Town Center Tidbits : October 2016

Hope all of you are enjoying your weekend and are having a little Halloween fun! I had decided to give you treats instead of tricks tomorrow, but my lovely allergies have turned into a possible cold over the weekend. . .so I haven't felt up to creating the special treats I wanted to make! (will have to save those for later)

So, instead. . .I am opting with providing a lunch treat for y'all! Be ready to enjoy pizza tomorrow for lunch along with wearing jeans or sweats! Hopefully you can also find a crazy hat/headband to wear to help make our week start off fun for everyone!

Week of: Oct. 31st-Nov. 4th, 2016

Monday- Pizza Treat! Jeans/sweats (wear crazy hat/headband)

Tuesday - Angie Out (AM)

Wednesday - Faculty Meeting - 3:15 - Library

Thursday - PTO Meeting 8:15

Kelly Out (all day)

Friday - Jeans Day!

Texan Town

Pansy Planting - During Recess times

Kelly Out (all day)

Important Reminders

Pansy Planting

We will be planting pansies this Friday during our recess times! There will be a few volunteers out to support, but please make sure and send at least one teacher out front and then one to the playground as we plant, so we can make sure everyone has the chance to plant a pansy. They will be donated again this year, so everyone can plant!

Possible Visitors for November

Our next days for possible visitors is next week on November 9th and 10th. I will know soon whether or not we have anyone coming from the district. Remember this year, the district is limiting visitors to the dates they have selected on the calendar each month.

From the Desk of BS…

Volume 9

The X’s and O’s

With NFL football in full swing, the unexpected has happened, my beloved Dallas Cowboys are 5-1 and sitting atop the NFC East. They have managed to do this not only with their franchise quarterback out since training camp with a broken back, but also their star wide receiver Dez Bryant has been sidelined. This has all occurred after they managed to lose multiple defensive players to suspensions and injury before the season began. So how on earth could they manage to be sitting where they are almost halfway through the season? It all comes down to the game plan each week. The coaches have taken the talent that they have left, rookie running back Ezekiel Elliot and rookie quarterback Dak Prescott, planned using their strengths, and even have some reporters talking about a Super Bowl Run! Now that would be something special.

It was wonderful to see all of the “game planning” you all were doing this week on your STEM planning days. You really dug in and began developing lessons that will work best for the “talents” that not only your students have, but you possess as well. Below you will find a couple of links about effectively planning lessons and some ideas to supplement what you may already have:

http://www.teachhub.com/5-essential-teaching-strategies-deliver-effective-lesson

http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/oct11/vol53/num10/How-To-Plan-Effective-Lessons.aspx

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/9-ways-plan-transformational-lessons-todd-finley

I can’t wait to see the X’s and O’s throughout the upcoming weeks as I visit your classrooms!

BS

Shout Outs!

Courtney & Ashlin--Thank you for always having kind words and for everything you do for our learners at TCE! Your smiles and positive attitudes make your classrooms shine!

Kelly Spears--You are the BEST cheer up teacher I know! Thank you for always knowing the right words to say to both our learners and our TCE Family!

Tina Berumen - Our 1st Super Teacher of the year award from CISD! Congrats and well deserved!

Kinder-5th grade for the amazing job you did during our STEM planning days this week! Your dedication to creating and implementing the best learning possible for our kiddos shows in all that you do each day! Thank you!! - Angie

Candace, Lisa, Tina, Kristan, and Leigh Ann- Thank you so much for being there for our K-5 educators during STEM planning! Your ideas, research and providing resources makes such a difference for our campus! Thank you for making time in your schedules to be there with our teams for these design days! - Angie

Laura, Sherri, Sue, Kelly and Brett- Thank you for making me smile each day as we all work together in the office! I appreciate you going above and beyond in all that you do! (and remembering the importance of humor in life!) Love y'all - Angie

Click here to give someone a shout out!

November Birthdays

Katie Tonemah- 3rd

Marie Sork - 7th

Marina Chicas - 8th

Beth Dilley - 11th

Laura Fairchild - 24th

Kristan Hruby - 24th

Renee Rohani - 25th

Curriculum Ideas

As we are working on our campus goals with writing, think about how you are exposing your learners to transition words in writing. Is there an anchor chart you could create together, a visual in their writing folders or adding transition words to your word wall in your classroom? Here are a examples of transition words for writing. . .

Capturing Learning with Pictures

Here are a few images from classrooms and learning around the school. More to come soon!

Final Quotes for the Week

We are in such a rewarding profession as we get the opportunity to keep the excitement of learning moving forward for ourselves and our learners each day. . .

Week of: October 24th-29th, 2016

Red Ribbon Week!

Monday- Jeans w/hat

Tuesday - Jeans w/crazy hair

Angie Out (part of AM)

STEM Planning Kinder and 1st - Kristan's room

Wednesday - Jeans w/wacky sock

STEM Planning 2nd and 3rd - Kristan's room

TLC Meeting - Library - 3:15

Thursday - Jeans w/backward's day attire

STEM Planning 4th and 5th - Kristan's room

School Picture Retakes

Friday - Sweats/jeans day (with any TCE shirt) to support our fun run and our potluck!

Texan Town

Jack O'Lantern Jog - All Day

TCE Halloween Potluck

Important Reminders and Updates!

