Couch Comet Dust

Last week was a great week of work and learning! Below are some GLOWS and GROWS that we would love to continue to work on throughout this semester:

Areas where we Glow:

- posting of Learning Objectives and Demonstration of Learning in classrooms and students are aware of what they are learning

- purposeful learning is happening in classrooms

- quality of pre-preparation for the Weekly Data Meetings to enhance the planning of the reteach

- organization of learning (pencils, interactive notebooks, organization of supplies) is improving

- Staff development day was a success! Great work done by teachers participating and our support staff (Mary Katherine, Amy and Beth) for planning and presenting!

- evidence that WDM reteach is happening

- 3rd grade has implemented their new schedule well and are doing well!

- We are thankful for the sub in Ms. Hall's class!

- Mrs. Marston is the queen of the POSTER MACHINE!

- Thanks for your willingness to help out our newbies (Ms. Sparling in Hall and Ms. Lopez) as well as helping each other each and every day

Areas to Continue to Grow:

- closely monitoring students and their interactions- specifically in common areas (library, cafeteria, hallways, etc)

- implementation of Lucy Calkins with fidelity

- staying 2 weeks ahead on planning

- focusing on positive reinforcement and positive praise

- continuing to reinforce social contracts and launches from CKH

Spring Conferences are currently scheduled for February 6th and 12th. I have included some resources below for you to use and edit to schedule your meetings. How you schedule them is completely up to you and you can fit in time for your dinner on those days as well. All parents must have the option for a face to face conference and phone conferences should only be done as last resort. Feel free to use/edit attached documents for your needs.

Sample Letter

Sample Resources

Just a reminder to get your video training completed by January 15th for the Imagine Learning Training during your conference! This will be a great opportunity to see how to access information and use the program to benefit our students!

I have decided to issue this link in the smore. We are doing a great job of completing these every month! I am hoping we will be at the top this year and earn some money for our campus! Take a few minutes and complete it! I appreciate you!

~ Lauren

Click to view the Tips & Survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SafetyQuiz_Jan2019

Mrs. Marston included information in her newsletter regarding organization of classroom libraries. Please make sure you are getting with her to schedule a time to meet as well as help with any other classroom organization needs that you may have!

Establish a routine and stick to it. Effective flexible grouping takes time, so don't get frustrated if things don't work immediately. Keep in mind, however, that careful planning, good organization, and an established routine are essential. Your day should include a regular sequence of whole-class, small-group, and one-on-one instruction. You may want to start the language arts block with whole-class instruction. After that, call a planning meeting with students to clarify who will come to you for small-group or one-on-one work, who will work at centers, and who will work independently or in pairs. Be sure to explain how they will rotate. Also, find time for small-group work with struggling readers — I recommend at least three times a week for about 20 minutes.

Strive to make activities multilevel. Multilevel instruction acknowledges that children come to the classroom with different backgrounds and abilities. Teachers typically assign one activity that invites a variety of responses, such as writing a biography of a family member. As a result, all students are engaged in the same literacy processes, yet the teacher assesses them individually in terms of past performance. The point, of course, is to maintain high but realistic standards for all children.

"I plan each day so carefully, yet I never have enough time to accomplish what I want to do."

Do your planning weekly, around thematic units. Before you begin a unit, determine teaching and learning goals for each week. If your curriculum guide has objectives that you must cover, try to link your goals to those objectives. You might want to start each day with shared reading, emphasizing important skills. You could then assign a series of independent follow-up activities that allow children to practice those skills, allowing time for sharing responses. Once you begin planning the week around themes, you will find yourself covering more territory in greater depth.

The RTI PLC is approaching. Dates are: Kinder- 1/25, 1st- 1/28, 2nd 1/29, 3rd- 1/30, 4th 1/31, 5th- 2/1. Mrs. Smith has directed us to be prepared for this meeting.

· Please print 1069s and have them in the meeting.

· Review MAP data and student progress and be prepared to share which students might need to move to Tier 2 or 3 and why. After discussing, we will prepare PSMs. These will be due with parent signature by February 15.

