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

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

December 20, 2018

Happy holidays GVMS Super Heroes

2018 has been a heck of a year....This is my first Christmas without my mom and I keep looking for her at cheer competitions, my birthday, Thanksgiving, family pictures, and water polo tournaments. Any of you who have lost a parent or loved one must know what I am going through and I appreciate your patience with me. I know that I can jump to want to fix things (not necessarily a good thing and I need to stop and reflect!), where taking a minute to evaluate the situation would benefit all involved. I know it will get easier, as time goes on, and I appreciate the patience, kind words, hugs, and smiles. I really try to put on a brave front most of the time... =)

~Kristen

We have had so many challenges this school year so far (behavior of previous students, new student behavior, new curriculum, and more) and you all have so incredibly worked hard to maintain smiles, positive notes, happiness and more! We know that you are looking forward to a bit of a break to rest and rejuvenate!

We truly wish you the best for the holidays and hope they are filled with love, laughter, and light. We all have "stuff" going on outside of GVMS and, yet, you all come here to be here for our kids.

Surround yourself with people who make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you're in need. People who make your day brighter and better. People who genuinely care about you this holiday season!

When we return, Rick Vacarro will be sub AP for Christine for the first two weeks. For the remaining time, Angie McKinsey will be here for Christine. Angie is looking forward to getting back into the swing of Admin as she was previously an FSUSD Admin. Please help me in making her feel welcome and answering questions that she may have regarding the way we work at GVMS!

We know it's been a stressful (trust me, we know!) and there may be more along the way. We encourage you to take a break, enjoy family, don't check email unless you are just DYING to do so, take care of yourself, and come back ready to focus on ALL THINGS POSITIVE and about our kids.

Much love,

Kristen and Christine

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

December 14, 2018

Focus on Good, no GREAT, First Instruction!

We continue to focus on GOOD, if not GREAT, first instruction. Asking a large number of questions and checking the responses of all students is something all teachers should be doing daily. When we stop talking "AT" students, we get them to reflect on their own learning and process the information at their level. From this, and having ALL students participate in academic conversations determines whether or not the class is ready to move on, needs to work in small group, or you must reteach the concept to the entire class.

How can this be done, you ask? In addition to the academic conversation cards that we have and can continue to laminate to tape on desks or student binders, here are some other suggestions to use:

Structured academic conversation: Put sentence stems on board for each partner
Summarizing and sharing out: whole class, neighbors, or just to teacher
Use Google Survey as a quiz
Use those whiteboards!! Have them complete a quick write question, formative assessment, or an exit ticket! SO EASY!
Use Padlet.com or post it notes to review quickly. Again, SO EASY!

While this is happening in the majority of classes at GVMS, it IS still happening. It the classrooms where we see the discipline issues, the failing grades, and boredom. Check out the Student Advisory Council Board Meeting. Out of the mouths of babes and, yes, one of those students is a Viking.

Any of you that have had the chance to read John Hattie and his High Impact Strategies for Teachers, you know that he focuses on student achievement and the high impact teachers have on students' learning. We recently went to a training and reviewed the 6 areas that contribute to learning (student, home, school, curriculum, teacher, and learning approaches) as well as his updated list of 150 effects of visible learning. Take a look HERE at the 252 influences of related to student achievement. Any guess on what the most influential one is? Yep. Teacher efficacy. Read it. It's worth your time.

Image result for ca dashboard indicators

I know I sent the link to the CA Dashboard to have you all review, on your own time, where GVMS stands in regards to ELA scores, Math scores, Suspensions, and Attendance. We reviewed this, again, in great detail on Monday. Take a minute to really look at our data. What is it telling us? What area should we be focusing in on? Do we need to refocus our overall goals?

We will be reviewing this data, more in depth, at our faculty meeting on January 8, when we return from break. This will be guiding our focus for the remaining part of the school year!

SUPER HERO SHOUT OUTS!

(181)

SUPER awesome shout out to Brenda for answering all of my "new staff member" questions without rolling her eyes (at least not in front of me!) ~Karron

SUPER awesome shout out to Nate for coming to the rescue in P1! ~KC &CL

SUPER awesome shout out to English Department for an awesome Collab Day! Best Department Ever! ~Heather T. =)

SUPER awesome shout out to Tamia for working so hard with our 6th graders! ~Cristina

SUPER awesome shout out to Marlys for all of your help everyday in 1st period! ~Cristina

SUPER awesome shout out to Cristina for putting together the slides for Creating a Culture of Kindness for the 6th grade team! ~Ryan

SUPER awesome shout out to Ms. Kristy and Jason for coming to my rescue more often than not in the parking lot! ~KC

SUPER awesome shout out to PE DEPT for always being willing to help supervise before and after school! ~KC&CL

Thursday, December 6, 2018

December 7, 2018

Focus on Good First Instruction

Presenting new material in small steps with student practice after each step is a researched based learning strategy that we should be incorporating into instruction daily. No one, including our students, likes to sit through a meeting or a training being "TALKED AT" the entire time. As we think about engaging our students, we want to present new material in chunks and give students practice (HANDS ON, something to DO!!) after each chunk or standard. Using a timer and the 10:2 (10 minutes OR LESS of instruction: 2 minutes of processing) method you can make sure that you are chunking the instruction. This is just one simple idea and there are TONS more!

DID YOU KNOW? Over 50% of students in school are disengaged. Until we are at 100%, we will CONTINUE this conversation as high levels of engagement directly link to higher achievement, lower off task behavior, and all around happier students! Check out THIS LINK to read about the statistics, what we can do about it, and the impact it can have!

WOULD YOU WANT TO BE A STUDENT IN YOUR CLASS???

IF YOUR STUDENTS DIDN'T HAVE TO BE IN YOUR CLASS, WOULD THEY SHOW UP ANYWAY??

With the holidays fast approaching, it can be a more stressful time than any other time of the year. So how do we, as educators, keep our students focused on the positive so that it can only encourage us as well? Take a look at THIS ARTICLE for an easy read on easy ideas such as being a "cheerleader", focusing on emotional needs of students instead of standards first, and more!