Sunday, April 26

Happy Sunday! 
Two weeks down! And five weeks to go! Not that anyone is counting. Please focus only on getting through these five weeks and taking care of yourselves. We will get through this together. 

I am working hard to figure out everyone's placements for next year because I know that the unknown is uncomfortable. This is a strange and difficult time. It is becoming very clear that next year will not be back to normal. However, we do not know what it will look like. There are smart people in the right seats doing the hard work, so you don't have to think about next year yet. 

My goal is not to turn your worlds upside down on top of everything going on. We have open positions, a freeze on hiring, and projections to dissolve at least one class at Stoneridge. I have to navigate all of that before I can confidently make assignments. Of course, with all of those factors, change is inevitable. 

A few other things:

1) Grade Level Collage: If your grade level would like to share a collage with me, I would love to post them on our Facebook page. I am going to post kindergarten on Monday and then post a different one daily. 

2) It is time for Teachers Who Make a Difference! I love to have your participation in who is chosen. Please email your nominations to me this week! 

3) Exciting News! We are going to have an online Book Fair. It starts tomorrow. You are welcome to share the link and news with your families as soon as you like. I will be including it in the blog tomorrow. This is the link:
Online Book Fair

A reminder that Thursday, from 9-1 pm is both curriculum pick up for TK and K and the first library book drop off day. I will have a few more drop off days. Stay tuned for the dates. 

We have our PLC meetings and then our staff meeting on Wednesday. I look forward to seeing all of you.

Sunday, April 17

Good Morning! 

Well, you made it through the first official week of distance learning. I hope it got better as the week progressed. I received a lot of wonderful feedback from parents. Thank you for all of the hard work you are putting into it! It is paying off. 

We had 20 more students pick up Chromebooks on Friday and there are only 2 packets of materials left. We are doing great! 

We have had a few families fill out a request for internet support and at least one fill out a request for support. I am so pleased they are asking for help! 

Intervention at home: A few of you have asked what to do with students that had additional support during the year. For those students, you can lead small groups via Zoom or you can give them differentiated assignments. If there are sites with practice that will benefit them, you can share that as well. The goal is to support them the best we can.

Here we go Week 2!! YOU are all rockstars!! 

Sunday, April 12

Happy Easter!! I hope you are all enjoying a relaxing day with your family!

This week marks the beginning of our continuous learning. Please have your first lesson plan and work uploaded tomorrow. I believe this first week will entail many questions and a lot of work, but it should taper off after the initial introduction to families. 

I have my district admin meeting tomorrow morning, then we meet as PLC's. I am sure I will have updated information to share with you. 

If you need access to your classroom to do some of your videos, lesson plans, etc, you that is fine. We just ask that you continue to practice social distancing. 

Just a short one today. See you all this week. Enjoy the rest of your day! 

Sunday, April 5

Just a quick check in with a couple details. 

But before that.... A huge shout out to JeriAnn and her husband for all of the work they put into our free library! It is awesome and such a gift to our community!

Another thank you to Erin and Stephanie for all of their hard work on the yearbook. It is done and looks awesome! This is a year to remember, that is for sure!

A few business items: 
We will keep all meeting times the same after Spring Break. That includes the meetings on Monday, April 13. 

I am looking over lesson plans and overall, they look great. I have also been talking to the district office, just to make sure we are meeting expectations. They want me to remind everyone to include the district adopted materials in the lessons. You can supplement as you like, but the district curriculum should be your starting point. 

Please please please take some time to relax and unplug. I am sharing the blog today and will try to do the same next week. I know all of you have been working in overdrive. 
Relax and give 100% to you and your families. 

Sunday, March 29

Hello Stoneridge! 

I couldn't do it. I could not resist the urge to share another blog post today! Ha!
Actually, I was so focused on the logistics of getting materials to parents that I neglected to review the expectations for lesson planning. 

I will be meeting with your PLC's on Monday and Tuesday, as scheduled. During those meetings, I will be going over the lesson plan guidelines in detail. In the meantime, look at the Distance Learning website. They have templates for you to use. 

