Week 24: February 10, 2017

Happy 100^th Day of School! 

Housekeeping: 

- If you have done or planning to do something in recognition of Black History Month, please share so that I may highlight in the Panther Press and on the School Messenger page. 

-Our staff meeting on Tuesday will be about 30 minutes. We will present Service Awards and have a PNC Bank Presentation. Our staff meeting with embedded PD will be presented in a Flipped Meeting presentation that will be sent out during next week.

- Mrs. Hammel has found some great courses that may interest you. The county is offering Mindfulness Courses and you can register through the Online Professional Catalog under the Culturally Responsive Instruction curriculum. They are courses that teachers have to pay to take but each course gets 15 hours of re-certification points.  

CRI 710 - Mindful Educator Foundation Online Course Series, Part 1: Mindfulness Fundamentals

March 3 - April 13, 2017 (cohorts for PWCS) register for session 2016450071001  or

April 7 - May 18, 2017 (cohorts for PWCS) register for session 2016450071002

CRI 711 - Mindful Educator Foundation Online Course Series, Part 2: Mindful Educator Essentials

April 20 - May 31, 2017 (cohorts for PWCS) register for session 2016450071101   or

May 25 - July 5, 2017 (cohorts for PWCS) register for session 2016450071102

- Thank you to Mrs. Hoover's class for the beautiful 'Thank You' card for purchasing the rug! 

Leadership Opportunities:

- Given the SOL remediation numbers and the lack of a teacher to facilitate the club, we have decided not to have Soccer for Success this Spring season.

- Building Leadership Capacity – Part II will be held on March 30^th at 3:30-5:30 p.m. at Colgan H.S. Please view the flyer sent on via email for registration specifics.  

Teacher Leaders and Building Leadership Capacity - III

Curriculum Specialist: Understanding content standards, how various components of the curriculum link together, and how to use the curriculum in planning instruction and assessment is essential to ensuring consistent curriculum implementation throughout a school. Curriculum specialists lead teachers to agree on standards, follow the adopted curriculum, use common pacing charts, and develop shared assessments.

Tracy, the world studies team leader, works with the five language arts and five social studies teachers in her school. Using standards in English and social studies as their guides, the team members agree to increase the consistency in their classroom curriculums and administer common assessments. Tracy suggests that the team develop a common understanding of the standards and agrees to facilitate the development and analysis of common quarterly assessments.

 

Highlights of the Week: 

- 100^th Day of School was a major success!

- PTA Family Bingo Night was much fun! A huge thank you to Ms. Roop, our fabulous PTA Teacher Representative; Ms. Morrison for set up and clean up; Mrs. Kempf for being our interpreter/DJ/Bingo Number Displayer/Air Control; Ms. Jackson and Mrs. Black for attending; and Mrs. Quattrone for being our Resident Photographer/Alternate Bingo Caller/Closer. We had countless volunteers who helped out with creating such a wonderful atmosphere for our families; Mrs. Peak, Connor Peak, Sara Peak and Mr. Brian. Our PTA received so many accolades and for the first time in 9 years, parents assisted in the cleanup…quick, fast and in a hurry!

-Our Bel Air Smashers remain undefeated after CRUSHING Montclair E.S. They single handily won in three straight volleyball games! BA Smashers cannot be touched! Excellent job Smashers!

Students as Learners: 

• 3^rd Grade students worked through vowel patters and suffixes through a SRA Lesson with our Title I Reading Teacher;
• 2^nd Grade’s 100^th Day Celebrations are amazing! They had 8 rotations for the students to go through from building a 100 cup structure to skip counting by 10s to 100 on ice cream scoops to creating a 100 dot gumball machine. The kids were ecstatic and working so well together.
• Students are committed to content vocabulary through the studying of their Content Word Study Cards!
• 5^th Grade students worked through fraction addition and subtraction equations. Students identified their favorite strategies and were able to show me how to effectively use the great common denominator to solve and illustrating the fractional equations using graph paper.

Important Dates: 

• February 13^th: Core Extension Begins through May 12th
• February 14^th: Happy Valentine’s Day
  • Small Group Meetings with Mr. Erickson (Mrs. Otterblad will be here in p.m.)
  • Staff Meeting @ 4:00 p.m.
• February 15^th:
  • School Board Meeting @ 7:00 p.m.
• February 16^th: Have You Filled a Bucket? Assembly 3-5 @ 9:30 a.m. and K-2 @ 2:00 p.m.
• February 17^th: Award Ceremony; K-2 in a.m. and 3-5 in p.m.
  • Sunshine Committee Social: Chuy’s on Prince William Parkway @ 4:30 p.m.

  

My Current Reading: