Saturday, October 31, 2015

Happy Halloween!

I hope all of you are enjoying your Halloween weekend and don't forget to set your clocks to fall backward this weekend!  Love getting that extra hour of sleep!

Week of:  November 2nd-6th, 2015

Monday - JDRF Fun Walk/Run - Wear sweats

Tuesday -  Parent/Community Tours (AM and PM)

Spring Creek BBQ Night!
 
Wednesday -  Faculty Meeting - 3:15 - Library



Thursday - Have a Terrific Thursday!

Friday - Texan Town 

Pansy Planting (right after lunch times out front) 

Important Reminders and Updates
Parent Community Tours
Don't forget we have parent/community tours going on during the day on Tuesday!  They will start at 8:30am and then 1:00pm!  Your hallway presentations are looking great!  Thank you to everyone that has been focusing on displaying learner work and showing the learning process!

Spring Creek BBQ
Thank you so much for those of you who signed up to work on this evening!  Everyone who signed up will get three free sweats passes!  If you were not able to sign up and still would like to go up on Tuesday night for dinner and say hello to TCE families, you can get the two sweats passes!  

Pansy Planting
For our annual pansy planting on Friday, please make sure you have split your recess duty teachers up (one take kids to playground and the other go out front with the group who will be planting) and it would be great if another teacher might help for a few to get learners going with planting!   If it happens to rain, we will reschedule for another date!

Shout Outs! 
 Shout out to Kelly Spears for working with Student Council with our Red Ribbon Week days!

Shout out to everyone for a great TCE Potluck!  Such yummy treats were brought, thank you!

Shout out to those teams coming to PST/RTI meetings!  Everyone is doing a great job showing data and truly knowing your students!

Shout out to Kate Seifert and Sherri Kingsley for getting our Texan Town popcorn rolling smoothly!
  
 November Birthdays 
Katie Tonemah - 3rd
Marie Sork - 7th
Marina Chicas- 8th
Kristan Hruby - 24th
Laura Fairchild - 24th 
Renee Rohani - 25th
Kelly McShan - 28th

Resources for Global Classrooms


Click here to take you to resource!  Watch the video and read the article on creating global problem solvers! 


Final Quotes 
Thought these were some great quotes to reflect on as we continue working with our learners this fall semester!
 


 

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Forgot an Important Item!!

I had forgotten to add an exciting new addition to my blog!  Alicia Montgomery has been working on creating a Smore that she will update regularly with some cool library ideas and strategies for reading with your learners!  Check out the latest news about the library here!  Thank you Alicia for finding a great way to share ideas with TCE!

https://www.smore.com/m524t

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Rain, rain, rain!!

When the weatherman says rain, it really means rain. . .hopefully we won't get too much more!

Week of: October 26th-30th, 2015


  
 Red Ribbon Week All Week!
 

Monday - Wear jeans and Red shirt
Fire Safety Presentation (Clowns) K-2 - Cafeteria - 8:30am
TCE Potluck - Lounge (sign-up in Google Doc!)

Tuesday - Wear jeans and backwards shirts, etc.

TCE PTO Board Meeting 8:15am - C106
Rhythm Path Program - During Specials times (gym) 

Wednesday -  Wear jeans and favorite team attire (shirt/hat, etc.)


Thursday -  Wear jeans and wacky hairstyle
Kelly Out Counselor Meeting (AM)

Friday - Wear jeans and fun cap/hat

Texan Town
Report Cards Go Home
PST/RtI Meeting
JDRF Diabetes Service Learning Fun Walk/Run (all day)


Important Reminders and Updates

JDRF Donations for Service Learning
Make sure and donate if you can to our diabetes service learning project!  You can wear jeans all the week of November 2nd-6th if you donate $5!
Click here to donate!

Parent Community Tours
Don't forget we will be having our 1st parent/community tour on November 3rd! Please make sure that you are working on getting hallway presentations looking good for visitors and that your classrooms are freshened up or tidied if needed!  Some ideas will be to display your QR codes for student digital portfolios, parts of the engineering design process with items of student work in progress, anchor charts, pictures of learning, QR codes linking to student presentations of learning, etc. 

Shout Outs!
Shout out once again to Linda Cook for being our amazing trainer once again for Crucial Conversations! 

Shout out to our 2nd round of Crucial Conversations educators:  Katie Tonemah, Alicia Montgomery, Laura Fairchild, Marie Sork, Renee Rohani, Ashlin Bowman, Megan McGraw, KaTrina Brown!  Great job working on these skills during your training!  

Sue Kane for getting our JDRF Diabetes Service Learning Project up and running!  Can't wait to see how well we do raising our funds!  Remember if you would like to donate, you can do so online!  

