Surfing

Teachers,

Sorry, I thought this went out Thursday Night. Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

Surfing—

We were sitting on the beach watching the birds and the waves roll in and out. Then I started watching the surfers. It was about 4:30 when they started making their way to the waves. It looked like some high school students, some college students, and a few that had their brothers or dads drive them. What I noticed is how they grouped up and worked with each other as they each took turns catching their waves. There was a respect and a way of sharing the waves as they worked on their craft. When two would go at the same time, one would bow out and wait for another wave. They took turns. The younger took almost twice as many as the older surfers. Was that on purpose or were they just taking every chance they could and the older surfers let them at it. As I sat there I thought about how learning would be if students used this same kind of idea. Helping each other. Cooperating with each other. Letting those that need a little extra help get the extra help or helping them out to bring them up to the level of everyone else. How can we teach students about how the group together can move further than one on their own. The ideas and support can bring everyone to the level they need to be and they will learn more about how the world should work than trying to do it on their own. We should not work alone. The ideas we can put together as a team or group will take us further than we could ever do by ourselves.

Quote I’m pondering —

Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea. -- Mikhail Lermontov

What’s Happening This Week —

Mon., Sept. 23 - Short Day. Out at 12:15. Training Day.

Mon., Sept. 23 - Start with Hello Week

Wed., Oct. 3 - Picture Day

Wed., Oct. 3 - Storytelling Festival - Please promote this.

October - Fall Break, Dance Festival, Halloween

Favorite App This Week —

Bouncy Balls

This was something I was looking at to curb sound in the lunchroom. It is an app that listens to sound and the balls bounce. If you use something like this, use it sparingly. The sound sensitivity can be changed. It was just fun to play with.

A Big Thank You —

Thank you for all your preparations and work you put into literacy night. The karaoke was a big hit. The parents I talked with enjoyed the presentations by the teachers and felt what they were shown could be used at home to help their students. We appreciate the time you put in for our students. Nights like literacy night are so important for us to get to know and help our parents. I appreciate what you put together to help the ones that came. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work.

PBIS

Teachers,

Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

PBIS—

We will be having our PBIS rotations on Tuesday morning. We will start with a short assembly at 8:40 welcoming everyone back and introducing PBIS to the students. Each rotation is 10 minutes with a 5 minute movement time in between. Two teachers per grade level will be teaching and the other(s) will be walking with your students. We will have Paras walk with some of the classes also. You should end up at the end with your grade level to take to your classrooms. I have a poster of each teaching area for you to use.

Teacher Stations: (Please keep your presentations to 10 minutes for rotations) Touch on Respect, Responsibility, Resourceful, Safe, and United in each area using the posters.

  Lunchroom Rules (near kitchen and entrance to lunchroom): Farnsworth, Carreon

Playground Rules (outside by the basketball court): Cruz, Paystrup

Hallways (by 2nd/3rd grade classrooms): J. Gonzalez, M. Gonzalez

Bathrooms (center bathrooms across from Science Lab): Welch, Andersen

Drop Off/Pick Up Rules (by School Entrance): Hicks, Olsen

9:00 -

1st Grade - DropOff/Pick Up

2nd Grade - Lunchroom

3rd Grade- Playground

4th Grade- Hallway

5th Grade- Bathrooms

9:15 -

1st Grade - Bathrooms

2nd Grade - DropOff/Pick Up

3rd Grade- Lunchroom

4th Grade- Playground

5th Grade- Hallway

9:30 -

1st Grade - Hallway

2nd Grade - Bathrooms

3rd Grade- DropOff/Pick Up

4th Grade- Lunchroom

5th Grade- Playground

9:45-

1st Grade - Playground

2nd Grade - Hallway

3rd Grade- Bathrooms

4th Grade- DropOff/Pick Up

5th Grade- Lunchroom

10:00-

1st Grade - Lunchroom

2nd Grade - Playground

3rd Grade- Hallway

4th Grade- Bathrooms

5th Grade- DropOff/Pick Up

10:15-

Back to classes. Review what they learned and head to lunch as normal, or semi-normal on the second day back to school.

Quote I’m pondering —

To thrive in life you need 3 bones. A wishbone. A backbone. And a funny bone. 

