Wordle

 On the first day back from vacation, I do activities that will ease the students back into a full day of school.  On Wednesday, I taught them the online game Wordle.  Wordle online link  For those of you who haven't played the game, the object is to figure out the 5 letter word of the day in 6 tries or less.  You start using any 5 letter word; my word is always house, but Mrs. Kara Garceau's first word is stare.  Then you find out if any of those letters are in the word you are trying to guess.  If the letter is in the word, but in the wrong spot, the letter will turn yellow.  If the letter is in the word, and in the correct spot, then the letter turns green.  Letters not in the word turn gray.  Based on those clues you have 5 more chances to get the word.

Wordle, on nytimes.com, only has 1 word a day.  There is a website that has all the wordles archived. We started with #1 on Wednesday and they played when they had the chance. Lots of learning opportunities came up about letters that can be at the beginning or end of a word, vowel teams, and syllables.  It's a challenging activity that they can choose when work has been completed or have some free time.

Camping

 Last Friday we had our celebration for demonstrating HR3, Honesty, Responsibility, Respect, and Ready to Learn.  Students earn 15 minutes of free time each time they get a tic tac toe on a card.  We have a bag of chips labeled 1-45. The tic tac toe grid has 9 numbers and when one of those numbers is picked we X it out. It takes 4 cards to earn a celebration.  This time they voted for camping.  Here are some pictures from our camping day.

Shout Outs!

 Our Middle School Values are:

Inquire, Persist, Learn, Grow, Connect, and Advocate

Every first Monday of the month we have our Middle School Community Gathering where we celebrate students who have demonstrated these values.  We call these Shout Outs.

Students who receive Shout Outs get a ticket.  We then pull 10 tickets and those students get a goody bag.  In one of those goody bags is a Grady's Golden Goodness - GGG sticker.  The student who gets the sticker can choose one thing from the GGG website.  We are very thankful to GGG for supporting us.

We encourage students to Advocate for themselves and others by "shouting out" students who demonstrate one of our values.

Review of Expectations

 WOW!  It's been a very long time since I have written a blog post.  I want to take this opportunity to review our behavior expectations.

Our school wide expectations are Honesty, Responsibility, Respect, and Ready to Learn. Our 5/6 team has the same classroom expectations that define what HR3 looks like. When students are having difficulty with these expectations, they get a redirection or reminder.  The steps are as follows:

In Each Class:

1. First reminder: student is asked to follow the expectation.

2. 2nd reminder: move seats or take a break

3. 3rd reminder: move again, take a break, or work in another room

    Minor Office Discipline Referral

4. 4th reminder: planning room

    Major Office Discipline Referral

3 reminders in one class period are documented as a minor referral.  This is done on paper.  If a student receives 3 minors in one day, then we document it as a major office discipline referral and it is recorded in our school data base called SWIS.

If a student has received multiple reminders throughout the day, but didn't get 3 minors, then we will contact you and document it as a major office discipline referral.

4 minor referrals in one week will be documented as a major office discipline referral.  

We will contact you when a major ODR is recorded, but you may hear from us after one or two minors. 

What does a major ODR mean?  Each week, our Behavior Support Team meets and reviews the major referrals.  If a students is receiving majors on a regular basis or a pattern is developing, then the BST will look into what can be done to support that student.

Students get a clean slate each class for the 1, 2, 3 step process.  That means a student in my class  may receive 2 redirects, but when they go to science those 2 are "left" in my class and Gabby will start with step 1. 

We understand this may be confusing, but the students are used to this process.  We document minors and majors so we can connect the dots if we need to so we can better support the students.