CANNON LEGACY
A Newsletter For Cannon Staff 2017-2018
Principal Points - 11/13 - 11/17
It's THAT time of year!! That time of year when there are SO many exciting events & celebrations to share!! Check out these memorable moments from last week!
- Cannon STEMbassadors represented GCISD at the Barnes & Nobles Mini-Maker Faire! BIG thanks to Julie B. for her work to organize this and to Julee, Kristi, & Alejandra for helping out this weekend!!
- Grapevine Leadership visited Cannon Elementary as part of their annual Education Day in GCISD.
- Veteran's Day Program at Cannon was simply amazing!! BIG thanks to Patrick for his work to prepare all of our Cubs to participate in this special program!
- Julie B., Lisa B., and Jennifer B. represented Cannon as presenters as the CAST conference in Houston! Thanks to each of you for representing Cannon & GCISD while sharing your knowledge & experiences with other educators!
Celebrations will continue this week as we prepare for another busy week! Thank you for all of your hard work to prepare for an educational & inspiring Family Engineering Night and Grandparents/Grandfriends Day this week! These types of experiences provide an awesome way for our Cannon families to stay connected to our work and experience how our Cannon Cubs learn each day in this amazing school!
Proud to be your principal,
Tona :)
Lisa's Coaching Corner
Monday, 11/12- Don't forget that Melanie Gonzales will be in the PLC room to meet with ALL MATH teachers tomorrow at the beginning of your conference time.
Ever need some fresh researched based strategies to help boost your students to the next level? Lead4ward has them!
The lead4ward Instructional Strategies Playlists are designed to provide teachers with detailed descriptions of specific, instructional strategies. This resource is intended to support educators in using an intentional planning process that includes delivering instruction that is aligned to the TEKS, promotes student engagement, and teaches for access, rigor, and transfer.You will be able to engage learners, provide practice without penalty, encourage interaction among students, and be able to see and hear students' thinking.
I am looking forward to sharing them with you in the next round of PLCs. DATES TO REMEMBER
11/13-11/17 Book Fair
11/13 - Math Coach on campus all day in PLC room - meet during conference time to see GCISD's new math RtI website
11/13 Rhythm Band Program - K-5 during Specials
11/13 STEM Leadership 3:15 in media lab
11/14 PLC Week B - 5th grade 2:15-3:45
11/15 PLC Week B - 4th grade 2:15-3:45
11/16 3rd grade dictional distribution from Rotary Club - 8:30 in classrooms
11/16 PLC Week B - 3rd grade 2:15-3:45
11/16 PTA provides staff lunch - Chili Cookoff!
11/16 Family Engineering Night - 5:30-7:30
11/17 Grandparent/Grandfriend Day - 8:00-10:00 am
11/20-11/24 Thanksgiving Break!
11/27 U.CAN 3:15-4:00
11/28 PLC Week A - Kindergarten 2:15-3:45
11/29-12/1 JPS Dental will do screenings & treatments- Kendra will send schedule
11/29 Principal Instructional Rounds @ Cannon 9:00-10:45
11/29 PLC Week B - 1st grade 2:15-3:45
11/30 Dr. Ryan hosts Community Champions meeting in library 8:00-9:30 - library closed
11/30 2nd grade walking field trip to downtown Grapevine 8:00-11:00 am
11/30 PLC Week B - 2nd grade 2:15-3:45
12/01 Staff Potluck Lunch!
SPOTLIGHT ON LEARNING!
In addition to leading our choirs at Cannon and providing quality music instruction daily for our scholars, he helps support special programs by preparing the students to perform. Our Veteran's Day program was an excellent example of how he helped all of our scholars have a part in the program, thus enhancing their own learning about the significance of this event itself. This week, he has partnered with our PTA to help provide another wonderful opportunity for all students to participate in a world drumming experience with an expert! Be sure to tell Patrick thanks for all of his hard work to make music such an important part of our Cub's lives at Cannon!
Family Engineering Night Parent Flyer
Please check out the link below that will be shared with all Cannon families to promote our upcoming Family Engineering Night. Please make sure you are promoting this special event with your families!
Grandparents/Grandfriends Day is Friday, November 17th!
We are excited about our 2nd Annual Grandparents/Grandfriends Day on Friday, November 17th, from 7:45-10:00!!
An invitation went home with all scholars last week. Click here to see this invitation in English. Click here to read it in Spanish. You will note that there is a link in the invitation, so that all grandparents can be registered online and RSVP for the event. You can register a grandparent or grandfriend to attend by clicking here. Please share this information with any grandparents/grandfriends who might like to attend!
Note the "special request" we are asking GP's to be prepared to bring/talk about in the classroom, during their visit. As part of our Legacy theme, we are connecting to our November/December Book of the Month and asking our guests to bring a recipe that is special to their family history and inviting them to talk about a special memory associated with this recipe.
All staff will receive a schedule this week via email that will state the time that your students who have GP visitors can escort them to the Book Fair.
During the time they are in classrooms, please allow time for discussion on the Special Request, as well as any other activities you would like to engage GP's in during this time. I have provided a link for ideas below. Some simple ideas include sharing a book or asking a GP to be a guest reader in your class; doing a simple design challenge with GP's; having your students "teach" the GP something on the iPad; doing a craft project, allowing the GP's to go with their student to shop the Book Fair, etc...
