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Teacher Appreciation Days!! :)

Office Max Teacher Appreciation Event

Mark your calendars for the Office Max Teacher Appreciation Day - August 15, 2010 - yes, Sunday, August 15, 2010, not August 8th! :) All teachers will receive a free re-usable shopping bag and will receive 20% off everything you can fit in it. You must be a Max Rewards for Teachers* member.

Staples Teacher Appreciation Day - Keizer and Corvallis Staples on Aug 21, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM 

Big Lots Teacher Appreciation Day 08/14/2010!

Big Lots would like to show their appreciation to America's teachers and educators with a special Teacher Appreciation Day (home educators included).

On Saturday, August 14th, 2010, all educators will receive a 10% discount on all purchases with a valid school ID.

Office Depot Teacher Appreciation Day - August 22-28 with the Teacher Appreciation Breakfast on 8/28 from 9-11. 

All week, Star Teachers get:

• 10% off instantly on qualifying in-store purchases with your Member Card
• 50% back in Rewards on products from our sponsors 50% back³ in Rewards on products from Avery®, Carson-Dellosa, Crayola®, Command™, Expo®, Five Star®, Mead®, Paper Mate®, Post-It®, Scotch®, Sharpie® and Stanley Bostitch®
• $25 off any Lexmark™ printer regularly priced $199 or above

Social Network sites and KIDS!!

June 1 & 2 Menu

Rachael assured me that they would have food for all Meatatarians,  Vegetarians and Chickitarians! :) 

June 1 - Salad buffet

June 2 - Potato Bar

Science Links

Environmental Inquiry:  http://ei.cornell.edu

• Assessing Toxic Risk
• Invasion Ecology
• Decay and Renewal
• Watershed Dynamics

North American Pollinator Protection Campaign: http://www.nappc.org

• Curriculum thinking -processes

Jing Sample

http://screencast.com/t/MmYwOTU3Y2

What do students need to be successful in doing a work sample

Poll Everywhere

Cool Polling for FREE! http://www.polleverywhere.com/ When you set up an account folks can respond to polling with their twitter account, cell phone or webpage voting! EXCELLENT replacement of the clickers.

Moving Science Forward

Happy Monday Morning!! :)  I'm here at the ESD at the ODE's pilot of the "Moving Science Forward Workshop."  If you are interested in learning more - check out their webpage:

http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=2906

Teaching as Leadership

Hey All...

I am into a really good book right now, "Teaching as Leadership" by Steven Farr.  There is a great companion website www.teachingasleadership.org.  Check it out in your spare time if you so desire :)

I especially like the TAL Rubric...it's unlike any teacher standards I've seen before.  The PDF files towards the bottom are hundreds of pages long...very comprehensive...but you may be able to pull some out for staff PD.

If someone else has read or is reading this book...I would love to book talk with you :)

Jennifer VanSlander

Perhaps you all know about this website already, but one of my teachers just showed it to me today. Check it out if you are not familiar with it, delete this message if you are familiar with it!

http://reading.ecb.org/teacher/index.html

Enjoy your day!

Sue

Writer's Workshop

Coaches,
Wanted to share a cool website I found on Writer's Workshop, if you hadn't found this one yet. Would be a great piece of an intro to your teachers on Writer's Workshop, has pictures and examples of mini-lessons, anchor charts, student notebooks, and celebrations.

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/writing_workshop%20Structure.htm


Stacey Lund
Instructional Coach
Brush College Elementary

Ocoee Middle School Gotta Keep Reading from Michael Cardwell on Vimeo.

Teacher Resources

Stumbled on this website - love the use of Wordpress. Great multi content area connections.  Love the look of the website!  I wish we could get that with typepad!! :) 

http://www.resources-teachers.info/

Shared Reading Webcasts

Here's how to get there!

www.curriculum.org/secretariat/literacy_en.shtml     (there's and underscore between " literacy"  and the "en" of the address) 

Once the site comes up, click on the yellow "post-it" note that says "view our Archived Webcasts", then scroll through the webcasts...scroll, scroll, and scroll...until you see "Shared Reading, Continuing the Conversation"...then there are different choices for watching!   Whew!

Enjoy!

brainrules.net

Hi Boo,

Great book, good web site.  Lots of food for thought in easily digestible form about what we need to consider for getting our kids (and our own) brains to work better.  Definitely worth a look.

http://brainrules.net

Ahhh, February.
Alison

read, write, think.org

With dynamic new features and improved navigation, ReadWriteThink.org delivers research-based instruction and powerful, proven tools for teaching in and out of the classroom.