—Reba McEntyre 

What’s Happening This Week —

Monday, Aug. 13 - School Starts 7:55am

Tuesday, Aug. 14 - PBIS Rotations

Friday, Aug 17 -  Kindergarten Open House, Fire Drill 1:00pm

Favorite Article This Week —

3 Reminders for the Beginning of the School Year

Three important ideas to remember as we start this year.

A Big Thank You —

Thank you for all your preparations and work you put into your classrooms and curriculum. Thank you for being at Dixie Sun. Thank you for taking our wonderful students and providing them with an opportunity to succeed. You have so much to offer our students. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work.

Checking In, Checking Out

Teachers,

Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

Checking In, Checking Out  —

One of the ideas Kim and I wanted to work on this year were student discipline issues we have seen at our school. We don’t have serious issue, but we have some that get under teachers skin and sometimes ends up that the teacher needs a time out, or that the student needs someone to talk with.One of the new ideas we have heard about and are putting into effect this year is the Check-in, Check-out program. We have started small and are adding a few more students here and there. Some of the students really have made serious improvements, and some we are still working with. Let me explain what it is and how it works.

A student comes to my office in the morning before school, or right after school starts. Kim or I sit with them and see how they are doing, getting a feeling of how their day might be, and give them a minute to tell me something they want to get out. It is a time for us to build a relationship with them and they have a chance to be listened to, one on one. Then we talk about the “Check In” sheet. There are four things we talk about, “Listening to the teacher”, “Being on task”, “Appropriate talk with others”, and “Completing their work”. They have a chance to get a 2 (amazing, but not perfect), a 1 (part to most of the time), or a 0 (less than part of the time or nothing) during the morning, afternoon, specials, and during clubs. They set a goal of how many 2’s they will get that day. It might be 1, it might be 10. Theory set the goal. They take the Check In Sheet to their first teacher and they go on with their day. At the end of the class the teacher circles the numbers, gives a short explanation why they got the numbers they did, signs the paper, and they take it to the next class. At the end of the day, they “Check Out” with Kim or I by coming to the office before school is over and sharing with us how their day went. We discuss the 0’sand 1’s and celebrate the 2’s. We make a plan about what they will do to get 2’s in class and we send them home. After we have talked with their parents about the Check In sheet, the note goes home for the parents to sign and the student brings it back the next day when they get in their new Check In sheet. This paper is not a punishment. Even when they get 0’s it is not a punishment, it is a way to find out why they are getting 0’s and 1’s in class. It also helps us with patterns in their behaviors. 

If they are sent to the office because of a serious behavior problem, there will be a punishment of some kind. I personally like picking up trash and cleaning up our school during lunch. Then I can talk with them while we are cleaning the school up.

What we need from teachers is consistency in asking for the papers, taking a minute to talk with the students and don’t just circle numbers and push them out the door. We also need you to make sure they get to the office either before school or right after the bell. Some students in the upper grades can be sent after iReady time also. And the hard part is making sure you get the papers each day in the afternoon and send them to the office before school ends. It gets crazy with snack and other distractions as school ends, so if they are sent before the bell rings we can get them all and send them home. You can even send them before Clubs if you like. Please help us with this. Right now we have about 7 students, but we are hoping to have a few more and give Check in sheets to other people in our school. This gives students someone to talk with for a minutes twice a day along with the attention you give them as a teacher.  Thank you for all you do. We hope this program will help change a few of the behaviors that can distract a class and make your classroom a wonderful learning environment with few intentional distractions. From students.

Quote I’m pondering —

“Stick your neck out…it’s a lot more fun than sitting at home and watching other people do it.” 

– Sir Richard Branson

Favorite Video This Week —

Step your Steps

The Fitbit challenge has come to this! Red Mountain sent this out to all the principals. Enjoy the humor about our Fitbit Challenge.

Favorite Article This Week —

Training teachers in phonics should be prioritised, says thinktank

Ya. We know. We see the gaps and are starting to fill them with PD and a great Phonics program. 

A Big Thank You —

Thank you First Grade. Thank you for taking the learning you have gotten and putting it into your classrooms the next day. Thank you fro working with your groups of students and never giving up on any of them. Working with the students that need a little extra and building them up and giving them a reason to learn. No stone unturned, no student left behind. Thank you for your passion. Thank you for your ideas. Thank you for telling us what you need to get to the next step. Thank you for all you do. You are appreciated. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.

