BCS Elementary Ed Newsletter

Happy New Year.

As we begin 2023, I encourage you to keep the main thing the main thing which is doing what is best for student learning. By mid year, trusting and motivating relationships are well established between teachers, students, parents, colleagues and community supporters. Our focus on

1. What do our students need to know? (our state standards and soft skills for communicating, collaborating, being organized, etc)

2. How do we know what students know? (formative assessments & student work)

3. What do we do when students "get it"? (Enrichment on the standard.)

4. What do we do when students are "not there yet"? (strategic small group instruction, one-on-one instruction, intervention support)

Here's to seeing your focused work shine through your students' work. If you feel you need support, please reach out to your instructional coach, a colleague, your BT coordinator, your administrator or a central office director. We are here to support you.

Please welcome Savanna Helms as she supports K-3 Literacy for Brunswick County Schools. Savanna is working for DPI as an ELS, Early Literacy Specialist, and is assigned specifically to assist BCS. Savanna has worked as an interventionist, teacher and instructional coach with BCS. As a third grade teacher and IC, she knows Read to Achieve and early literacy inside and out. She is working on attaining her train-the-trainer certification in both Letterland and LETRS.

1. What two things stood out to you most today? Recalling what they've learned helps students store it in long-term memory. Plus, only asking for two isn't too overwhelming.
   
   
2. Do you agree or disagree with the topic today? Describe why. If you're studying a topic that has two or more sides, this lets the student decide where he/she stands and why.
   
   
3. If you had to describe what you learned today very simply to a young child, how would you describe it? Simplifying a concept into it's most basic terms can help students boil it down to its key points.
   
   
4. Design a t-shirt that represents something you learned today. This is a fun twist, it's visual, and it lets students get creative.
   
   
5. Snap a selfie with your reaction to something you learned. Then, describe why you reacted that way. This multimedia prompt utilizes the camera option that most devices offer. Plus, it's very personal -- the student's picture is in it!
   
   
6. What are you most confused about? This lets students get really honest. Plus, it can be very, very valuable information to guide your instruction.
   
   
7. What could you have done today to help yourself learn better? This introspective question helps students look metacognitively at their own learning -- and how they can improve their learning skills.
   
   
8. How hard did you work today on a scale of 1 to 4? Then, describe why you feel that way. Effort is important, and it's something we don't help students identify and evaluate. When students self-evaluate, it's a non-confrontational way to help them judge their own effort.
   
   
9. What could I, the teacher, do differently to help you learn? This turns the evaluation from student to teacher. It does open the teacher up to criticism, but it can be valuable feedback that can help you improve.
   
   
10. How are you doing? Just a simple social-emotional check-in can give the teacher valuable information and help the student to feel seen and heard.

January 1-2 - Annual Leave

January 16 - Martin Luther King Holiday

January 20-End of 2nd Quarter/DIBELS 8 MOY Begins

January 23-Required Workday

A Lexile level will display for all students in Kindergarten through Grade 3 who have been assessed with mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and achieved a Composite Score. Lexile levels can be viewed in two places: within the classroom-level report and in the Download Your Data (DYD) report located within the Reporting and Analysis Suite.

The following document provides guidance on how to collect Lexile levels in a bulk download. The DYD exports raw data into a CSV file to support your own analyses. You are able to filter this report by grade level for a school or district. Upon download the column on the far right displays a Lexile level for all K-3 students who have a Composite Score.

In partnership with NCDPI, Amplify is offering professional learning sessions for teachers and leaders.

Dec. 7, 2022 - 3:30 - 4:30 pm

Register Here

Mathematical tasks are viewed as placing higher level cognitive demands on students when they allow students to engage in active inquiry and exploration or encourage students to use procedures in ways that are meaningfully connected with concepts or understanding. Tasks that encourage students to use procedures, formulas, or algorithms in ways that are not actively linked to meaning, or that consist primarily of memorization or the reproduction of previously memorized facts, are viewed as placing lower-level cognitive demands on students.

Click here for an explanation of each level

• The K-5 Science Vertical Alignment Document shows the NCSCOS of Science Standards for Earth, Physical, and Life Sciences.
  
  

• Teachers can use for planning to help vertically align lessons in each grade level per standard.

Click here to view

This was shared at the Regional Collaborative Social Studies Meeting this month was a great resource; PBS LearningMedia. Under the subjects tab in Social Studies are resources that meet the content standards in any strand for all grades. Please take advantage of the amazing resources this site has to offer. The Social Studies Team is also currently researching resources to share for the upcoming Black History Month.

Katie Bunn, Denotra Franks, Lori Hummel, Holly Jackson, Jennifer Lentz, Shelly Mongelli, Christina Procida-Rush, Michele Taylor, Crystal Walker, Jen Damin (Executive Director)