• Innovative, high-quality lesson plans written and reviewed by experienced literacy professionals, sorted by grade level, and aligned to state and national standards.
• Classroom-ready, easy-to-use resources for experienced and new teachers alike, including interactive tools, calendar activities, and classroom printouts.
• NEW! A dedicated professional development section with strategy guides on effective teaching practices and access to a wealth of professional development resources.
• NEW! Parent and afterschool resources to help extend students’ learning after the bell, including activities and projects, online games, podcasts, and more.
• Opportunities to interact with our community of dedicated literacy professionals through shared stories, commentary, and social networking sites.

A partnership of the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Verizon Foundation, ReadWriteThink.org will help you turn reading and language arts theory into best classroom practices. Visit today and you’ll find everything you need for tomorrow’s lesson plan—www.readwritethink.org.

What Matters Now: Big Thoughts and Small Actions Make a Difference

From the Big Fresh - Choice Literacy:

What a marvelous gift for leaders in any field! Seth Godin has put together a smart little leadership eBook - What Matters Now:  Big Thoughts and Small Actions Make a Difference.  The contributors are top names from many professions, riffing on the one word that will guide their actions this year.  It's a just-right text to help you construct some thoughtful early January plans to carry you through the rest of the year.  The book is designed to be shared freely and widely, with almost no copyright and use restrictions:

 
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/1053.cfm

Yahoo Groups on the Daily Five

There are 2 really great group on Yahoo about The Daily Five. The kindergarten specific one is called "KindergartenD5" and the other is simply "Daily5" but it's for all grades. I highly recommend joining the groups. You don't have to use Yahoo for your email account. People post how they adapt it to work in their classroom.

Oregon ELA Standards K-5

The following documents were created out of the need to communicate progress and skills toward the benchmarks between teachers who share students.  The following were also used at conferences to make the ELA Standards more comprehensible for parents.

If you have feedback on these documents, please share!! 

• Kindergarten:  Download _KG Literacy Progress Report
• First:  Download 1 Reading Progress Reportchart
• Second:  Download 2 Reading Progress Reportchart
• Third: Download 3 Reading Progress Reportchart
• Fourth: Download 4 Reading Progress Reportchart
• Fifth:  Download 5 Reading Progress ReportChart

Literacy Model Continuum

This is a one page version of the Comprehensive Literacy Model Implementation Continuum.  Remember this is a DRAFT of a form. 

Download LitModelImplementationContinuumReading

Report Card Prep Both Intermediate and Primary

A teacher requested a prep tool for getting ready for the report card.  I made the attached spreadsheet and imported her student information into it.  I'm hoping someone else might find this useful??

Download KG Report Card Prep Tool  ~  KG Report Card

Download 1-2 Report Card Prep Tool  ~ 1-2 Report Card

Download 3-5 Report Card Prep Tool  ~ 3-5 Report Card

Journaling a connection...

I have a celebration I just had to share....

So I discovered a way to connect with a teacher here that is totally new to me (the venue,not the teacher).  She is very "intellectual" about things and has asked me to find articles etc. for her to read regarding her focus of Critical Thinking on the lit. model and incorporating it into reading and writing.  She is often busy or doesn't "have time" to meet with me so I grabbed a great article that I had read, journaled a quick response to it about my own learning and connections I saw to her values we discussed earlier and gave her the article and my journaled responsel.  She came to me later and asked if it was OK for her to journal back with me and could we keep doing that with other sources and experiences!  

I have done back and forth journaling with kids and was thrilled that she wants to do this and that the idea sort of came from her (with a little bit of a hint from me :)).  I am hoping this opens more doors for us to work together in other ways.

Anyhow, this whole thing was new to me and I wanted to share in case anyone else had a similar person this might work with to get a foot in the door, or if you have had similar experiences maybe you could let me know how they worked and worked out.

Have a good day!

Jennifer

Library and the CAFE

Here are some pictures of CAFE and other Literacy components (Shared Reading & posting standards) and how they might look in the library. 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Jen VanSlander

Questions for Life (by Steven Barkley)

Many of you asked about the Questions for Life. Attached is the handout from Steven Barkley.
If you would like to order a book please let me know on Monday. 

Download Questions for Life final

Playful Learning

Great activities and ideas for learning and playing at home and at school! :)

Playful Learning

I Pick Video - Great class website!!

Correlation Chart

Janis sent out the new and improved correlation chart. 

I made it to fit a whole page and am looking at making it a large poster for our book room. I focused on the levels K-5 for the poster chart as those are the students we are looking for resources on a leveled basis.  I'm thinking that when kids are at a level 50 that they know how to pick a book and we aren't necessarily intervening with them on a leveling basis at that point in their reading continuum.   If that helps you - here you go! :)  Download Correlation Chart for Leveling Systems

Instructional Coach Roles and Log

We met Friday to get an overview of the coaching program.  WOW We got a chance to connect faces with names and really see how powerful the district coaching/mentoring/ela specialist-ing force is!! 