Shout out to Cathy Wilson for once again having her Dyslexia Parent Information meetings to help support her learners and their families!  

Shout out to everyone who helped to participate in the Spirit Rally!  Such a fun time laughing and celebrating with our kiddos during these days!  

Shout out to Katy McKinney for hosting the TCE Social at her house!  We appreciate you and love being able to hang out with our TCE family outside of school!


October Birthday

Jenna Taylor - 25th
Engineer of the Week
Our engineer this week is:
Mary Kennington

Resources for Critical Thinking and Questioning








Final Quotes
It was so great to laugh with TCE family at the social on Friday!  Remember how important laughter is in your life and how much it can help you to let go of so many of those day to day stresses!  







Sunday, October 18, 2015

Finally. . .starting to feel like fall. . .it's about time!

Hope you are enjoying this amazing weather, since it finally has decided to cool off!  Looking forward to a fun and busy week at TCE!  We will be having a fire drill and a tornado drill this week as well, wasn't sure which day yet, so just keep that on your radar to know it is coming!
 
Week of: October 19th-23rd, 2015

 
Monday - Jeans Day (as a final treat to Lori V. for representing TCE!)

Kick off to Diabetes Service Learning - 8:30am (gym)
Remember we are on Texan Town Schedule!
Team Leader Meeting- C106 - 3:15

Tuesday -  Picture Retakes - cafeteria (AM)



Wednesday - Crucial Conversations Training - 8:00am-3:00pm (A201)
TLC Meeting 3:15 - Library

Thursday - Crucial Conversations Training 8:00am-3:00pm (A201)
Dyslexia Parent Meeting - Library (6:00-7:00pm)

Friday - Spirit Rally - 8:30am (gym)

Report Card Grades Due!!
Halloween Social @ Katy McKinney's House!


Important Reminders and Updates
Super Teacher 
Remember to nominate a Super Teacher!  This is a great way to highlight all the wonderful learning going on at TCE and gives our teachers shout outs for the amazing planning and classroom instruction!
Click here to nominate!
Halloween Social
Nominate Students and Teachers!!!
Don't forget about the nominations to the Ed Foundation for teachers and students who will be recognized each month!  Info was sent out to team leaders, so please make sure you check with them and get those nominations in!  The deadline is this Friday, October 23rd and I am putting the link in an email in case you deleted somewhere along the way!   
Shout Outs! 
Shout out to Lori Vincenzo for representing TCE and Coppell ISD for the Teacher of the Year for the state of Texas!  We are all so proud of you!
Shout out to Kristan Hruby, Kasey Kemp, Kate Seifert and Marly Natherson (Content Specialists) for helping to facilitate our Vertical Meeting last week!  We appreciate the extra time you put into being content specialists and for helping our campus to be stronger vertically!  

Shout out to Linda Cook for being our amazing trainer once again for Crucial Conversations!
Shout out to our 1st round of Crucial Conversations training attendees for their hard work utilizing those conversational skills!  Sherri Kingsley, Courtney Rice, Jenna Taylor, Morgan Peccarelli, Mary Kennington, Beth Parker, Kate Seifert, and Ashley Martin you all rock!  

Shout out to Lisa Hansen for lending a hand and coming up to work with the Crucial Conversations group on Thursday! 
Shout out to Sue Kane for getting our Service Learning for Diabetes ready to go for this week!  We appreciate you having this great idea and are excited about the program!

Kelly Spears and Candace Coffee for all of their hard work getting the CoGat going!  
3rd, 5th grade teachers,  Kim Becker, Candace Coffee, Kelly Spears, Cathy Wilson, KaTrina Brow, our student teachers (Catherine and Sierra) and Sherri Kingsley for helping with getting everything covered with CoGat!
October Birthday
Only one birthday this month!

Jenna Taylor - 25th
Engineer of the Week
Jenna Taylor

Final Quotes
 I know we all get so busy with work and our lives we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. . .try to remember the following quotes and make time for you. . .
 

Monday, October 12, 2015

Who Loves Columbus Day? I Love Columbus Day!



Don't know about all of you. . .but I am so happy that we will get to enjoy a 3 day weekend!  Hope you all are able to get out and about. . .possibly head out to the fair, the park or a patio and enjoy this time!  


Week of: October 12th-16th, 2015

 
Monday - 
Holiday!  No School!


Tuesday -  Have a Terrific Tuesday! 


Wednesday - CoGat Testing 3rd and 5th grades
Crucial Conversations Training 8:00am-3:00pm (A201)
Vertical Meeting - 3:15 - Start in library (bring your non-negotiables)


Thursday - CoGat Testing 3rd and 5th grades
Crucial Conversations Training 8:00am-3:00pm (A201)

Friday - Texan Town

PST/RtI Meetings (A-B) Kinder and 1st Brett will check w/you
Therapy Dogs
Teacher of the Year Banquet in Austin - cross your fingers!

