The following excerpt is from "The Brain and Well-Designed School Environments: Enhancing Student Learning." By Tak Cheung Chan and Garth F. Petrie, orignially published in ASCD Classroom Leadership.

Energy for Learning

Although the brain represents only two percent of an adult's body weight, it consumes 20 percent of the body's energy. This energy is transmitted to the brain through a highly oxygenated blood supply that comes directly from the lungs via the carotid artery. Our brains need about 8 gallons of blood per hour, or almost 200 gallons per day.

The electrolytic balance for proper brain functioning comes from water. To insure this balance, we require six to twelve glasses of water per day. Without enough water, we don't learn as well. Hannaford (1995) identifies dehydration as a common classroom problem that leads to lethargy and impaired learning. Yet where are most water fountains in schools? Except for early primary classrooms, most school water fountains are found outside the classroom where students have limited access to them.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/classroom_leadership/nov1998/The_Brain_Learns_Better_in_Well-Designed_School_Environments.aspx

Additional Water Facts:

• Your brain tissue is 85% water. Messages from your brain to everywhere else in your body are transported on 'waterways'.
• Human lose the equivalent of a pint or more of water each day just breathing
• Even at rest your skin can lose up to half a liter of water into the atmosphere every day, and during hot weather it will lose even more
• We can lose up to 2 liters of water in 40 minutes when exercising.

Most adults admit to not drinking enough water... how much do you think our students are drinking? How many in our class are dehydrated and therefore have impaired learning?

Do you permit students to carry water bottles and allow them to drink in class? Why or Why not? Research based practice shows that students need to be drinking throughout the day. Enter a college classroom or adult learning situation or work environment and you see people allowed to take care of their own hydration needs. Are we teaching students about their body and their needs that impact learning?

Expectations: We are still settling into routines, with more and more content/learning taking place. Don't forget to keep reinforcing/reteaching those expectations around classroom, hallway, cafeteria and dismissal/arrival behaviors. They need to hear it like a broken record and then receive positive feedback when they are meeting your expectations! Please continue to work on building relationships, learning names and helping your classroom become a family where they can trust you and each other.

Meetings - We will ease into meeting on your planning for PLC's and Common Planning. This week we will just meet on Thursday (or Friday if your MS planning is not on Thursday.) This will be a common planning time with support from the CRT and admin. We will be working together on lesson plans for week 3. Please bring your laptop and planning materials to Room 203 to plan together. The following week we will be adding in a PLC as well which helps us to look at data, have mini PDs, look at work samples, etc.

Monday 8/19:

Tuesday 8/20:

Wednesday 8/21: NEW Reading/ELA teacher Lexia Training 3:30-4:30

Thursday 8/22: Common Planning Mtgs.

Friday 8/23 : IEP Meetings

Common Planning Mtgs for those not held on Thursday.

Upcoming Events:

8/26 NWEA Testing Starts - schedule to come

8/27 PLCs

8/27 Open House K-3 5:30-6:30

8/28 Early Release (PD on software)

8/29 Safety Patrol Meeting 5:00-5:30

8/29 Open House Grades 4-5 5:30-6:30

8/29 Open House Grades 6-8 5:30-7:00

8/29 Band Parent Mtg 7:00-7:30pm

9/2 No School - Labor Day

Walkthroughs - You will be seeing us more this week popping in to get you and your students used to us coming and going. We might leave a positive note, or just slip on out. Feedback will start week three.

• Great first week - "calmest opening yet"
• Thank you to the RTI & ESE teams for all of their pitching in to get school open
• Students are being KIND !!!!
• Thank you Brandy and Colton for getting Safety Patrol up and running so quickly!
• Great Job to Ed, Beckah, Erica & Jared for hosting IMPACT for resources at Southside

**I am creating a OneNote Notebook for all of our handouts, forms, etc. but for now I will include them in our newsletter for review.**

This one outlines the roles/responsibilities of the leadership team members. We will be adding more as we go. There are more things that some members of this team might do, but if they are not on this document it might be because it is more related to a supplement position than their main role.

Please review and let me know what questions you have.

Amanda

After school clubs are a way for students to be enriched while also teaching skills such as collaboration and teamwork. Please speak with Jared Davis if you have a club you are thinking of for FALL. Think about how many weeks, how long, would you like a co-sponsor, what should the fee be for materials, etc. You don't have to have it all figured out yet, just speak with him and find out next steps!

Becki Blenker August 1st

Jenna Herrera August 24th

Meghan Forte August 25th

Megan Cox August 31st

*Please let me know if you are missing, it might mean you need to complete the summer staff survey!*

A feature in our weekly newsletter will always be data. Whether it is data we will be discussing further in PLCs or just school wide data to keep you in the know!

But for now, here is some fun data about our staff! (yes I had summer brain when I made this - I have two that are with books - I love to READ)