May 21, 2015

Welcome to the Speas Global Elementary Blog!

All staff members, let's make sure we are teaching, reteaching, and teaching again the procedures in the common areas (Hallway, Cafeteria, Bathrooms, Playground, Bus).  We should be giving out lots of Bee's for students demonstrating the basic expectations.  It is a good idea to review the procedures before you leave one area to travel to another area.  

Our Mission: It is the mission of Speas Elementary School to provide its students with the tools necessary to successfully meet the challenges they will face in a diverse world.

Goals:

To increase English Language Arts achievement by 10%
To increase Mathematics achievement by 10%
To increase Science Achievement by 10%

Check out this graphic about global education.  The things above water are just the tip of the iceberg.   Try to go deeper in your instruction and touch some of the issues below the surface.

ISS
Specialists will begin holding ISS in their respective areas on their assigned days.  The schedule is below.  Teachers, specialists may be contacting you for work for students assigned to ISS.  Please get them work as soon as possible.   

Day	Teacher	Location
A	Arora	Room 213
B	Bowen	Music
C	King	Art
D	Childers/McMasters	Media/CL
E	Lindquist	Gym

Teachers: Having Trouble with Defiant Students?  Have you tried these strategies?

http://www.interventioncentral.org/behavioral-interventions/challenging-students/school-wide-strategies-managing-defiance-non-complianc

Our jobs may get hectic as we try to close out the year strong.   Here are some things to remember about what we may call disrespect or defiant behavior:

cont.

ÒPhysical activity can increase the production of new brain cells, a process highly correlated with learning, mood and memory.

ÒPlaying chess can increase students’ capabilities in reading and math by increasing attention, motivation, processing, and sequencing skills.

ÒThe arts can improve attention, sequencing, processing, and cognitive skills

ÒCompleting tasks administered by computer-aided instructional programs that have subjects identify, count, and remember objects and hold those objects’ locations in their working memories can increase attention and improve working memory within several weeks, even generalizing to improve performance on other memory tasks and an unrelated reasoning task.  Music is a good example of a skill builder that can significantly improve students’ academic operating systems.  Music training enhances self-discipline, wide brain function and verbal memory.

One key study  examined an intervention that developed the practical intelligence (intelligence that is directly actionable in everyday life) of middle school students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds attending diverse types of schools and found that it boosted achievement.  Students who develop practical intelligence are able to self assess and self-correct during the learning process, instead of afterward.  Teachers in the study were trained to deliver a program emphasizing five sources of metacognitive awareness: knowing why, knowing self, knowing differences, knowing process and revisiting

ÒThe thinking skills teachers taught enhance students’ practical and academic abilities in each of the target skill areas (reading, writing, homework, and test taking).  

Announcements:

PBIS Skating today.

Test training today.

***For all technology issues, please follow these steps in order to submit a SchoolDude ticket. Mr. McMasters will receive this ticket and be able to work on resolving the issue as quickly as possible. Tickets take priority so please enter a ticket for the technology issue that you have. If you have any questions on how to do this, please see Mr. McMasters. Thank you!

To submit a ticket…on either the WSFCS homepage or the Speas homepage, click on “User Options” in the top right of the screen --> “SCHOOL DUDE requests --> Click “IT request” tab --> fill out request and click submit. ***

We have a Speas Symbaloo page.

http://www.symbaloo.com/home/mix/13eOcMEZPT#

email: djjohnson@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
pass: speasbees2014

Please email us with your favorite educator sites so we can create a huge selection of online resources.  

All staff members, let's make sure we are teaching, reteaching, and teaching again the procedures in the common areas (Hallway, Cafeteria, Bathrooms, Playground, Bus).  We should be giving out lots of Bee's for students demonstrating the basic expectations.  It is a good idea to review the procedures before you leave one area to travel to another area.  

SMOD Tickets (dress code violations) are located in the workroom.  Please keep the bottom portion for your own records as a way to keep track of the number of violations.  The continuum is as follows:

1st offense: verbal warning, and letter will be sent home to be signed.  Parent or guardian notified of violation
2nd offense: Teacher notifies parent or guardian and student is removed from class until proper SMOD is delivered.

(Teachers, we all should be enforcing this, it will only work if we all enforce it).

Calendar

5.21	6	D	X		Skating Trip
5.22	1	E	X		1st Grade NC  Zoo 8:00-2:00 PM; Ready EOG window opens; TRC window closes; all classroom displays to be taken down for EOG; Skating Trip
5.25	2	A	X
5.26	3	B	X
5.27					EOG ELA
5.28					EOG Math; 3,4,5 teachers stay afterschool for bubble party
5.29					EOG Makeups
6.1					EOG Sci 5
6.2					EOG Sci 5
6.3					EOG Makeups
6.4					RTA/EOG Makeups; 3rd grade teachers afterschool for bubble party
6.5
6.8
6.9
6.10					3rd grade teachers stay after to edit answer sheets
6.11
6.12

Holidays Around the World

Thursday	May 21	Navy Day	Chile
Thursday	May 21	Independence Day	Montenegro
Thursday	May 21	Orthodox Ascension Day	Romania

Today in World History

May 21

996		Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor.
1471		King Henry VI is killed in the Tower of London. Edward IV takes the throne.
1506		Christopher Columbus dies.
1536		The Reformation is officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.
1620		Present-day Martha's Vineyard is first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
1790		Paris is divided into 48 zones.
1832		The Democratic party holds its first national convention.
1856		Lawrence, Kansas is captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
1863		The siege of the Confederate Port Hudson, Louisiana, begins.
1881		The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.
1927		Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris completing the first solo air crossing of the Atlantic.
1940		British forces attack German General Rommel's 7th Panzer Division at Arras, slowing his blitzkrieg of France.
1941		The first U.S. ship, the S.S. Robin Moor, is sunk by a U-boat.
1951		The U.S. Eighth Army counterattacks to drive the Communist Chinese and North Koreans out of South Korea.
1961		Governor Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
1970		The U.S. National Guard mobilizes to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.
1991		In Madras, India, a suicide bomber kills the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.
Born on May 21
427BC		Plato, Greek philosopher.
1527		Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal.
1844		Henri Rousseau, French painter.
1856		Grace Hoadley Dodge, philanthropist, helped organize the YWCA.
1860		Willem Einthoven, physiologist, inventor of the electrocardiogram.
1867		Frances Densmore, ethnomusicologist.
1878		Glenn Hammond Curtiss, aviation pioneer.
1898		Armand Hammer, American entrepeneur and industrialist.
1902		Marcel Breuer, Hungarian-born architect.
1909		Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, artist.
1917		Raymond Burr, actor (Perry Mason).
1921		Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist.
1926		Robert Creeley, poet.
1944		Mary Bourke Robinson, first woman president of Ireland (1990-1997).