Rachael handed out the Roles for Instructional Coaching Program Handbook and the Instructional Coach Log.  You can download both here.  The log is the single sheet that wee need to turn into Rachael at the end of the month. 

UPDATED:  Gwen made the coach log in Excel and it auto tabulates the hours spent in each catagory.  You can try hers here:  Download Instructional Coach Log Autotabulate

Collaborative Coaching Forms

Attached are some forms that the coaches may find helpful...These are from the Beginning of the Year Technical Coaching Training by the New Teacher Center

Download Collaborative_Coaching_Log

Download Collaborative_Coaching_Notes

Collaborative Coaching Forms

Lynn shared two collaborative Coaching forms that she saw at the new coaching training. 

Download Collaborative_Coaching_Log

Download Collaborative_Coaching_Notes

Reading Level Badge Tag

I received the updated or current correlation chart.  I also updated the reading level badge tag to reflect the current correlation chart! :) 

You can download the ReadingLevel Chart.xls here.

Cafe in Spanish

Escojo mi
      Lo comprendo
      Interés
      Buen proposito
      Reconozco palabras
      Opciones

"Good fit book" -  escoje libros apropiados
"stamina" -  nuestro aguante
"3 Ways to Read a Book" - 3 formas de leer un libro
1.  Read the pictures - Leer las ilustraciones
2. Read the words - Leer las palabras
3. Retell the story - Recontar la historia

What color is the CAFE in your world?

Okay - Color is very important to me!  Well you might not think so if you notice that I wear primarily black and white with a little red splashed on the glasses!  But when doing handouts for staff it is much easier to say find the green page than have them sort through 5 sheets of all white!  Color also helps our brains process and connect information.  It gives us one more trigger in our memory banks!! :) 

So I'm going to assist my staff in setting up conferring notebooks with sets of the strategy pages from the CAFE book as a reference tool to write on as they teach the lessons.  Well of course each section needs to be a different color...

• Calendar page = green?
• Class check-in page = blue?
• Strategy Group Pages = beige/buff
• Student conferring pages = pink?
• Data pages = green (data is always green! Green for GO!!!

So what about the CAFE reference pages??  What color should the Comprehension strategies be? What color should the Accuracy strategies be? What color should the Fluency strategies be? AND what color should the Expanding Vocabulary strategies be??  If you have thoughts please comment below (the comment button is in light grey below the picture)!! :) 

Here is a bulliten board from The Sisters.

Bringing out the Best in People

Brenda H. suggested this as a great read for the coaches.  I guess Steven Barkley had suggested it a while ago and she actually followed through and read it!! :)  Maybe she will send me a book review to add here?  Just what she wanted, a little assignment for a Monday Holiday! :)

Job Description - Update

We are still waiting for delivery of the "new and improved" Job Description and Roles - I just didn't want you to think I had it and was hording it from you!! :)  Believe me I'll share the love/work as soon as I see it! :)  I'm such a giver!! :) 

Job Description and Roles/Responsibilities

I've had a few requests for the roles and responsibility and job description.  For some reason I don't have the original but I have a scanned copy from last Spring when Mary met with us. I've since learned that it may be changing so any conversations you have around this should be kept in the "Draft" mindset. 

Update: 8/31 9:23 pm...  Rachael Harms said that she will provide us with an electronic version of the updated handbook sometime this week... so remember that previous version is a draft form!! :)  Stay tuned for the updated version!

RTI

Anyone designing RTI pyramids??  Wanna share??

I found this school district that has a lot of forms... anything here helpful for you??  http://www.mlsd.k12.oh.us/tech/docs/poi/

http://www.barrington220.org/parents/rti_websites.asp

Those were just two I found...  Does anyone else have a resource they have created or found?? 

Coach Conferring Notebook

8/19 Updated again: Oh for PETE'S SAKE! (whoever Pete is!!) When merging a document there is NO need to add a "next record" to the end of the page - It's a given when you move to the next page...  Why don't I remember that??  I fixed the skipped weeks and am printing the whole thing right now to test it.  Thank you to Sarah who kept giving me feedback!  I appreciate it! :) 

IT WORKS!!! Download Coach_Plans_Week_on_Top

8/18 Updated: Thanks Sarah for downloading the file and finding a "boo boo!"  I've fixed it. Enhanced it and removed the graphic that was bugging me!  :) I'm looking for just the right paper to print it on and plan to 'fancify' it with stickers (Don't call ME a dork!!).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I met with a group of coaches at Summer Academy (the Miller site) and we looked at pieces to go into a coaches' conferring notebook.  Here is a daily planning/lesson plan/log type of a document. 

