**Please check the Meeting Schedules (in the sidebar) and the calendar at the bottom for information regarding this week's meetings and events. Laptops are not required unless requested. Thank you for leaving them in your classrooms.
***Please bookmark the Mindset link so you can access it easily.
March
27- ZOOM Happy Hour (5:00 pm)
31-Faculty ZOOM (2:30-4:00)
April
2 & 3- SLJRC for Core, EAL, & LS, Daily Mini Lessons for Encore
7-Faculty ZOOM (2:30-4:00)
14-Faculty ZOOM (2:30-4:00)
~from the ES BBE
~from Krista
We are all feeling more comfortable with the platforms, families are establishing routines, and the realities of separation are setting in. Also, the newness of distance learning is beginning to wear off and we are heading into the implementation dip. It is in this dip that we will need one another the most. Please continue to share your celebrations and concerns. I want to reiterate what I said on Tuesday; be kind to yourself. Learning at a distance is not the same as learning in school. You will not be able to emulate what you do daily. Learning mini-lessons can be filmed in advance if that works for you and your team. Many teachers are doing bulk lesson filming and this is okay. We are in a scenario where building upon the learning of the day before based on assessing student progress on the current day's work is not a realistic goal. In addition technology glitches will happen and mistakes will be made. Set yourself reasonable expectations. Reach out for support. Don't go it alone.
Keep the stories and the humor coming. Lean on one another, join a happy hour or two - but not too many ;), call a friend, start that hobby you've been thinking about, finish that creative book you've been working on, potter in the garden, pick up that novel that been sitting on the nightstand, or watch a movie. Do whatever works for you to keep moving forward.
~from the ES SLT
Attendance by 3 pm Please
Please have your attendance completed by 3 pm each day so Erika can share. If you are still waiting for work from students, simply make a note in the comment box. Thanks!
Placing videos in the Distance Learning folder is critical for access
Please remember to upload your video to the Distance Learning folder before sending the embed code to your Instructional Lead or designated uploader. It has come to our attention that 90% of the video issues experienced at home are due to videos not being placed in the shared folder. If you are having difficulty remembering, you might consider placing a 'post it' on your computer to remind you.
Populating the Assignment Submission Document
The objective of populating the assignment submission document is to support future decision-making about a realistic number of required posts for specific subjects as we continue forward with distance learning. Thank you for populating the first two weeks. It is only necessary to add information if you did not receive posts. It will be assumed that for subjects not listed all posts have been received. Thanks for ensuring you have added information for your subject (for Weeks 1 & 2) by Monday. We will use this along survey feedback in our decision-making process.
Share What's Working: Distance Learning feedback and resource support from your colleagues.
Don't forget we have a space to share ideas with one another so we are not reinventing the wheel. Add your great ideas here: Distance Learning feedback and resource support from your colleagues. If you are looking for something new to do, check out some of the things your colleagues are doing. It is sure to inspire and by placing it here, you limit email overload and duplication sharing.
Tuesday March 31st- Faculty ZOOM
Next week's ZOOM will be separated into two parts
- 2:30 pm- All School Question and Answer
-
3:00 -400 pm- Break Out Rooms-
- Break out room 1 (Core, EAL, LS SLJRC & Assignment Posting, Feedback, & Q & A)- Krista to lead
- Break out room 2 (Encore Assignment Posting, Feedback, & Q & A )- Leigh to lead
- Break out room 3 (AT specific Q & A)- Tracey to lead
Surveys to Parents, Students, and Faculty
The voice of our community (teachers, assistants, staff, leadership, parents, and students) are all important and vary across a wide continuum. Thank you for your patience as we determine opportunities and consider next steps.
Parent and student surveys were sent out yesterday. The student ones were sent to the children's school email and will go to grades 1,2, 3, 4 & 5. We anticipate that it will be mostly graded 3-5 who will complete it, but did not want to exclude grades 1 & 2. All parents received usernames and passwords for their child's email account. If you students are having difficulty accessing their account, have their parents contact your designated tech support (MA, K, & 3- Nate, 1 & 2- Paul, 4 & 5- Vlad). Both surveys will close on Sunday, March 29th. I have also placed a reminder in the Update.
I sent out the Faculty survey earlier today. If you have not received it, please email me and I will send it to you ([email protected]). The survey will close on Monday, March 30th. Thank you for completing by then so we can include all voices.
Parent Reflection Videos
I reached out to parents across our community to see if anyone would like to share their reflections about their distance learning experience. We had responses from parents with children in MA through Grade 3. You can view the videos in this week's Update. They are worth watching.
~from Leigh
Many students and parents are sharing that the Morning Meeting is the highlight of their day - a glimpse of social interaction and connection to get us all off on the right foot. As we adjust to new routines, it has been necessary to spend this time together answering questions and giving reminders, but we also need to balance this academic focus with community building, laughter and joy. Take a look at these two resources filled with morning meeting games that will bring a smile to everyone's face. If the group is too large for a successful game, remember to utilize your additional teachers to move into breakout rooms.
Distance Learning Morning Meeting Games (compiled by Leigh and Eszter S.)
Fairy Dust Teaching Zoom Games (shared by Emese)
~from What on Earth? CBC News
This week:
- Charging ahead: The movement to electrify school buses is growing
- Coronavirus quarantines are having an effect on air quality
- With toilet paper selling out, is it time to consider the bidet?
~from the PE Department
Check out our choreographically creative students and our parents' marvelous moves. Bring some sunshine to your lives and press play.
Click into the Parent Update to see the photos sent from home and to watch the video stories about distance learning sent in by our resilient parents.
~from the Innovation Team (Nate, Paul, and Vlad)
Your LIDs continue to support parents behind the scenes. Thank you for sharing with us the parent emails you receive that are related to tech support. We are sharing this document in the Parent Update this week. It is also linked at the top of the Parent Guidelines. Please continue to point parents in our direction. You can also share this link as well. Keep on doing the amazing things you are doing. We are burning with Blazer pride with the knowledge we are part of such an amazing group of educators.
Also - please let me (Nate) know if you are experiencing any issues with Screencastify. A few people have been having problems, and I am contacting Screencastify support to sort out our community issues.
~from the ES Librarian (Karen MacMeekin)
Hey all. I hope you had a good second week of distance learning. I’m a bit over the cold but, thankfully, it’s supposed to warm up this weekend ???.
Some big news from Capstone, the creators of our PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next databases. They have now added on more modules until the end of the school year. Our subscription now includes:
- All 5 PebbleGo modules: Animals, Science, Biographies, Social Studies, and Dinosaurs
- All 4 PebbleGo Spanish modules: Animales, Ciencia, Biografías, and Estudios Sociales
- All 3 PebbleGo Next modules for Grades 3-5: Science, Social Studies, and Biographies (we actually have all of those already)
- Read More: Companion eBooks appended to the end of each article in PebbleGo Science and Animals This is a great new feature!
Other (resource) news this week includes Audible now offering children’s, tweens, and young adult audiobooks for free. You need to go to this page and no username or password is required.
Just keep swimming, folks. We’ll get through this!