2/1-2/5

Thank you to Michele for taking a picture of all the money 

that we collected for Haiti before it left our school.

Hi Elementary Faculty,

This week I thought I would start with the quote instead of ending with it. This came from the wrapper of a piece of dove chocolate:

"Don't go where the road leads, rather go where there is no road and make a trail."

It seems like a very timely quote with all the things that we are working on in our learning community time.

Here is our week:

Monday:

• Trailblazers meet with the new design firm at 1:00pm

Wednesday

• 2nd grade Wacky Wednesday

• Kagan training 3-4:30pm
  

Thursday:

• Elementary Lead team meets after school 3-4:30pm

Friday:

• Gainesville chamber orchestra assembly at 9:00am. It will be about 30 minutes and seating charts will be in your boxes by Thursday. 

• Report cards go home
  

Coming Soon/Announcements:

• Please remember that when parents come early to pick up their children that they must have the check out slip from the attendance office. Even if they are in a hurry they must sign their child out before leaving campus.

• 2/9 FCAT writes 4th grade, learning community leader meeting after school and PKYPTO 5:30pm

• 2/10 Learning community meeting 1:15-4:30pm

• 2/12 No School

Celebrations:

• Happy Birthday Ashley Pennypacker Hill 1/31 and Greg Cunningham 2/6 (7th grade language arts)!!!

See you in your rooms,

Amy

1/25-1/29

Pennies for Haiti continues until the end of this week. 4th grade is having a contest to see which class will bring in the most$$$-judging from this picture it looks like Ms.A is in the lead!

Hi Everyone,

Here is our week:

Monday:

• No School-flex day

Tuesday:

• 3-5 SST meetings

• 3:00-3:30pm elementary lead team meeting to discuss Wednesday meeting's focus- this meeting is open to everyone feel free to attend.

• 3:30-4:30 Elementary trail blazers meeting (Lindsey, Adam, Cary)

Wednesday

• 1-5 grade science units need to be in to me-thanks to Bill and Brynn for getting them to me so fast-you rock!

• 1:15-4:30 Learning community meeting/Rose Pringle will also come and talk about her science class.

Friday:

• k-2 SST
  

Coming Soon/Announcements:

• 2/3 Kagan 3-4:30

• 2/4 lead team 3-4:30pm

• 2/5 Gainesville chamber orchestra performance time TBA

Celebrations:

• Happy Birthday Mickey MacDonald 1/29 (10th grade Science)!!!

• Hot Diggity Dawg for the kindergarten team and teaching assistants for coordinating our "Pennies for Haiti" efforts!

• Hooray for us for continuing to grow and learn together. I am very excited (and nervous) about our learning community work this spring and hope you are too!

"The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind."

Maya Angelou

See you in your rooms,

Amy

Week of 1/19-1/22

We read in Music!

Hello Wonderful Elementary Faculty!

Thank you for a wonderful meeting last Wednesday. You are a wonderful bunch of talented and fun people to work with. 

As we continue to move at a rapid pace into being the developmental researchers of the new model of education I know that there will be some discomfort on all of our parts. 

I encourage/ challenge all of you to read the Global Achievement Gap and Disrupting Class before school starts next year. These two books have opened my eyes to the rapid changes that are upon us and why we must continue to move fast into the world of technology and student centric learning.

These books also provide some of the solutions for how to make the shift in practice happen.

Here is what we are up to this week:

Tuesday:

• 5:30 SAC mtg (Learning community leaders are responsible for sending Macy reports for their learning communities)

Wednesday:

• 4th grade Wacky Wednesday

• 1:15-4:30pm Curriculum meeting and Learning community meeting time
  

Friday:

• All CBM data is due to Marisa-please please get her your data on time. It helps her get it ready for you and our SST meetings.

• End of first semester

Coming Soon/Announcements:

• 1/25 Flex day no school

• 1/26 3-5th SST meetings

• 1/27 curriculum/learning community meeting

• 1/29 K-2 SST

Celebrations:

• 4th/5th grade deserve some kudos for working together on their project based learning 20th century unit

• Happy Birthday to John Bourn 1/23 (11th grade social studies)!!!

"I'm not a futurist. I only describe the present to the 98% of people who are not there yet."

-Richard Thieme, technology expert

See you in your rooms,

Amy

Week of 1/11-1/15

Hi Elementary Faculty,

Brrrr.....Hope this cold weather is over sooner rather than later!

Here is what s going on this week and beyond:

Monday:

• FAIR testing begins

• Chik fil A night
  

• Everyday Math preview Norman Hall (see Kristin's email)

Tuesday:

• 5:30 PKYPTO

Wednesday:

• 1:10-4:30 K-5 faculty meeting that rolls into our learning community meetings

Friday:

• No school flex day :)

Coming Soon/Announcements:

• Wednesday meeting structure change: Lead team members have been bringing feedback to our meetings that ranges from a lot of "we are meeting too many days after school" to "What does a true learning community look like?" To be able to tackle these types of dilemmas we decided to try rolling our curriculum PD meetings into our learning community meetings this spring. This means that we will not have individual LC meetings after school on various days but rather have them all on Wednesdays until 4:30pm. We will pass out a schedule at next week's meeting.

• 1/18 MLK holiday no school

• 1/19 SAC 

• 1/20 Wednesday meeting format K-5 faculty meeting (focus on whole division work IPDPs, how we determine below vs. above grade level work etc.) Learning community meeting (focus Why learning communities/why now?)

• 1/26 3-5 SST and 1/29 K-2 SST

Celebrations:

• Happy Birthday to: Marta Pollitt 1/12 (front office)

" The miracle is this-the more we share the more we have."

Leonard Nimoy

See you in your rooms,

Amy