Please let me know of any questions or suggestions you have about this day. We are excited to celebrate withGrandparents/Grandfriends at school!
BoM & Grandparent/Grandfriend's Day!
- NOVEMBER/DECEMBER BoM- Our next Book of the Month has provided inspiration for a FUN connection on one of our most special events of the year - Grandparent/Grandfriends Day on November 17th. Please check out the links below and share this information with your scholars. Just as in the book, the invitation that will be sent out for Grandparent's Day will invite them to bring a special recipe to share with your class and ask them to talk about why this recipe is special to them or their family! We are working on ideas on how to collect all of these recipes and combine them for a recipe book for our school community. Stay tuned!
REMINDERS & UPDATES
TIME FOR UPDATE TO HALLWAY DISPLAYS/BULLETIN BOARDS There are several displays in the hallways and on bulletin boards that need to be updated asap! We will have many guests in our building over the next few weeks with Family Engineering Night, Grandparent's/Grandfriend's Day; Principal Instructional Rounds, etc... and there are several displays that are falling off the wall, are from the beginning of the school year, or that do not reflect quality student work. Please update these displays as soon as possible. Remember that these displays provide a "window" into your classrooms! Be proud & show off the great learning that is happening in your room!
COLOR PRINTER IN LIBRARY-PLEASE READ We need your help!! The color printer in the library is being used to print VOLUMES of paper, IN COLOR!! To make matters worse, the majority of the items printing to this printer are NEVER PICKED UP!! There have been lots of Pinterest-y type of items being printed, as well as full page color alphabet sheets, etc... Printing in color should only be done selectively, as our full year's budget for color cartridge replacements has almost been depleted already. If necessary, this printer will have to be disabled, if we are unable to get the printing under control. Please use good professional judgement when printing in color on school printers!
PHONES WILL CHANGE THIS WEEK - Technology Services will upgrade our phones THIS WEEK. Some important things to note with this transition are outlined below once the system is in place on our campus:
- Dial 8 for an outside line - we will no longer dial 9 to get an outside line for calls, the transition to dial 8 will drastically decrease our accidentally 911 calls that we currently experience. For emergencies, you will always be able to just dial 911 without dialing 8 etc.
- Voicemail to Email - We will be upgrading to a more advanced voicemail system that will now send your voicemail to your email. You will be able to listen to messages anywhere and forward as needed.
- New Voicemail Setup - Everyone will need to re-record your voicemail greeting. Handouts will be provided at the time of phone upgrade on your location.
Technology Services will send a campus-wide email two days prior to the system roll over. There will be no impact to calls during this transition. Be on the lookout for more information specific to your location in the coming weeks!
NOVEMBER TECH TALKS
November 17th - Nepris - If you haven't tapped into this resource, you might just be missing out. Come explore the possibilities.
IDEAS FOR YOUR CLASSROOM LIBRARY!
Worth A Read...Listen!!
CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME FREE RESOURCE....shared by Julie Brenegan last week! Sign up for your FREE subscription to NSTA's Learning Center and access over 12,000 digital resources and other perks! Follow links to request free resources and enter the promo code: ENGAGE2017 Thanks Julie!!
Goodbye Clip Charts, Marble Jars, and Stickers for Behavior...is a thought-provoking blogpost that has some incredible images of student-generated behavior systems that are based on growth-mindset! Check it out!!
TWITTER REMINDERS FOR @canSTEM
Please help us reach our campus goal for all staff to participate in a 5-minute a day communication plan, as stated in George Couros's quote shown here. It's truly a simple way to SHARE & LEARN from the best minds in GCISD! I am going to be highlighting our school twitter account HEAVILY with parents & our school community, to help create our own "outward culture of celebration"!!
As a reminder, please include our school's handle, @canSTEM, in all of your tweets, so that they can be automatically retweeted on our school account. At the end of the day, simply go to @canSTEM and scroll through our school's tweets for 5 minutes and see what your colleagues are sharing! If you want to learn more from them about an idea they shared....you will only have to walk across the building to get more information firsthand!
Please click here to see our staff list of social media accounts. Please add/update any information so that we can make sure we follow each other!
TO-DO LIST
- Set a timer and complete daily attendance ON TIME!
- Don't forget to show daily KCAN announcements every Monday-Thursday!! #KidsDeserveIt
- Update your hallway and bulletin board displays before Thursday!!
- Share information with all families about Family Engineering Night & Grandparent/Grandfriend's Day!
- Math teachers- stop by PLC room on Monday to learn from math coaches about the new RtI math monitoring site.
- STEM Leadership meets in PLC room at 3:15.
- Finalize all plans for Family Engineering Night with your teams!
- Stop by Patrick's room on Monday if possible to check out the world drumming experience!
- Enjoy PTA's Chili Cookoff for staff lunch on Thursday.
- Prepare to have Grandparents/Grandfriend's in your classroom on Friday 8:20-10:00
- Make plans to attend Friday's Tech Talk on using Nepris in your classroom!
- Review the information in this newsletter about the 5-minute a day communication plan. Tweet & blog about all of the great things you are doing in your classroom/grade!
- Update teacher website, blog and other social media.