Important Reminders and Updates
Recess and Lunch Duties
Just a quick reminder that everyone needs to be monitoring closely during our recess and lunch times.  I ask that you continuously walk through the tables during lunch time as well as please monitor the line waiting to go through the cafeteria lines and when washing hands try to have another teammate ensure they are getting from there to lining up outside quickly and quietly.  

During recess duty make sure that you are not just sitting down.  You may sit for a while, but you need to be actively monitoring and walking around at least every 10 minutes.  Also, please refrain from using your phone unless necessary to communicate with another teacher/office inside.  Also,  make sure you always have our walkie talkie with you.  

Finally, please make sure that you are not sending in lots of kiddos to go to the bathroom at the same time during recess. Several kids are just entering the building without asking a teacher on duty so make a plan with your team on how to find a way that will work best for them to be able to go, but not have large groups inside the building at one time.  

Thank you for you help with these needs as we have had several issues this year already during lunch and recess times with learners not being appropriate and using our school-wide expectations.  

Super Teacher 
Remember to nominate a Super Teacher!  This is a great way to highlight all the wonderful learning going on at TCE and gives our teachers shout outs for the amazing planning and classroom instruction!
Click here to nominate!
 
Spirit Rally
Remember we will have a Spirit Rally coming up soon!  If you have anything you would like to announce or do, please let me know! 
 
Halloween Social
Don't forget the TCE Social coming up soon!

 
 Shout Outs!

Shout out to all of our K-5 teams for the amazing planning days this last week!  Loved hearing what you have going on and will be doing in the classrooms!  Also, loved hearing and seeing your work together as vertically aligned teams!  

Shout out to Alicia Montgomery, Brad Cook and Candace Coffee for helping during the STEM planning days!  
 
Shout out to all K-5 classroom teachers for doing such a wonderful job working with our parents during parent/teacher conferences!  I know it takes so much time to accomplish all of these conferences, so I appreciate the time you take to make every parent and child feel important as you listened and worked with them sharing progress/concerns.  Thank you!



October Birthday
Only one birthday this month!
Jenna Taylor - 25th
 
Engineer of the Week
Lori Vincenzo
 
Resources for Manners


 


Can you Teach My Alligator Manners Videos?
These might be good for some of our kiddos, especially our K-2 learners to see! There are several videos when you search on youtube!
 
SoulPancake featuring videos from Kid President
This is another great resource for K-5, especially some of the videos about happiness and how one can help to change the world!
 
Final Quotes 
As you can see, I am still on my good manners kick. . .thought these quotes summed it up well.
 



Sunday, October 4, 2015

Fall and Football are in the Air!

This is gonna be a kind of short blog for this week, so you all can go back and look at past weeks resources and such if you haven't had a chance!  Also, check out some of the resources from the parent blog if you like!  Hope you are all enjoying this weather and all those football games this weekend!  :)
 
Week of: October 5th-9th, 2015

Educator Goal Setting Meetings- All Week
 
Monday -  Wear jeans and blue shirt to support Stomp Out Bullying at TCE!



Tuesday -  STEM Planning Kinder and 1st Grade - (A201)

Wednesday - STEM Planning 2nd and 3rd Grade (A201)
Faculty Meeting - 3:15 - Library

Thursday -   STEM Planning 4th and 5th (A201)
Brett out AP Meeting (PM)  

Friday - Parent/Teacher Conference Day
  
Important Reminders and Updates
 Just a couple of reminders for this week:
1.  Make sure you have your non-negotiables for our meeting this Wednesday! 
2.  Reminder we have a Holiday, Monday, October 12th!
3.  Remember that you will need to have 18 hours of professional learning flex hours this year.  Please make sure you are working toward those hours and if you have any questions about counting anything just touch base with me!

4.  Please note that there are only three (3) opportunities to win a SuperTeacher award this year. The nomination form is aligned to the Educator Evaluation and the scoring rubric is the Educator Evaluation instrument.
Click here to nominate!
  
Shout Outs!
Great job to everyone that we have met with so far on your goals for this year!  Brett and I have enjoyed hearing what you will be working on and are excited to see how you will grow in the area chosen!
Shout out to our 3rd, 4th and 5th grade for all of their work during their Assessment Planning Days! 
October Birthday
Only one birthday this month!
Jenna Taylor - 25th

Engineer of the Week. . .coming soon

Final Quotes
I thought these quotes were fitting for today as many of you have already started goal setting with your learners and will be talking about their goals during parent/teacher conferences.