Green Valley MS- Home of the Vikings!: April 2018

Thursday, April 26, 2018

April 26, 2018

Image result for over coming least effort

As we get to the end of the school year, it can be a HUGE task to keep our (any, for that matter) students engaged! How do we do this?? How do we overcome the principle of least effort? Smile? Beg? Plead? Let's ENGAGE! Click HERE to learn 7 ways to integrate high-intensity in-class activities to keep YOU and YOUR students engaged as we get closer and closer to the end of the year!

I couldn't help but share this cute video about testing! Please feel free to play it with your classes (BEFORE TESTING WEEKS!) so that we can continue to encourage our students to do their best!

To continue the discussion of our visits, we wanted to share some data that shows where we go. Sometimes, we don't leave feedback. This can be due to testing, independent work time, or just bad timing. Doesn't mean we won't come back as it truly is our FAVORITE thing to do! We LOVE being in classrooms to support our teachers, learn with our kids, and give feedback for professional growth!

Here is the graph of the grade levels we have gone to (as of Wed 4/25 at 3:40):

$Forms response chart. Question title: Grade Level. Number of responses: 280 responses.$

If anyone wants to see more of each of the data sets, we are happy to pull them up! Just let us know!

HERE ARE SOME OF THE SHOTS FROM TWITTER AND AROUND OUR CAMPUS THIS WEEK! SEND US A TEXT TO COME VISIT AS WE LOVE IT!

SUPER HERO SHOUT OUTS! KEEP THEM COMING! We love the "I Noticed..." and will add as many as we can!

Click HERE to add! (226)

SUPER awesome shout out to Brenda for getting the lunch on Wednesday! YUM!

SUPER awesome shout out to Sharon for jumping right into Morace's class and taking over for Julia!

SUPER awesome shout out to Love and DeVries for bringing snacks to tutorial voting! ~Tamia

SUPER awesome shout out to our campus monitors always supporting us on the 2nd floor! ~Carol

SUPER awesome shout out to Christen for all she does for the SPED SQUAD! You Rock! ~Tamia

SUPER awesome shout out to Fulton and DeVries with the work on Tutorial! You are both super stars! ~Tamia

SUPER awesome shout out to Carla for always being calm in every situation!

SUPER awesome shout out to Bates, Booker, DeVries, Hafich, Kinder, Love, Layne, McKenna, Nitto, Patterson, Peckham, Peila, Perriatt, Phillips, Rice, Russell, Schwazbach, Teague, Toll, Wheeler, Reimer, Rosa, and Admin for writing 275 Good News Referrals for April!

Friday, April 20, 2018

April 20, 2018

Of course, there are multiple videos and articles covering social and emotional supports for students and why it's so important. We NEED to use these strategies and supports in our classrooms. Why is this important? Why should you care? Check out this article on WHY you should care. Additionally, besides the obvious, social emotional supports help engage students and improve achievement. How can we teach that in class? Take a look at this easy read article HERE to take some time in your classroom to help teach and promote empathy and emotional supports.

As we move to integrating more and more technology and going 1:1 in our classrooms, we MUST realize that there are HUGE positives to this, as well as, HUGE challenges that come with technology use. How do we, as a whole staff, teach our students to integrate technology into their work and their learning while also making sure that they're focused and on task to complete their work? That question is straight from THIS ARTICLE which helps teachers help students stay focused AND multitask, teach them self-management, AND engage families to give them support with this at home too!

There has been some misconception regarding the classroom visits that Christine and I do. We split the campus between upstairs and downstairs and do our VERY best to get to everyone. Sometimes, there isn't an opportunity to send you feedback electronically. Sometimes, there is. We try to take pics every time we are in there to post on Twitter/Facebook as well to show off the awesome things happening in our classrooms. Sometimes, our impacted schedule does not allow us to get to everyone. It is COMPLETELY random where we go when we are upstairs or downstairs. And, quite frankly, we get LOTS of emails and texts for invites into classrooms. PLEASE keep those coming! WE LOVE being specifically asked to come see something! LOVE IT! If you want to see where we go and how often, come see us! We love to share and be transparent!

That also being said, there is a movement called Shadow a Student! It's super cool to have adults come and shadow our kids! Kristen Witt has already posted that she is going to here, FHS, RHS and AHS, so I am certain other community members, board members, and parents will want to as well! I have a feeling we will be a popular visit! YAY!

HERE ARE SOME OF THE SHOTS FROM TWITTER AND AROUND OUR CAMPUS THIS WEEK! SEND US A TEXT TO COME VISIT AS WE LOVE IT!

SUPER HERO SHOUT OUTS! KEEP THEM COMING! We love the "I Noticed..." and will add as many as we can!

Click HERE to add! (219)

SUPER awesome shout out for an AH-MAZING collaboration day in 6th grade! VERY excited to see the team work to make the dream work!