If you down load this please send me an email to let me know what you think!  Thanks!! 

Sue Myers preferred the days of the week down the left side.  We heart Sue so I reformatted it in a different view in case your brain thinks vertical rather than horizontal. Download Coach_Plans_Week_on_Left

Other items that may be helpful for your Coach Conferring Notebook:

SKPS Strategic Direction 09-10

District Literacy Model

Literacy Model Definitions (condensed for a two page printing) ... I'm looking for them - they are on a different computer than this one! :)

Department Quicklist

School Quicklist

District Calendar

Reading Level Comparison Chart

CAFE files (obtain from your Cafe Book or The Daily Cafe or Choice Literacy)

Are you grant shopping too?

Turning Cache into Cash

Typing “education grants” into Google yields well over a million hits. But never fear. We've compiled some helpful sites for education grants or tips on landing them.

http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0711/%E2%80%9Dhttp://www.neafoundation.org/grants.htm
NEA annually awards about$2.3 million in grants. Get deadlines and sample grant packages here.

http://e-grants.ed.gov/egHome.asp
The feds' site requires registration, but it's free and simple (we promise), and it includes a helpful, personalized system for tracking your application package.

http://www.fundsnetservices.com/searchresult.php?sbcat_id=6
A vast collection of links to public and corporate grants for education programs.

http://www.learningis4everyone.org/content/category/1/47/2/%E2%80%9D
A roundup of grants from such groups as Nickelodeon television network, Best Buy, and the U.S. Senate.

http://www.k12grants.org/newsletter.htm
A helpful resource for grant novices. The bimonthly e-newsletter is free.

Teacher Appreciation Day

So the Teacher Appreciation Days are coming - Sorry to put this up here but it is just time to get ready!!  And no one wants to miss free stuff!!  :) 

Office Depot S. Salem and Lancaster is on 8/22 9-11 am (Discounts for teachers the week prior)

OfficeMax 8/9 Receive a reusable shopping bag and anything you fit in the bag is 15% off plus a coupon for a printer purchase - No time listed so one may assume that it is at store opening 10-6

Staples in Keizer is on 8/22 9-12

50 Ways to Keep your Kid Reading this Summer

Check out www.gwynnespencer.com to find

"50 Ways to Keep Your Kids Reading All Summer."

SKPS updated their Strategic Plan for 09-10

Check out the new graphic for the 2009-2010 School Year!! :)

Word Count - A new way to look at high frequency words

So, we all know about the 500 most commonly used words.  We know that if students know those high frequency words they will be better, more fluent, more efficient readers! 

However, have you ever wondered how frequent the word "sheep" is?  Or what about a silly little word like "boo."  If you go to www.wordcount.org you can type in a word and find how frequent it is in the English Language. 

By the way...  Boo is less frequent than the word integer but more frequent than the word antiquities, tentacles, notional, eyesight or artefact! Aren't you glad I asked??

Mosaic of Thought Links

Teaching Tools
Teaching Reading Comprehension
Planning ideas using Mosaic of Thought thoughts

Mosaic of Thought Email Group - In case you need more email??  These will be worth reading!!

Don't forget about Read, Write, Think!!  Great ideas to extend reading, comprehension and thinking

Fun 2 Teach and Learn

http://fun2teachandlearn.googlepages.com/literacy&language

MiddleWeb Reading - Writing Workshop Project

MiddleWeb Reading/Writing Workshop Project
Downloads and Resources Page

The Conferring Notebook ~ aka the Pensive

The Sisters have a little video clip on their Cafe website that explains the conferring notebook.  The most important part is to find one that is PRETTY!!  I like that part.  Here is what they say in their introductory paragraph:

"One thing our colleagues are most curious about is our conferring notebook, or as we have nicknamed it, our Pensive. This tool holds all of our most important thoughts and notes as we work with our children via whole group, small group and one-on-one conferring." http://www.thedailycafe.com/members/277.cfm This website requires a subscription.

CAFE - Joan takes you on a tour of the Pensive, or Conferring Notebook (VIDEO)

Gail takes you on a tour of the Pensive for Coach Conferring Notebook (VIDEO)

Steven Barkley at 2009 GA Master Teacher Website

Steve Barkley shared a video with the Collegial Coaching team today.  You can see it at the Georgia Master Teacher website and their recent conference.  http://www.gamasterteachers.org/2009/2009_St_Simons.aspx

These belong to Steven and this website provides these videos as downloadable. 

Take a look! :) 

Boo