Halloween TCE Potluck

Our fall/Halloween potluck will be this Friday! So, be thinking about what might be a fun and fabulous treat for everyone to enjoy!

Click here to sign-up!

STEM planning days

Grade levels may wear sweats on your STEM planning days!

TLC Meeting

Please make sure and have your pages for our Innovator's Mindset read by Wednesday, so we can discuss as a campus! Page 119 is the stopping point.

From the Desk of BS…Volume 9

The Story of Ryan Merritt

The Cleveland Indians punched their ticket to the World Series this week on the arm of the unlikeliest of pitchers. Ryan Merritt had only pitched in the majors leagues 5 times before being notified that he would start the series clinching game 5 of the American League Championship Series. How did the Indians manager know that he would be the best man for the job? It all comes down to knowing your team and building relationships with them. Cleveland’s manager knew that if the need for a left handed pitcher arose in the playoffs due to unforeseen circumstances, he would need Ryan Merritt, and before the start of the series, one of their left handed starters injured his pitching hand fixing his drone at home (go figure).

Most interestingly is the fact that Merritt is from a little town north for Frisco, Celina, Texas, and was never supposed to even be in this position. He has spent his entire career in the minor leagues until this year, he proved to be the lefty they needed. The power of knowing their players and building those positive relationships helped the Indians trust that they had made the impact they needed to get the best out of the lefty at the most opportune time.

Below you will find a link to building positive relationships and getting to know your learners so that you can have a major impact on their success in the “big leagues.”

Click here for link!

Thanks for a great week! It has been a blast hearing all the knowledge you guys already have about your kiddos, not only academically but also social and emotionally! Enjoy the weekend!

Shout Outs!

Ashlin, Thank you for sharing your math independent rotations presentation with me! You have so many great ideas and I appreciate you sharing them! -Renee

Brett, Kelly, Laura, Sherri and Sue, and all of our TCE staff, Thank you so much for holding down the fort while I was out this week and for ensuring everyone is always taken care of! It was such a relief to know I could leave and you all could take care of business! Much love and truly appreciate each of you! - Angie

Tina, Thank you so much for helping my class with their Global Read Aloud! The video was super cute!! You are the best!! - Lorri B.

Sue, Thank you so much for coming to my rescue with the student who had the Velcro mitt stuck to her hair/head!! Kindergarten recess is always exciting! - Lorri B.

Kasey, thank your for all of your incredibly hard work creating our RTI progress monitoring probes... and for answering allll of my questions! You are amazing!!

Shout out to the TCE Staff, Thank you for an amazing week while we held down the fort while Angie was away! I appreciate all of you more than you could imagine! From the wonderful Spirit Rally to our PST meetings it was a great week to be a Texan and celebrate success. You commitment to our school does not go unnoticed and makes me proud to serve along side you each and every day! We are just a few weeks out from Thanksgiving Break so there will be time to rest and recharge. It's been a great 1st nine weeks, let's keep the momentum going on this wonderful school year and make an impact on every student every day! - BS

Brett, thank you for being so sincere while meeting with us about our little learner at the PST meeting. It is very comforting to know the leaders in our school genuinely care and want to search every way possible to help our learners be successful. Thank you!!! Julie

Candace, thank you for starting the Book Club with my learners! You did an excellent job getting them started and getting them excited to challenge themselves!!!!

Angie and Brett , I think we missed "Boss Day" this week but wanted to shout out that we love you and thank you for everything you do for us and for TCE ! We have the greatest bosses ever!!!! Kinder and First

BIG shout out to Laura, Sherri and all the volunteers who spent a lot of time working on getting our lap tracker up and running and the cards made for our kiddos so they could run this Friday !!! I truly appreciate it!!! -Ashley

Candace - I so appreciate all of the hours you spent helping bubble CogAT tests! I know it is not exactly a fun task, so I am so thankful for your willingness to jump in and help when I was absolutely drowning! So thankful to work with a friend like you! Love, Kelly

Becky, Ashley and Beth, Thank you for helping to make our 2nd grade program a success! I know it takes hours of practice and effort for these presentations to happen, so know we appreciate all you do! - Angie

Thanks Tina for taking extra time to move our research links to a MackinVia group! You're always so helpful! -Katie

Lisa and Candace, Y'all are my "go to gals." Thanks for always being my "thought partners." Couldn't survive without y'all! Love, Mary:)

Sending out HUGE thank you to Lauren and my kinder team and Sandra Morgan for holding down the fort while I away on some serious business 🐬🌴 🌞 Love you guys!!! - Kim

TCE K-5 Educators, I truly appreciate all you have been doing to get our data collection off to a fabulous start this year for our kiddos! I know the hours it takes to truly gather, analyze and use data to design the absolute best instruction for you! - Angie

Candace and Kelly, Thank you so much for all of your behind the scenes work getting ready for CoGat testing! I know this year it was much more work with getting ready to go and we appreciate all you did to make it go smoothly! - Angie

Specials Team and Brett, Thank you so much for making our 1st spirit rally so much for our campus! Love your ideas and appreciate your efforts! - Angie

Click here to give someone a shout out!

October Birthdays

Jenna Taylor - 25th

Curriculum Ideas/Resources

This is an article that not only gives an overview of the importance of guided reading, but also many of the essential elements involved. . .good read. . .