Mrs. V's Blog |
Mrs. V's Blog |
This morning we had a fabulous surprise after the Halloween Parade. Someone in the building "Boo'ed" us! This bucket of treats was left at our door by an anonymous person! IT was a small act of kindness that brought us lots of smiles today! In our bucket were various treats, and a set of vampire teeth for everyone in our class! The little note had "The Rules" and the poem below attached. "This Halloween there's something new. A sweet surprise that's called a "Boo!" A secret friend has left it here, TO bring your classroom some Halloween cheer! you've been "Boo'ed" now it's your turn to share, With friends and colleagues, anyone you dare! Put together a scary treat, spooky and fun. Then leave it at the door and run! Enclose this poem and one thing more, A "I've been BOO'ed sign for their classroom door!" The kids loved this, and really want to pass along this act! They are excited about being able to do it for another class. Our class developed a plan to Boo a couple of classrooms next week, before Halloween, but we need your help! We've organized the following- Anyone with a last name starting with : A-D is responsible to bring some sort of treat in (lollipops, smarties, Halloween candy, etc) E-L - Pencils/Erasers Halloween Themed. M- Halloween Toys (Vampire teeth, stickers, tattoos, etc) N-Z - Something for a teacher to wear (Hat, Headband, Halloween Themed). Participation in this activity is optional, so if you can't run to the store this weekend, that's fine. Students also asked if they could bring in other things that aren't part of their assigned category, and they absolutely can! I helped my daughter's class BOO some classes downstairs, I was able to find all the fun Halloween themed items at the Dollar Tree, very inexpensively. Again- if you can't help, please know there are no worries at all! If you can help, please send any items to school on Monday! We will update you with pictures of our Boo targets! Thank you for your help in this! If you have questions, please let me know!
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Mrs. Allen came over and interrupted ELA class the other day just to tell our TA how awesome we'd been doing in her class! She has noticed a huge improvement in transitions, behaviors, and silliness. While it's still not perfect, she was pleased to report that it's definitely better. I hope we keep up the good work. In other news, our own Cooper was a helper in the hour long cooking class this week. He did a fantastic job! He was helpful and brave enough to demonstrate all of the steps for cooking bread, in front of the entire fifth and sixth grades! He did a great job and we had fun learning from him! I hope you can take some time this weekend to make the bread with the ingredients that were sent home! Simply send a loaf back to school, in the plastic bag provided, and Chef Bob will donate it to the food shelf. Don't forget to sign up for conferences. The link is below! https://docs.google.com/document/d/14UTrVdM5lHNb3tq-As0diPLq4WNG9A6si9gnCErWYcM/edit?usp=sharing Below- we have a ton of silly TA selfies and assorted photos- I know there are a lot, but when you are trying to get everyone in the picture, you try a lot of times to get a photo, and they are all funny- so enjoy! This week has been a short one, but each day students have been reminded that we are working on homework completion and classroom behavior. Some teachers have seen an improvement, some have not. What all teachers have said is that MOST are making a solid effort to improve their behavior in class. We also have a large group of kiddos are are being extremely patient with others in their room who are having a difficult time meeting expectations. That group of people will be joining me for lunch next week (meetings interfered with our lunch plans this week!). We are continuing our focus on our transitions, and silliness. When a teacher gives a direction for transitioning (getting out a paper, getting a pencil, having an assignment out on a desk) we tend to take a long time to finish these directions. This may seem minor to some, but the longer time that transitions take, the less time we have for learning and work, and this time can add up quickly! Please continue to have the discussions about behavior and homework at home, as it helps when they hear it from both me and home! Below are some photos of our past two weeks! This week was kind of a rough week for our TA. There were some things that were brought to our attention that our group really needs to work on. Homework completion seems to be an issue amongst our group as well as transitioning and following directions. These things were brought to my attention by all of the 6th grade teachers, we even had 16 out of 20 students not complete a math assignment the other day!
Yesterday I sat down with our group and we had a nice long chat about responsibility and "doing our jobs." We talked about how the 6th grade teachers are going to hold them accountable for even the littlest behaviors, because sometimes the little behaviors will snowball into bigger ones, and can affect everyone in the room. We talked about how as a group we need to move quickly through transitions. Something as simple as "take out a pencil and white lined paper," is becoming a task that takes far too long, and takes learning time away from others. Either because people are chatting, or just simply not following the direction. We also need to work specifically on keeping our hands to ourselves. "Tasing" has come back into trend, and it's already becoming a huge distraction in classrooms and the hallway (Tasing is a "game" that students play where they poke each other really hard in the rib area). We also discussed that I will be making sure to "call out" and recognize when students are constantly meeting expectations because good behaviors need to be recognized too. Students can expect to be invited for lunch in the classroom if they are consistently meeting expectations. As far as homework, students were reminded about the importance of making homework a priority. Yesterday was a perfect example of how someone who puts off homework could have suffered. There were two weekly assignments due today (that were assigned LAST Friday), and yesterday two more additional assignments were given in different classes. This meant that last night, a student could potentially have had 4 or 5 assignments to complete! We discussed the importance of breaking assignments into chunks and trying to finish them as soon as they are assigned, and not waiting until the last minute. I have a great group of kids this year. I am excited about getting to know them more, and we already have a lot of fun together. However, we have discussed that the fun that we all love will not be happening if the basic expectations at school can't be met. I know they can do this, I know they have it in them. We just need to work at it and focus on these things moving forward. So parents, how can you help? **Have a conversation about what your child thinks they can do or should do better when it comes to classroom behavior. Even if they constantly meet expectations, how could they help someone else? **Have a conversation about the importance of "knowing when." Students need to know when it's ok to be silly and funny, and when it's not. **Discuss the importance of keeping hands to self. **Take a look at your kiddo's assignment book, see if they are spacing out their work, getting it done ahead of time. **Suggest that your child use homework club as a tool for getting their assignments done. This is a great place to get work done! Thank you for your support in this. I hope your children are able to enjoy a restful, long weekend. Student Led conferences are coming! Conferences will be held Thursday, November 9th. Attached is a link to the sign up sheet for conferences. Please place your name and your child's name on your preferred time slot. If these times don't work for you, please let me know ASAP via email.
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