It’s Time to Address Your Behavior

Teachers,

Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

It’s Time to Address Your Behavior  —

The district has been talking a lot about behavior the last month. Each of the trainings I have gone to have a piece about what they are doing to help support us int he schools when we have a behavior issue. So the questions that were asked of us today I will ask you. 

• Is there a foundational understanding across the building of what behaviors should look like? We did a PBIS training at the beginning of the year. How is that training being supported in the classroom? Are the lessons being taught in the PBIS videos being modeled and reviewed in the classroom? What can we do better?
• What are the gaps in the behavior system in our school? If you see gaps, please let us know. We want to improve anything that will help our students learn.
• What are the rules in our school and what are we doing to support those rules? Do you know the 5 PBIS rules? Do you know the cheer?
• Do kids know how to restore the relationship they have broken? The most important question I heard was this one. We tell them to say I’m Sorry, but does that repair the relationship? Will that make it better? Do they understand what they have done and how to repair the relationship?

So what we would like to do is know what we can do to support you? When are the bad behaviors happening? Is it during tradition time? During rotation time? When students line up? What is the catalyst? What procedure can be addressed to help students? One main idea Annette Brinkman taught me was that engagement helps curb bad behaviors and improves learning. Let us know your thoughts about managing problem behaviors in our school and your ideas to help improve them. 

Quote I’m pondering —

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.”

― Claude Lévi-Strauss

What I’m reading —

When Reading is Trash or Magic

How do our students feel about reading? Do we listen to why they do or do not like reading? How do we change or encourage those truths?  

Favorite Article This Week —

How to Improve Your Self-Esteem & Self-Image...The Postage Stamp Method

There are some great ideas to use with kids in this article. Also to use with yourself. You are one of a kind and no one else is like you. You are extraordinary and engineered for success. Yes, YOU are. 

A Big Thank You —

Thank you Shelly. Thank you for taking on the Cultural Night and organizing the food and information to parents. Thank you for taking on these projects that always end up being amazing. Thank you for taking charge of the Safety Patrol and getting them organized. I haver had parents comment about how smooth it is when dropping their students off in the morning and picking them up in the afternoon. The students are also more confident as they do their jobs. Thank you for your hard work. We also appreciate all the work you have put into the science lab. Adjusting to the new rotations and managing the science skills needed as we improve our science information. As you work with teams and build our science learning, just know that we appreciate your help. Thank you for always wanting to do more to help our school. We appreciate all you do. Thank you for being here. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.

PBIS Review 2017

Welcome to a new year at Dixie Sun Elementary. This video is a review of the Five pats that help guide our behavior at Dixie Sun.

At Dixie Sun we are... Responsible and Respectful.
We will be... Resourceful and Safe.
Dixie Sun is... United.

Live by these principles and we will live a great life.

PBIS Safety Video

This our fourth installment this year of the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Video series for Dixie Sun. In this video we discuss being safe at school. Safety at school is very important so students feel safe and secure at school. A few things we discuss are;

• Everybody needs to be happy.
• Don't wrestle at school
• No hitting
• No Play Fighting
• No Kissing
• No pushing and Kicking others
• No tackling
• Wait your turn on the slides
• Play fighting
• Do not call names cause we want others to feel happy
• Everyone wants to feel safe
• Emotions
• Emotions mean you are being moved
• Vocabulary lesson (emovere)
• Tell people how you feel
• I feel  ____ when you _____. Next time will you please _____. Thank you.
• You need to mean it when you are sorry. 
• I am sorry. I  _____. I was wrong because ______. The next time I will _____. Please forgive me.
• Everyone has a right to feel safe.

PBIS Being Respectful Video

This our next installment this year of the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Video series for Dixie Sun. In this video we discuss Being Respectful. We talk about how to be respectful at school. There is also a music video with a song written by Jay Porter that gives students a way to tell others to stop bugging them. A few things we discuss are;

• Make our school look good by keeping our school clean
• Show respect for all adults
• Show respect to Safety Patrol
• How to tell others to stop bugging you
• Tell others to stop! I don't like that
• Walk away if telling the, stop doesn't work
• Tell a teacher if they do not stop
• Stop! I don't like that Music Video
• Respect yourself
• Positive Attitude
• Tell yourself you can do hard things