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Looking Ahead

The Calendar 

AM Bus Duty

PM Bus Duty

Morning Meeting 

Reminders

• BEDS forms should be submitted by Monday. I am going in the system on Monday to verify, so please come see me if you are having any issues. 
• The dance planner starts next week. As a result, I will start taking levels. For our first meeting, I will be doing work around our values with each level. I have the following times written down: K--Tuesday @ 2; Primary--Thursday @ 12:05-12:50; Elementary--Thursday @ 2:40-3:25; Intermediate--Thursday @ 2:55-3:25. Please drop the kids off at the auditorium. 
• FEAST is next Friday. If you are primary, elementary, or intermediate and plan on taking the end of the day planning time, please sign the sheet in the office. K and special education will have a different time. We will have a lunch monitor in each hall filling in for you if you plan to take a lunch away from kids. 
• We have a CIA next Tuesday am @ 745. Val, on behalf of FISH, is starting us off with a peace circle, and then you will have more team time. Please bring any items you need pertaining to your action plan that you started the last time you had team time at a CIA meeting. 

Building Great Communicators

One of the strengths that I have noticed through my many classroom visits so far this year, is our ability to build strong communicators. To that, I want to highlight some of the best practices that I have witnessed. With our charge being to develop the whole child, I would encourage you to consider what you do to intentionally build strong communicators (a learner profile).

I've noticed: 

• Rules/expectations being established regarding listening. I witnessed a rule where when a student is sharing a thought, all other hands are required to be down. This, in my eyes, promotes active listening and seeking first to understand. Communication is more than just the spoken word, so requiring students to keep their hands down until after a peer is done sharing is a clever way to promote listening to others. 
• Talk moves. I love talk moves, and I feel that by the time kids leave QUEST, they should be great listeners who respond to the thoughts of others in a way that acknowledges that they were listening. Instead of just having a random popcorn of ideas being shared within your class, talk moves would require students to use prompts to respond: "I agree with ________ because..." or "I understand what ___________ is saying, but I have another idea." Imagine if we all created anchor charts for our rooms requiring students to use talk moves? By the time they were to leave QUEST, we would be able to allow their conversations to carry on without us.
  
   
• Asking a question, having students write or draw their thoughts, and then having them share in a group is something I witnessed. This practice is powerful as it ties the written word with the spoken word, but more than that, it allows students time to process their thoughts before sharing it with the group. We ask some profound questions here at QUEST, so providing that extra wait time, or time to process their thinking, provides for stronger and deeper communication.
• Using the phrase raise your hand "when" you have an answer. After that, you wait...and wait...Instead of saying raise your hand if, when you say when you are teaching the kids that all should be thinking and not waiting for someone else to communicate.
• Modeling effective communication. I see this a ton. We are models regarding listening and speaking, so when we are addressing those standards, we are constantly demonstrating how to be effective listeners and communicators. We do this well! 

At our CIA meeting, Val is going to warm us up using a peace circle activity. I understand that QUEST has learned about peace circles before, but I would ask that you look at it and consider how you might use circles to increase listening and communication. When you close a workshop and are looking to promote discourse, the peace circle model can be a great tool for students to demonstrate listening, thinking, and speaking. 

Keep up the great work, QUEST. 

Resource ideas from Andrea:

I have a great resource idea for Genius Time and independent ELA time! Have your kids explored podcasts? More and more organizations and companies are creating podcasts just for kids and I found some really great programs to share.

This podcast is titled, "But Why? A Podcast for Curious Kids." Your students could even submit a question if they wanted!

http://digital.vpr.net/programs/why-podcast-curious-kids#stream/0

This one is called, "Tumble: A Science Podcast for Kids." 

http://www.sciencepodcastforkids.com/

For more kid-friendly podcasts for kids check out this list from Common Sense Media:

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/20-podcasts-for-kids

Have to vs. Get to

He is so much more eloquent than me...and maybe I plagiarized a tad? Role model of mine? Perhaps.

I have to say that I have loved walking around and hearing how this language shift has been implemented with kids--and in some cases on the adult level. It is meant to be cheesy, but have a positive impact. Never forget for one second how lucky we are to get to come to this place each day. I have a feeling there are people in this world who are looking for jobs, or people who would love to be part of our team. We get to be together. We get to impact kids. We get to impact colleagues. We get to choose our attitude. We get to be THAT teacher for each child.

WE are QUEST. Have an awesome weekend.

Copier

Team,

The copier in the main office will be open for color access. With that, please be mindful of the fact that large quantities of copies--packets and such--should still go to Katie downstairs. When you send a copy to it, please try to grab right away. This copier often has sensitive and confidential information sent to it that could get lost in a sea of other copies, so it is important that it stays organized so that we do not accidentally misplace any sensitive faxes or papers that come through. Parent volunteers should not be using the color copier due to the sensitive files and material that comes to the colored copier.

If you are using the other copiers and have a parent/sub that needs to copy, Hannah will be housing a couple badges that can be used to scan.  These will be housed in the main office and locked up each night. We do not have these yet, but they will be hopefully arriving shortly.

QUEST Robotics Club

The new QUEST Robotics Club being advised  by Stephanie and Carol is starting in Feb.  It will be on Wednesdays  after school from 3:45-5:45. We are looking for parents and staff to pitch in with this exciting endeavor for Elementary and Intermediate kids.  Permission slips will be announced at the Nov 15 morning meeting and will take the first 35 kids. If you know of any parents that would be potential mentors, let Stephanie know. 

Defining our Values

I believe I have the values from each level. Below is what was shared with me.

Community(x6); individuality; caring(x3); joy; differences; kindness(x2); progressiveness; acceptance; inspire; educate; mindfulness; knowledge; uniqueness; relationships; dedication; creativity(x2); collaboration; commitment, making a difference

My next steps: 

• Add these values to a parent/staff survey: When you think about QUEST, which values do you see coming to life on a daily basis? Which values support why you chose to work at QUEST or send your child to QUEST? This will go out in the Q&A next week. 
• I will also be working with the kids to find evidence for each one when I pull them for your extra planning during the dance planner. I was originally going to have you do in your classroom, but it might be easier for me to facilitate this so that it doesn't become another thing for you to try to coordinate during this busy month.

The goal would be that by our December CIA meeting, we will have some good data from the kids/staff/parents to inform our decisions and to unearth our core/aspirational values. By Christmas I would like to know what our 2-3 core values are, and what are 1-2 aspirational values are.

BEDS...oh yes, I said it...BEDS!

BEDS season is upon us. We GET to do BEDS.  :)

What? 

QUEST Staff BEDS Application Deadline: Monday, November 13th

Who? 

Teachers

How? 

1. Log-in to the ePMF site with your TEACH id.
2.  Validate the information that was uploaded into your school snapshot. Most data should be accurate, but there could be a few discrepancies. If you think some of the data is not accurate, please let Derek know what is wrong and what you believe it should be. 
3. You will also need to enter the course you teach, assignment code (see link), assignment name, grade level and the amount of students in your courses. 
4. New this year, you will be asked to fill in race/ethnicity. This is used as a way to verify we have the correct information locally for our building level BEDS information.

Where do I log-in to start?

Log-in HERE

What resources might I need?

The BEDS ePMF User Guide, FAQ's, and Assignment Codes are now listed on the SharePoint called QUEST Shares (schedules) at the top of our blog. Inside that sharepoint there is a folder called BEDS 2017. Or, click HERE