· Please update the RTI spreadsheet prior to the meeting under the January column. I will input tier 3 information. If you are needing to add a student to the list, please do so at the bottom and fill in the information for January. The spreadsheet has been separated by grade level here are the links: Kinder, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth The information can speed up the process of completing PSMs.

Each student has a template by their name for January. Example:

Context:
Reading data:
Reading struggles:
Reading Progress Monitoring tool:
Reading Plan for Group:
Reading Goal:
Math data:
Math struggles:
Math Progress Monitoring tool:
Math Plan for Group:
Math Goal:
Behavior data:
Behavior struggles:

The data header can be filled in with information from your progress monitoring graph. (Are they progressing towards their goal? Are they not making any progress? Have they already met their goal?) Delete any information that is not required.

For example, say a student is just Tier 2 for reading and has no behavior problems. This would be filled in, notice the math and behavior headers were deleted sine they are not needed.

Context: teacher met with parent for parent teacher conferences since last RTI meeting.
Reading data: Progress Monitoring student began with 25% and is now performing at 50% mastery. Growth seen.
Reading struggles: In the past month I have noticed the student struggles with rhyming. When the student reaches current goal, this is a new possible goal.
Reading Progress Monitoring tool: same tool
Reading Plan for Group: continue previous plan, but adding Rhyming warm up.
Reading Goal: same goal

If you any questions, thoughts, or concerns let Jaime know!

Norma Gomez

Rosa Talamantez

Maria Balderas

Thomas Kamper

Jaime Bennett

Alexia Pegues

Lisa Miller

Martin Hernandez

Denise Horton

Debbie Moss

Chasity Lara

Shanda Jarjoura

February is Black History Month. As a team, please develop a plan as to what activities you will be doing for our students.

A dedicated group of seven members, Garland ISD’s Board of Trustees is responsible for more than 56,000 students and 7,500 employees. While Trustees dedicate countless hours as advisors, decision makers, problem solvers and supporters of the district, they receive no compensation for their work to ensure excellence in education. That’s why GISD has designated February as School Board Appreciation Month.

For years, our campuses have produced letters, posters, gifts, etc., to be displayed throughout the board room and presented to Trustees. We hope you’ll join us once again in saying thank you for making GISD a leader among school districts across Texas.

Also, many campuses send electronic productions burned to disc. Unfortunately, we can’t show all these during the Feb. 26 meeting. Please make enough copies for each Trustee, and we’ll be sure everyone gets them.

This link—http://www.garlandisd.net/about/board-trustees—will produce a list of Trustee names and additional information for your use. I appreciate your help in honoring this outstanding group. They always enjoy your contributions.

Please have these turned into Mrs. Jeffries by Feb 1!

Here is the MOY MAP testing schedule. Make sure you stay aware of when you are to be in the computer lab. This is very important. Also remember that computer lab time during iTime will not be available until testing is over. Administration information can be found here.

• Universal Letter Writing Week January 13-19

• CIRCLE Literacy Assessment PreK January 14 - February 22

• PLC Data 4th January 14

• MAP Growth Testing K - 5th January 14 - February 15

• Birthday: Dawn Perrone January 15

• Imagine Learning Training During Conference January 15

• PLC Data 5th January 15

• Faculty Meeting - CRT 1 January 15

• GISD TechFest at CCC 6:00 - 8:00 January 15

• PLC Plan K January 16

• PLC Plan 1st January 17

• PTA Board Meeting 4:00-6:00 January 17

• T-TESS No Formal Observations January 18

MLK Day 1/21

• PLC Plan 2nd January 18

• MLK Day - Student Holiday & Staff Holiday January 21

• PLC Plan 3rd January 22

• PM: New Teacher Meeting January 22

• Birthday: Luis Lama January 23

• PLC Plan 4th January 23

• PLC Plan 5th January 24

• PTA Family Game Night 5:30-7:30 January 24

• PLC RTI K January 25

• PLC RTI 1st January 28

• National Puzzle Day January 29

• PLC RTI 2nd January 29

• Faculty Meeting January 29

• PLC RTI 3rd January 30

• Spring Pictures/Class Pictures January 30

• Literacy Demo Lessons K - 2 with Amy Clark January 30

• PLC RTI 4th January 31

• Dental Sealant Program in room 407 January 31