

Students are also becoming more independent and really are enjoying this year's flex library schedule. Thank you to Ms. Fowler and teachers for making this such a great success! 

Powdersville's Got Talent: We had a wonderful turn out for our school's talent show last Thursday. Thank you to Stacey Turner and all her many helpers for making this event happen. See below for some pictures of our talented students and TEACHERS! A huge thank you to McKenzie Marino and all the many teachers who invested so much time into this year's dance. It was a hit! (Maybe we can find a video to share in our next blog post.)

 

Talented Teachers of PVES

Gabe Patterson plays the guitar and sings

Students dance to Fight Song

Great crowd to support our students 

Synchronized Swimming Routine

Teacher's Got Talent

Technology Transformation: This week featured another great session with Jessica Preisig. This session provided teachers an opportunity to learn and share with others across the district. Thank you for coming ready to learn and participate. Teahcers engaged in excellent discussion about moving through the SAMR model. Mr. Moore and I are so proud of our special teachers at PVES!  

Fourth grade math and science teachers find ways to capture their next STEM unit.

 Tollison Tidings:

• Thank you for helping with hallway behavior last Friday. Students were very quiet when transitioning in the halls while we had visitors. Please plan to do the same with ACCESS testing coming up. 
• ACCESS Testing begins next week. Melissa Thomas has contacted you with a very specific schedule if you have a student being tested. Testing will take place over four days (February 9th, 11th, 12th, and 16th). All testing will be in Computer Lab 101 except Friday, February 12th which will be in Mrs. Leftwich's classroom. 
• Monday, February 15th is a Comp Day for those who attended the second day of summer professional development last June.
• February is quite a busy month. Please be sure to refer to the shared calendar for upcoming events. 

Mark Your Calendar:

• Monday, February 8th- Reading PD
• Tuesday, February 9th- Faculty Meeting @ 3:10 in the library (bring iPads) 
• Tuesday, February 9th- ACCESS Testing (Computer Lab 101)
• Wednesday, February 10th- Lee and Tollison to District Office for Testing Meeting
• Wednesday, February 10th- Furman Consortium 
• Thursday, February 11th- Mr. Moore Administrator's meeting 
• Thursday, February 11th- ACCESS Testing (Computer Lab 101)
• Friday, February 12th- ACCESS Testing (LAUNCH Room)
• Monday, February 15th- Comp Day
• Monday, February 15th- Reading All Stars Begins
• Tuesday, February 16th- ACCESS Testing (Computer Lab 101) 
• Tuesday, February 16th- Digital Playground with iTeachers and Preisig
• Friday, February 19th- Class pictures 

Why we teach.... This is a quick but great reminder! Enjoy and thank you for what you do each day. 

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