Focus on the Fabulous
One of our focuses at the middle school this year is to work on interdisciplinary alignment. A couple of the integrated approaches we are working on are academic vocabulary and note taking strategies. We have identified high frequency academic words that all teachers are incorporating into daily instruction. All teachers are using the same definitions to establish continuity and reinforce learning. Everybody has been working together to reinforce these efforts. For example, one of our words this week was factor. When I visited Ms. Donaldson’s class, she was working with kids on using factor trees to find least common multiples. Then I dropped into Ms. Banning’s class and she was practicing the vocabulary words with Fan and Pick. Ms. Dolan has helped to get the weekly quizzes set up on Edmodo and get vocab. posters hung in the middle school hall each week. Thanks Mr. Schoenfelder for helping with that. Mrs. Ruggles and Mr. Hagan included the words in their objectives and DFAs. Mr. Koerber did an excellent job of incorporating the words into his instruction. Even Mrs. Burch has the words posted in her office! Thanks to everybody for pitching in to ensure that we are providing all kids with the necessary support so that they can achieve at high levels. All teachers are doing a great job of including the weekly words into their specific content. Last week our 6th graders earned the highest percentage on the weekly test, with 92%. Thanks to Ms. Dolan, we are also incorporating Cornell note taking into our instructional focus at the middle school. She, along with Kindra Rounds, presented on note taking strategies at our PLC on Wednesday to give an overview of this process and how it might be used in all content areas. Ms. Banning suggested using this format in our reading competition as a way for students to document information for the books they have read. It’s so great to see everybody pitching in and sharing ideas to support learning and benefit our kids.
Rewind
We had our first early release on Wednesday. Our students participated in ICAP activities all morning and that afternoon our staff took part in our PLC. As always, Mrs. Ruggles did an amazing job getting everything put together so that our kids can begin focusing on their futures and make plans for postsecondary options. That afternoon, Kevin and I attended the administrative PLC in Alamosa. We had a great gathering of administrators and our focus for our first meeting was on walkthroughs and providing feedback. It was a great time to collaborate with other administrators. We are looking forward to another meeting in Del Norte next month.
We had several athletic events this past week. Our volleyball team competed in Sierra Grande and at home against Centauri. Our football team played against Centauri and Del Norte. We held our annual cross country meet in Center on Friday.
We had several athletic events this past week. Our volleyball team competed in Sierra Grande and at home against Centauri. Our football team played against Centauri and Del Norte. We held our annual cross country meet in Center on Friday.
Fast Forward Focus
This coming week will mark mid-way through the first quarter. Teachers will be administering mid-term exams and recording mid-term grades. I have a couple BOCES meeting this week, one dealing with Race to the Top and the other focusing on SB 191 and the Colorado Legacy Foundation. Tuesday our volleyball team will be playing in Monte Vista. Thursday we will be conducting interviews for our Parent Engagement position. That afternoon we will be hosting the Alamosa volleyball team and the Centauri football team. Thursday evening I will be driving to Breckenridge to take part in the Leadership in Action cohort at the CEC Conference on Friday.