SUPER awesome shout out and thank you to our admin professionals in our front office! Thanks for keeping the front office afloat!

SUPER awesome shout out to Megan for jumping in and becoming part of our English Team! ~Heather T.

SUPER awesome shout out to English for always supporting me! ~Megan

SUPER awesome shout out to PE for reviewing behavior and being nice to others with our students!

SUPER awesome shout out to Bates, Booker, DeVries, Hafich, Kinder, Love, Layne, McKenna, Nitto, Patterson, Peckham, Peila, Perriatt, Phillips, Rice, Russell, Schwazbach, Teague, Toll, Wheeler, Reimer, Rosa, and Admin for writing 147 Good News Referrals for April!

Thursday, April 12, 2018

April 13, 2018

As spring is upon us, it is a great time to remind everyone what we want on our campus: a collaborative, supportive, encouraging environment that has a positive impact on our staff, students and our families. In other words, we WANT/NEED/MUST HAVE a healthy school culture! As we get closer and closer to the end of the school year, we MUST stay focused on a healthy school culture for ALL on our campus. How can we, our GVMS staff, make small shifts to remind and remember that this is what we NEED? I realize that we are ALL going through something. We are ALL tired or stressed or or or....Check out 12 easy ways to continue having our healthy school culture HERE and let's work to build each other UP!!!

How do we #finishstrong?!?! I know we are tired. I know we are stressed. I know there is a lot of pressure. I know we ALL have things going on outside of GVMS. I also know that we are here, with each other (and awake usually), more than we are with our families. So, again, HOW do we FINISH STRONG and encourage others to do the same?? Well, I think the pic above nails it. Mic drop. Keep Moving. Plan for success. COLLABORATE. Grow as an educator. Evaluate your goals and ask for feedback. CELEBRATE CELEBRATE CELEBRATE!

Digital Citizenship is something that seems to have been forgotten on our campus. While all of our students participated in these lessons in their English class, it would be a great time to remind them of the impact of their behavior online. Please feel free to stress it with them

HERE ARE SOME OF THE SHOTS FROM TWITTER AND AROUND OUR CAMPUS THIS WEEK! SEND US A TEXT TO COME VISIT AS WE LOVE IT!

SUPER HERO SHOUT OUTS! KEEP THEM COMING! We love the "I Noticed..." and will add as many as we can!

Click HERE to add! (219)

SUPER awesome shout out to OUR STAFF for their reduction in paper costs! Check this out: 2015/2016 $5112.00, 2016/2017 $3565.00, 2017/2018 $2794.00 for a total reduction of $2318.00! AMAZING!! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!!

SUPER awesome shout out to our English Dept for working together to support one another! ~Heather T.

SUPER awesome shout out to 6th grade team for welcoming Karron, our new team member, to GVMS!

SUPER awesome shout out to Cristina, Dave F., and Tamia for all of your hard work with our tutorial plan! ~Kristy

SUPER awesome shout out to Brenda for always smiling when I come in your office and dropping everything to help me! It smells so good too! ~Kristy

SUPER awesome shout out to Lynn for taking time out of her day to help me with my Donor's Choose! ~Carol

SUPER awesome shout out to Sarj and Dave F. for helping in 6th with Morace's class! ~Brenda and KC/CL

SUPER awesome shout out to OUR TEACHERS for covering classes when there are no subs! Thank you! ~Brenda

SUPER awesome shout out to Bates, Booker, Hafich, Kinder, Love, Layne, McKenna, Nitto, Peckham, Peila, Perriatt, Phillips, Russell, Schwazbach, Teague, Wheeler, Reimer, and Admin for writing 73 Good News Referrals for April!

Friday, April 6, 2018

April 6, 2018

One of our VERY favorite things to do each day is be in classrooms. Quite frankly, when we aren't, we get a little depressed. We love a classroom where students are sharing what they are learning (not what their weekend plans are or what they just saw on SnapChat), we love them demonstrating their learning, and we love when our staff is engaged with them. Going into a quiet classroom, with the teacher behind a desk and no interaction going on is not our thing. Why is engagement so important? We have also said is MULTIPLE times: high engagement yields high learning and low behavior issues. Don't believe us? Check out THIS ARTICLE on ways to increase engagement and the research behind it. Yes, another article proving it =)

We are having a MAJOR issue with students using Google Hangouts in class and sharing TOTALLY inappropriate content with one another. Unfortunately, we cannot block it from GVMS without blocking it from the entire district. Please make sure that you are checking what "tabs" that our students have up when using our computers!

HERE ARE SOME OF THE SHOTS FROM TWITTER AND AROUND OUR CAMPUS THIS WEEK! SEND US A TEXT TO COME VISIT AS WE LOVE IT!