What Lies Within Us

I believe the quote above from Ralph Waldo Emerson is pertinent for educators moreso than any other group of professionals. There is much we have accomplished. With each new group of students, the journey begins afresh and new challenges arise. Some of us have endured PACT testing. Even more of us, PASS testing and ACT testing. Those challenges were met head-on and with a purpose. Now, we stare SCREADY in the face. Just as we have done with AdvancED, SLOs, schedule changes, and much more we will accept the challenges before us. Why? Because what lies within us is a love for what we do. We possess a strong desire to help our students succeed. We find a way, we defy the odds. I firmly believe what lies within us will help define the future for ourselves, our students, and our school.


SCREADY:
Thanks to everyone for your attention and participation in our faculty meeting on Tuesday. Our goal has been to keep you updated on the latest related to testing. A copy of our presentation including link to our testing presentation can be found here. Everyone should have received a copy of the packet used in our meeting. Please review all of the information we have shared with you via Drive and email. Meet as grade level and content areas to discuss how to best prepare your students for testing. We obviously will meet in the future to discuss this as well. If you are not a homeroom teacher, please consider what your role is in preparing students using the information we presented. Don't forget the resources shared by Kelle Martin as well!

Literacy Night:
On Tuesday, February 23rd Powdersville Elementary School will host our 2nd Annual Literacy Night: Read S'More Books! Last year, we had a very good crowd and we expect an even larger crowd this year. Please make sure you are hyping this event up to your parents and students. Use email, text message updates, etc. to get the word out. Mrs. Martin will be sending out a link where each person can sign up to assist us on that evening. We hope to have many of you there as we celebrate literacy and the important role reading plays in framing the success of our students! Please be cognizant of the fact that we do want a big crowd at this event as you plan homework for that time period.

World Wide Read Aloud Day:
World Wide Read Aloud Day is scheduled for Wednesday, February 23rd. We will participate! At 8:05 A.M., Mr. Moore and Mrs. Tollison, if she is still with us, will read a book aloud via our podcaster system. We will share the link at a later date. This will enable you to click on the link and have your students watch and listen to us read aloud on your SmartBoard (similar to the spelling bee viewing). This should take no more than 10 minutes. It may mean you have to switch classes a few minutes late. That is not all! We want YOU to read aloud to your class. Take pictures and post these on social media, websites, and SeeSaw. Get the word out!

Boosterthon Is Coming:
As many of you know, Boosterthon is our "big" fundraiser for the year. We support a variety of initiatives through money raised via this event. The more you, the teacher, take a role in getting your kids excited about raising money and helping our school, the more money we will raise! Our kickoff event is a pep rally scheduled for Monday, February 29th at about 1:40 P.M. in the multi-purpose room. This event is designed to get our students excited about the fundraiser so be prepared for some fun and some loudness. At this event, you will be given information that must go home with your students that afternoon. March 1st-4th, 7th and 8th teachers will escort their classes to the MP Room at the beginning of your planning period for "team huddles" where our Boosterthon guys will speak to the teachers and classes for about 10 minutes to keep everyone fired up about raising money. I realize this is taking a portion of your planning, but I believe the return on investment is greater. Thanks for your support. The Fun Run event is scheduled for Wednesday, March 9th. We will send a schedule for this event later. We encourage parents to attend!


Now, here's what is happening at PVES...

It was fun hosting our faculty meeting in the media center this week. I am proud of Mrs. Fowler for wisely spending the penny sales tax to improve our media center. You are all welcome to play with/use the ClearTouch Board. Ms. Wilkie and Ms. Wilcox have been trained on using the board so they will be attempting to find an opportunity to use the board with their students this year. I also mentioned the audio system that I used briefly in the meeting.  The company that sells these devices is Lightspeed Technologies.

Mrs. Martin's reading sessions this week were very helpful as we continue to address guided reading and using data to drive our instruction. We will meet again with ELA teachers in April or May for a final half day session. In her presentation, Mrs. Martin shared with us some suggestions for improvement provided to us by Jennifer Brown from the state department. I know we are all continuing to better our craft as teachers so I was thankful for the feedback.

Author JE Thompson spoke to all of our students on Wednesday. The students enjoyed hearing him speak and read. Thanks to Mrs. Fowler for arranging the visit. I have personally read his book The Girl from Felony Bay and would highly recommend it to all of you. I was proud of our students for entering the MP Room quietly and being respectful of our guest.

#WeBeeLearning, the PBL unit currently ongoing in third grade is a big hit. Teachers are doing an excellent job of keeping us updated on Twitter. What an incredible journey. Ms. Wilcox spoke with maintenance workers on Wednesday in preparation for our bee hive to be installed in the library in late February. The bees themselves will arrive in April. I cannot wait to see and hear more about this from our very own 3rd grade students. This is real world and authentic learning. I am hopeful PBL expands to other classrooms. Don't be afraid to give it a try!

Cheers to our 4th grade teachers and students for using TouchCast to produce "news reports" based on historical figures and events. TouchCast is easy to use and the students absolutely love it! What a great use of technology to make learning fun and real. Below is a TouchCast I created as a video newsletter for our parents: 

Moore's Musings:

I'd like to offer a quick word about supervision and high expectations for behavior. As mentioned above, our students were very well behaved for our author on Wednesday. In my opinion, this was only made possible because our teachers did an excellent job of hammering home our expectations for behavior. Please make sure you continue to relay those expectations; especially for the cafeteria, in line in the hallway, for restroom use, etc. Connected to this idea is supervision. Please walk with your students in the hallway, monitor students in the cafeteria, playground and restroom, and have a clear set of rules and procedures for these areas. Our work in this area is never done. Thank you!

Mark Your Calendar:

Instead of posting dates here, I'd like for you to check out our shared Google Calendar. Make note of important dates coming up. Please view the calendar for this Friday. 

Video of the Week: BE THE CHANGE