November 14

We started our day today with a "Pep Talk" from kid president on youtube. This little guy is a funny, charismatic boy who has had to overcome some significant challenges in his own life. He makes youtube videos about making the world a more positive place and about self improvement. His messages are inspiring and the kids enjoy listening to him speak and can relate to him in a different way than myself :) We discussed his ideas and this led us into setting some personal individual goals for ourselves on what we would like to get better at in the next few weeks (in school!). All of us were able to identify an area that we want to work on until Winter Break. I encouraged the students to narrow their focus and to be really specific so that they can see results and know exactly what they want to change. For example, a goal like improving in reading is too broad and students needed to articulate what specific area in reading they would like to develop. Tomorrow we will start to identify the strategies that will be applied in order to meet those goals. After all, just creating a goal isn't enough if we are not working towards meeting it. Here are a few examples of goals that students came up with:
"My goal is to get better at writing by not putting capitals in the middle of my words"
"My goal is to write more sentences and add details"
"I would like to improve on my spelling by sounding out the words as I go"
"A goal I have for November and December is to get better at using mental math to add numbers"

There was also a purple form that went home today. It is a consent form for pictures and work to be published. We will have having a photographer come to our school to take some pictures for the CBE photo bank.  These pictures may be used for CBE website along with other CBE documents. 

The difference between this form and the blue ones which were sent home at the beginning of the year is this form is good for 5 years where as the blue form is only valid for the current school year. Please return them with your child as soon as possible. Also if you do not consent can you clearly mark that on the form and send it back in so that I can track who does not want this. Thanks so much!

Upcoming Dates:
Tues. Nov. 15- photo orders are due either online or
Wed. Nov. 16- picture retakes- please send the order sheet back with retakes box checked off or a note letting me know you want your child to get retakes.
Thur. Nov. 17- Learning Commons books back to school