October 27, 2017

October 27

Many of you have asked for an update on Dylan’s hand. I appreciate the support and concern. He went to his three week check up on Tuesday and they said his hand is healing very well, despite the scare post surgery. He can move his fingers, he can make a fist, and has full flexibility!! Yay! The picture above is pre and post surgery. The bumps will always be there but now at least two of them are not controlled by the tumor- or so we think. This disease is so rare so it is all a trial basis. In the past year (2017) he has had to wear a mouth expander, got braces, wears a retainer on his bottom teeth at night, got glasses, has to do PT three times a day on his hand, wear special glove, AND he just got head gear to wear at night as well. At least he does it with a positive attitude. Not one complaint yet and he has his sister’s support who just says, “Dylan has a lot going on.” Can’t argue with that!!

Please be walking around when doing yard duty. Standing in one place and talking to another colleague takes the attention away from our students who need active supervision. Students forming a circle around you and talking to you also takes away from being active during supervision. The data that we will share at our staff meeting  will clearly identify that we NEED TO BE WALKING AND MONITORING BEHAVIOR. 

I attended the second day of our PBIS training and in the training they touched upon the 5 (positive):1(criticism) ratio and it’s not just about praise. It has to do with

• ·        Relationships
• ·        Rapport
• ·        Academic Engagement

They shared a great graph that showed in elementary school praise is given once every 11 minutes. In middle school once every 24 minutes! What a difference!

From a teacher:

“I came to school this morning with the lessons from yesterday fresh in my mind. I decided that I would focus on positive behaviors today, and try and let the negative go away on its own.  I started the day with a quick carpet talk, telling students how proud I was of all their good work and asking them to continue for today. I addressed a few issues but then it was off to work. I called students to my desk, or leaned over to talk to them every time I saw something respectful or helpful. At the end of the day, I sat at the carpet with them and asked if it was different today as compared to yesterday. I had 20 hands fly up and the comments ranged from, “you were nice” to “you liked us.” Talk about immediate feedback. I am sure every day will have new challenges and one day is not forever, but I believe that the first step to having a great day is being positive.” – George Kastanis, 3^rd grade teacher

Writing prompt should be finished. We will be grading it on November 14^th at our grade level meeting from 3:15-4:45 in the staff room. If you have already graded (with 2 readers) your papers and entered grades in academic conference worksheet you will not need to meet in the staff room to grade papers on November 14th. 

AR party will be on November 9th. We will be combining our October and November awards on October 27th. We will NOT have Dragon awards in November. I changed the schedule on the calendar.

Halloween day costumes: follow school dress code, no weapons, no blood, no masks.  Make sure food brought in on October 31 follows food policy guidelines. 

Observable Fish Moments at SV:

Be There: Thank you Christina and Patty for making a scarecrow for the Rotary competition and the school. Thank you Kami and Anthony for teaching our student how to create yummy dishes straight from the garden. Thank you Heather, Alee, and Jennifer for taking your kids to Wooden Valley so they could get a first hand look how wine is made. Thank you Fern and Leigh for supporting ALL of our students ALL the time!! Thank you Sarah and Cecily for helping out during after school dismissal. Thank you Melissa, Mindi, and Denise for going ABOVE and beyond to make sure our students have a caring and nurturing classroom environment. Thank you Brandon for stepping in last minute and leading the cookie dough assembly. 

Play: Get out in the garden and have some fun. We got new benches and wheelbarrows. Go check them out.

Choose your attitude: Your attitude can decide how you will feel for the rest of the day- EVERY DAY!!

Make Their Day:   Make at least one positive phone home this week.