Distance Learning Website

The expectation is that you send me your first two weeks of lesson plans by this Friday, 4/3. After Spring Break, you will be staying one week ahead with your lesson plans. The lesson plans should be similar to the template provided. If you want to use a different format while including the same pieces, that is ok. See below for clarification:

Starting the week of April 12th, every Sunday you will upload to your google classroom five daily lesson plans (one for each day of the week).  Each daily lesson plan should consist of the following:

Morning Message:  A positive video of you explaining the activities to be completed that day. 

Clear Learning Targets: Well designed Learning Intentions and Success Criteria are still key in guiding student learning.

Lesson Plans: Detailed daily lesson plans for your contents areas.  Teachers should be using district adopted curriculum for the majority of core lessons.  

K-5th should include daily Reading, Writing and Math lesson plans.

Check for Understanding: A way for students to synthesize their learning for the day. Can be digital or paper/pencil.  

Daily Optional Activities: Additional recommended activities that teachers can share to support the work of the week or day.

I know that is a lot. I know all of this is a lot. Please please please read the message below and take it to heart. Let it be your guide through all of this. 

For Monday and Tuesday, I will have the staff room/office set up for you to drop your materials off. There will be a table with your name on it. I am pretty sure it will be spread out all over the office. I am having parents bring bags with the child's name and teacher on it, mostly because I want the parents to give me something with the information I need in order to keep the process moving efficiently. If you want to have your things bagged and ready to go, that is completely fine! 

See you Monday and Tuesday! Please don't hesitate to reach out with questions! 

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Friday, March 27

Hello Everyone!

First and foremost, thank you for yesterday. It was seriously, the best day ever!! The kids and families were over the moon to see each of you. Thank you to Melissa and Jenny for figuring out the route!
And a HUGE thank you to Tamberlyn for being the Timberwolf. The kids went nuts for the Timberwolf and I know that cute outfit was not easy to wear!! 

I have information about next week that I wanted to share before Sunday. I am doing it BLOG style so the format is familiar. As a disclaimer, there is a possibility that I will not be doing a BLOG this Sunday. However, with the way things are changing, I may have a lot to share with you by then. 
Just keep you hands and arms inside the ride at all times and HANG ON!!! 

I wanted to give you a little guidance regarding material distribution next week. As you saw, you may come to campus Monday and/or Tuesday to get materials prepared to go home. What should be sent home: Those Core materials needed for instruction through May and children’s eyeglasses. There should be very few copies being made if you are using the core materials. Less is more!

In the work room, people should Wash-in to copy and Washout. PLCs should try and be aligned, if possible. On Monday or Tuesday, I need your help getting things arranged for distribution. I will be distributing from the front of the school in a ‘drive through’ fashion.

If you could please: 1) Bring the materials to the staff room where I will have a label for your class. 2) Clearly label items with the student’s first and last name. 3) Arrange them in alphabetical order by last name. I am going to request that parents bring a bag to put items in. I will be sharing all of this information with parents. Here is the Parent Letter. Please share it with your parents on Monday afternoon. I will be emailing it Monday morning. Let me know if you have any questions about this process.

Upcoming Meetings: We will have our scheduled PLC meeting on Monday and Tuesday. We will not have a staff meeting this week. I have already changed the date of our meeting to April 15. There will not be any meetings during the Spring Break week. Access to Campus: Please do not access campus without notifying me. Maintenance is monitoring our every move on campus and it adds additional pressure on them if people are on campus and they do not know about it ahead of time. 

Ok, that is all for this 5 minutes. Have the BEST weekend! Turn off the computers and put your feet up for a bit. I know that navigating through all of this can feel like the weight of the world is sitting on your shoulders.

Sunday, March 22

Hello Stoneridge!

Just a quick blog post today.

First, I am super excited about the teachers/staff parade on Thursday. Luisa is helping get a map of our boundaries and then, Melissa is going to help figure out what our adventure will look like! It will definitely be a special and memorable event!
Reminder: It is this Thursday at 1pm.

I am looking forward to checking in with each of the PLC's this week and will have updates for you. 

If you need to access campus, let me know. We have to coordinate with the maintenance department. 

If your students have had trouble logging onto things, the DO has been working hard to create videos and 'how to's' to help troubleshoot. 

Things should get smoother as we keep moving forward.

Thank you for all you are doing! 

I leave you with a little extra motivation: