Valentine's Day Dance!

Open Court Vocabulary Picture Binders

Happy Tuesday!

I would like to invite everyone to view the new Open Court vocabulary binders for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade in the staff room. The binders are on the center island behind the cold laminating machine. All other grade levels will be available shortly. These binders have been provided for you convenience. If you would like to use the pictures with your class please do. Have a great day!

Megan

I would like to thank everyone that I have met with so far on the fantastic workshop planning sessions. We are getting a lot of excellent planning done and teachers are leaving excited about workshop. I want to encourage you to find your meeting time on the chart on the door in the staff lounge. If the time does not work for you, please see me and we will try to work something else out. David has been so kind to provide rovering subs for these meetings.

I have been in gathering books from you to level for the the leveled libraries. I wanted to provide a guide for the color dots for your information.

blue = challenge (above current grade level)
green = on grade level
yellow = easy (one year below grade level)
red = very easy (two + years below grade level)

When I check the level of a book I use the website src.scholastic.com/ecatalog. I type in the title of the book and if the book is in the database it will show a full description of the book. The RL (reading level) is listed on the page. If the reading level is 3.2 and you are a 5th Grade teacher, you would place a red dot on it as it is a very easy book for that level. More to follow at an upcoming grade level or staff meeting. I am happy to level books for you. Please leave me a note or touch base with me and I'll pick the books up from you. Please see me if you have any questions about this.

I will be posting a second sign up sheet next week for the 2nd half of the fluency seminar. Please look for the chart to sign up. Enjoy a fabulous 3-day weekend!

Megan

SACRAMENTO START

Inside Look at SACRAMENTO START

The Mission:
START believes that children should be given every opportunity to be successful. START fosters enthusiasm for learning by engaging children in fun literacy-focused activities. In a safe and caring environment, START expands the school day and supports district goals.

The Vision:
Sacramento START is a public/private collaboration that is working to build the capacity of all children to succeed academically and socially while reconnecting families and neighborhoods with their schools.

START‘s 3 ½ Daily Components:

1. Academic Support
Homework Assistant
Daily Math Review
Daily Language Review
Journal Writing
KidzLit
KidzMath
I Station
Math Steps

2. Recreation
Speed Stacking
Dodge Ball
4 Square
Kickball
Soccer
Tennis
Flag Football
Chess& Checkers
Softball
Track and Field
Basketball
SPARKS

½. AmeriCorps
Nutrition
5 A DAY PowerPlay
School Gardens
Fitness Activities

3. Enrichment
Science
Geography
Art
Dance
Drama

Cultures/ Countries
Holidays
Cooking/Baking
Animals/Insects
History
CLUBS

Weekly Bulletin

Harmon Johnson Elementary School
Bulletin
Week of February 4, 2008

Monday
Staff Room Cleanup- Mee Thao
10:00-12:00 Healthy Start Collaborative
12:00 mtg. with parent
12:30 mtg. Megan/David
2:30 Bilingual Teachers mtg.
3:30 mtg. David/Terry/Richard/UCD CRESS Center
Tuesday
Healthy Start Training Terry/Bonita/Mary Lou all day
9:00-12:00 Coaching session, David/Gayle Moore
12:30-1:30 CARE Coaching Anna/Erin
2:30 Student Council
Wednesday
2:30-3:30 Staff/Leadership mtg.
4:00 PM Rio Tierra mtg. David
Thursday
Spelling Bee words to teachers
2:30-3:00 CARE Team mtg. Ana, Erin
Friday
7:00-8:30 Superintendent/Principals mtg.
9:00-11:00 Coffee and Conversation
9:00-11:30 Administrators mtg. David

Notes:
· On April 22 form 8:30 to 10:30 Frank Porter, Patty Smart and Ramona Bishop will be visiting us. They would like to meet with CTA and CSEA reps, as well as staff. I will also be giving them a tour of the school. I will give you more details later.
· Some of you may have seen me visiting classrooms with Gayle Moore, my coach. We have met twice now and I have asked her to help me in developing a professional learning community. She has expertise in this area and has been helpful in giving me some ideas. She has also share a process known as a Cycle of Inquiry. It is a process that keeps the PLC moving forward. I will be sharing this with all of you.
· I have not received all the grade level meeting minutes. If you have not turned them in yet please do so.

Computer Donations

Dear Johnson Community:
This time we want to express our gratitude for supporting our students by donating used computers. In the last six months people from Sacramento and the surrounding areas have expressed their kindness with us and the environment by donating monitors, speakers, mice (the ones that don't bite but move the bytes), keyboards, and CPUs. We especially want to thank Stefan from Shingle Springs who donated 8 CPUs; Vi, a long-time contributor from Sacramento, who donated about 10 CPUs and monitors; Pablo in Davis, who donated 10 monitors, priters, wires, cables; and Rachael in Sacramento for making the right connections. We are also greatful with our parents who've made an extra effort to purchase an Internet connection.
Mr. C and Ms. Hernandez put the donated parts together, convince parents to subscribe to the Internet, connect to the Internet and show the students and parents how they can benefit from it. For us as teachers this has been an interesting experience. Our strategy to distribute those computers has been to raffle them off, and give them to families with many siblings at our school. Soon we discovered that we were not only reaching our own students, but also students from other schools in the community. In the picture above, we see students from Johnson, Noralto, and Smythe Academy. In the picture below-center, we see students from Grant High School and Martin Luther King Jr. High. In apartments students visit each other and work together using the schools website (www.tinyurl.com/2d4yuz) and other websites.
We also see how parents are learning to use this medium to find jobs, used items for sale, apartments for rent, to learn English, and even to prepare for the citizenship exam. For us teachers this envigors our belief in technology. We certainly trust that when technology is properly used it can complement and enrich instruction in the classrooms and make our community a better place.
We look forward to continuing working with you all and thus perfecting this enterprise. We've barely scratched the surface.
Thank you again,
Mr. C