MM 4/17/17

MICHAEL'S MEMO 4/17/17

Good morning staff, I hope that everyone enjoyed their weekend. As we enter the stretch term for our year, please remember the importance of maximizing our instructional time. We are charging towards the next year and cannot afford to waste the valuable time we have with our students.

Learning  Focus
Please review the anchor standards in each of your instructional areas and pay close attention to the assessment schedule for all of our grade levels. In the elementary levels, please review the information listed below:
ELA:

Sticky Standards
Week of April 17
K U9W1
Reviewing RL.1.3. Student tasks should reflect identification of characters, setting, and major (as opposed to minor) events. It is fine to expose our kindergarteners to sequence, cause and effect, and problem-solution with organizers or questioning, but in the context of how authors use them to tell major events, not as isolated skills. Students do not need to be able to identify those relationships to show mastery of this standard. Reading Wonders focuses on sequence this week. Recognizing major story events at the beginning-middle-end would be sufficient for K.

1st U5W3Reviewing RI.1.3 connections in informational text. Reading Wonders focuses on problem-solution, but there should be discussion about how the author connects information to show other relationships between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information.

2nd U5W3
Reviewing RI.1.3 connections in informational text. Reading Wonders focuses on sequence this week but there should be discussion about how the author connects information to show relationships between historical events, scientific concepts, or steps in procedures. Students should recognize that biographies usually tell the story of someone’s life chronologically. But they also often include cause and effect or problem-solution relationships to explain why and how one event led to another in the person’s life.


MATH:
I have attached a white paper on the importance of mathematical discourse and I know you all are swamped. Just sharing as we finish out the school year as thoughts about starting stronger in math next year with a focus on student talk during math.

SCIENCE:
Please continue to stay the course for strong science instruction. Ensure that all of the third and fourth grade teachers deliver instruction for  all of the science benchmarks  prior to the end of the year.

 Behavior Focus

Thank you for your diligence in monitoring students during transitioning for middle school, and attending your duty positions before and after school. Please continue to monitor students behavior within the classroom, Students should be in uniform and electronic devices should be away, unless you have an activity that YOU have given them permission to utilize the devices in YOUR class. 

Calendar
All County Guitar Concert     4/17/17  7:30 p.m. @ WH Theatre
A/B Honor Roll Activities     4/18/17
Track Meet @ Dennison Stadium     4/18/17     6:30 p.m.

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