
Wilson's Weekly
BPS...where books come alive!
Core Beliefs, Vision, and Mission
We believe all students can learn:
- Learning must have a clear purpose.
- All learners deserve a safe, respectful, and structured environment.
- Learners grow with mutual support, responsibility, and compassion.
- All learners have the ability to grow.
Shaping the future one child at a time
Mission
Blytheville Primary School fosters a safe and positive learning community. We educate students to be innovative thinkers today and productive leaders of tomorrow.
Strategic Plan
Our school plan can be found here.
Principal's Reflection
Last week, I wasn't in classrooms because we had RTI meetings all week. From those meetings, I learned much about our kids and how you are getting to know them on an academic and personal level. I saw teachers who delved deeper into what their students knew by giving additional assessments and reading through each piece of information given to them in the folders from Michelle. I heard how you are making connections with students personally and with their parents.
During Friday's professional learning, I saw teams working well together: digging into the standards, using those standards to create common assessments, developing centers that help students practice skills. The teams didn't just do the work to get it done. I heard conversations about whether the questions on the math assessments from last year really matched what the standard stated. I heard conversations about changing math assessments because the majority of the assessment only assessed one standard in the unit. I heard literacy teams breaking down the writing standards to create a rubric that would assess opinion writing. I heard literacy teams discussing different ways to assess reading comprehension. I saw teachers asking excellent questions about how other teachers develop management systems for centers. I saw teachers coming together to help the new teachers create centers and find materials for those centers. I am truly appreciative of all the work!
Week at a Glance
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, my home base will be my primary office. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, my home base will my kindergarten office.
This WEEK
- Monday - Labor Day - No School
- Tuesday - K PLC, Tenaris begins
- Wednesday - Jerry Vaughn here; Building Leadership Meeting 2:30
- Thursday - Wilson out (BLI Institute)
- Friday - Wilson out (BLI Institute); PBIS Store
Next WEEK
- Monday - Goodies for Grandparents (7:15 am); Progress Report grades due in TAC by 4 pm; Tier 1 Team Meeting at 3:30 in conference room (Wilson, Jenkins, Hepler, Newsom, Pugh, Poole, Evans)
- Tuesday - Parent-Teacher Conferences 3:30-6:30
- Wednesday - Building Leadership Team 2:30-4:00
- Thursday - Birthday Lunches; Parent-Teacher Conferences 3:30-6:30
- Friday - PBIS Celebration (Hat Day)
Upcoming Events
The school calendar can be found HERE.
Pin of the Week
Susan Jones shared some activities that she uses in her classroom to help students practice and building their number sense. If you would like me to buy her product from Teachers pay Teachers, email me and I will get it for you. Proud to be Primary has another blog post that has a ton of activities for building number senses. Both sets of activities are great for kindergarten and first grade teachers to use in centers. For second grade, the activities would be good to use when you pull small groups for interventions.
Picture Book Recommendation of the Week
Award-winning author and illustrator Ashley Spires has created a charming picture book about an unnamed girl and her very best friend, who happens to be a dog. The girl has a wonderful idea. “She is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing! She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work. All she has to do is make it, and she makes things all the time. Easy-peasy!” But making her magnificent thing is anything but easy, and the girl tries and fails, repeatedly. Eventually, the girl gets really, really mad. She is so mad, in fact, that she quits. But after her dog convinces her to take a walk, she comes back to her project with renewed enthusiasm and manages to get it just right.
For the early grades' exploration of character education, this funny book offers a perfect example of the rewards of perseverance and creativity. The girl's frustration and anger are vividly depicted in the detailed art, and the story offers good options for dealing honestly with these feelings, while at the same time reassuring children that it's okay to make mistakes. The clever use of verbs in groups of threes is both fun and functional, offering opportunities for wonderful vocabulary enrichment. The girl doesn't just “make” her magnificent thing --- she “tinkers and hammers and measures,” she “smooths and wrenches and fiddles,” she “twists and tweaks and fastens.” These precise action words are likely to fire up the imaginations of youngsters eager to create their own inventions and is a great tie-in to learning about Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
- Teaching Resource Guide
- Interactive Read Aloud (If you would like this from TpT, email me and I will get it for you.)
- STEM Design Challenge (freebie on TpT)
- Blog post on how to use the book to teach writing from Two Writing Teachers
- Discussion prompts to get kids talking about perseverance and frustration
- Project to create the "most magnificent thing"
- YouTube video read aloud of the book
Below is a stop motion animation created by students at Elmwood School in Ottawa.
Motivational Quote of the Week
What the Principal is Reading
Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
School Culture Recharged by Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker
Day Shift by Charlaine Harris
Archives
August - Back to School, One, Two, Three
September - Four
October -
November -
December -
January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
About the Principal
Email: jwilson@blythevilleschools.net
Website: http://www.blythevilleschools.com/o/bps
Location: 1103 Byrum Road, Blytheville, AR, United States
Phone: 870-763-6916
Facebook: facebook.com/cimeronejana
Twitter: @cimeronejana