We are thrilled to offer ParaEducator from The Master Teacher as a professional development resource for our paraprofessionals. This program provides flexible, online training modules designed to enhance skills in behavior management, communication, instructional strategies, and supporting students with diverse needs.

Paraprofessionals now have access to self-paced learning opportunities to deepen their expertise and further support student success in our classrooms. We look forward to seeing the positive impact this training will have!

Questions?!? Reach out to April (aguinness@mvrsd.org) with any questions.

We are excited to share that 23 PreK-8 teachers are collaborating with the Montshire Museum to enhance science education! Through this partnership, teachers have access to over 25 Montshire Museum Curriculum Kits, each equipped with standards-aligned lesson plans and materials.

As a part of this program, Montshire educators also visit classrooms twice a year to deliver interactive lessons on topics like life science, physical science, and Earth science or to support teachers using the curriculum kits.

This partnership provides our students with hands-on, inquiry-based learning experiences that will inspire curiosity and deepen their understanding of science.

Planning to use a website, web app, or educational software for your next lesson or project? Make sure it's approved before you start! All resources must go through the App Vetting Process to ensure compliance and accessibility.

Here's how it works:

1. Submit a request: Complete the Google Form to begin,

2. Principal Review: Your building principal reviews and approves (or denies) the request.

3. CIA and IT Review: Our Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Director along with the IT Director conduct the next round of reviews.

4. SDPC Approval: If the app isn't pre-approved by the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), additional steps may be required. This can take months, so plan ahead.

5. Denied by SDPC? Unfortunately, the app cannot be used.

❗❗Reminder: This process takes time, so submit your requests early to avoid delays. For more details, check out the mandatory training video. ❗❗

As the end of the school year approaches, it's crucial for anyone up for recertification to ensure they have enough hours logged in Frontline. Even if recertification isn't on your radar this year, keeping your records updated is essential. Taking a few minutes now to update your hours will save time later and ensure your hard work is accurately reflected.

Log into your Frontline account and check on the status of your PD activities under your Learning Plan. Do you have outstanding activities waiting for approval? Have you submitted the appropriate documentation? Did you remember to mark it as complete?

It's also important to sign up for professional development activities when they are available. Activities do not stay in the catalog forever, and we are unable to reopen them if you didn't sign up for them before they closed.

As always if you need help with Frontline, attend your school's after-school help sessions for support! Check with your PD building reps for more information. Remember, your PD reps are happy to assist, but please be mindful of their time and attend designated help sessions.

• NH CIVICS has partnered with NHED to share resources with educators via NHED’s Canvas platform. Using the public NH Civics course on Canvas, educators can stay updated on upcoming professional development, public events, in-class programs for students, the NH Civic Learning Coalition and more.
• Keene State College, Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies: We believe that Holocaust and Genocide Education has much to contribute to civics education. Although this is difficult and traumatic material, we teach to ensure consistent engagement with the pressing questions of individual and group responsibility towards the other. By exploring values, attitudes, skills, knowledge, and critical understanding of these complex issues and forces, we enable responsible civic engagement. As we remember, we seek to prevent genocide and crimes of mass atrocity by finding points of leverage, intervention, and empowerment.

• “Moose on the Loose” is a social studies curriculum for the State of New Hampshire. Created by the New Hampshire Historical Society, it explores the Granite State’s history, economics, geography, and civic life, introducing students to the state’s rich cultural heritage. The site was designed for kids in the upper elementary grades (Grades 3-6), but much of the material is adaptable for students in other grades. "Moose on the Loose" provides many ways for kids to connect what they learn about the past to current, statewide issues. It also provides a foundation for lifelong learning about New Hampshire, America, and the democratic traditions that unite us all. So dive in and find out more about the state we all love!
• Civics Fundamentals takes the one hundred questions asked by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on the naturalization test for U.S. citizenship and explores the “WHY?” to help the student discover their meaning and importance. We have created a two-minute video for each of the one hundred questions that can be turnkey lessons in civics education classes nationwide. Our goal is to move beyond the rote memorization of facts that dominates the current civics curriculum toward “inquiry-based instruction” that engages learners and is becoming more prevalent in education today. This video based product is available – at no cost to any educator or student – via online streaming.

This video shows how the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) may be used as a formative assessment — to determine students’ understanding of a concept or their knowledge of a topic. Educators can use the QFT to assess their students at the beginning of a unit, as seen in this video, in the middle of the unit, and toward the end of the unit.

There are other creative ways to use the QFT, including as a summative assessment (see: “Making Questions Flow” to read more about how to use student questions).

In this video, Lucy Canotas, a fourth-grade teacher in Manchester, New Hampshire, uses the QFT for formative assessment purposes. “I’m interested to see what they can bring as questions to make me understand where they’re still stuck or what they still don’t know,” she explains. To elicit students’ questions about fractions, she designed a visual Question Focus (QFocus). She found that using the students’ questions and work helped her better understand what they knew about this mathematical concept. This video shows each step of the QFT in an elementary-school classroom, and it shows how Canotas uses the QFT to collect information that helps her fine-tune lessons.

Math Running Record videos - There is an introduction video and then one for each operation where I interview students and explain how I coded the running record. Teachers can download the recording sheets from the site www.mathrunningrecords.com for free and practice while watching the videos.

Daily Routine Videos - There are separate videos for Kinder through 4th grade. All links to the daily routines shared are on my padlet: https://tinyurl.com/RecordElementaryMath

Teachable Courses - Teachers will go to the link and click in the upper right hand side of the site where it says "All products". They will then see all the courses I currently offer on the Teachable site- Cuisenaire Rods, Problem Solving K2, Fraction Essentials, and Place Value.

Please see the Mascoma Curriculum Google Classroom for the code.

• 🖍️ Kindergarten
• 📏 First Grade
• 🎲 Second Grade
• ⏲️ Third Grade
• 🧮 Fourth Grade
• ✏️ Fifth Grade
• 📐Sixth Grade
• 📊 Seventh Grade
• 📉 Eighth Grade

IM Professional Development slides by Jess Jacques

Working with Jess Jacques, the Merrimack Valley School District Math Coach, we have developed pacing guides based on Mascoma I Can Statements laying out the quarter by quarter plan for teaching the IM curriculum. Each document includes helpful suggestions and links.

Check out our Mascoma Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment Google Classroom for professional development materials, Grit materials & new videos, K-8 math pacing guides, scope and sequence documents, and more. 📚 📏 📖

Course Code: cshmptt