Weekly Forecast for November 29th-December 3rd

Monday the 29th ASERT @ 3:30 Tuesday the 30th Staff Meeting @ 3:30 Wednesday the 1st ILCT @ 7:55 Thursday the 2nd Leah Out @ Meetings (Afternoon) SEGC Meeting @ 6:00 Friday the 3rd It looks like the Blog is having some formatting issues (okay it is probably the Blogger). I hope you all had a peaceful fall break and Thanksgiving. I know the hours of conferences are a lot and they can defintely be draining. With that said, several of you reported positive interactions and this makes all of the work worth it! I know our parents appreciate your work with their kids. On to three weeks of instruction and another vacation. I have found the next three weeks can be difficult instructionally, or they can be a sweet spot.This is a time of year we may feel down a bit and find ourselves "flying by the seat of our pants". I admit I did this a few years while teaching and the weeks between Thanksgiving and winter break were not fun. The years I buckled down and focused on planning and instruction were memorable in that there were relativily few behaviors and this made me calmer and more responsive to student needs. I encourage you to focus on instruction and finding ways to engage students for the next three weeks. Is there a project or writing assignment that will hold student interest focus on the standards you are teaching? A academic competition that will get students excited about math? Let's keep the kids focused on learning for the next three weeks and we will get through. We strongly encourage everyone to refrain from too much downtime, choice time or too much unstructured learning time in the next few weeks as this can lead to discipline issues. As a heads up we are planning to hold our Winter Carnival on the 17th. Let's keep focused on learning until then and on that day we can celebrate our community and each other! Homeroom teachers please turn in your conference tallies/lists of who you met with. We like to have this information in the event we have parents contact us with quesitons or concerns. I have already received a few emails from parents over the weekend in regards to report cards/conference forms and my first question was did they meet with teachers at conferences. Please take time tomorrow this week to revisit your class, recess, lunch and building expectations. This review reminds students and helps to hold them accountable. I would suggest doing this for a few days this week just to ensure things are sinking in. I am sure the second I publish this I will think of other things to share, but looking back at my notes/emails I am not seeing anything. I expect tomorrow's Nightly News will be long. Enjoy the rest of your day.