Brainstorming

=**Brainstorming Ideas, I thought that we could brainstorm our ideas one this page so that we could be able to have an online discussion of which ones we think will work and then make a final decision.**=

Ideas:
Here is a link to the women who wrote the textbook The Daily Five's website: http://www.the2sisters.com/

Also, I have forward emails from them as my principal always sends their tip of the week to us. I can forward them to us - if we want. I do not want to send you something you might not want or we might not need. I also have posters we made explaining the five activities.

So...I think we need to think about designing this imaginary school...

Our School Holder Community School consist of 300 students grades K to 6. It is located in a low income community where both parents usually work just to full fill their family needs. Our students need hands on activities with connections to life. Most of the learning needs to be taken place in the classroom as homework usually is not done at home.

THOUGHTS? Catherine

Is this your real school or the basis for an imaginary school? If it's the latter, that works for me, although I would rather have middle to low income, so there would be some families who could afford some extras but homework would still typically be not done. We could have a very active PAC (Parent Advisory Committee) who does tons of fundraising to supplement the school budget. Whether it's right or wrong, it's what happens in my school district...I've worked in schools where there is lots of extra funds from PAC and some schools, where there's no extra funding.

Sue

PS If SHCS is your real school, here's some info about my real school: It consists of 370 K - 6 kids. It's the fastest growing school in the district (and we're the 2nd or 3rd fastest growing district in the province). We are in a mixed income area, with some parents driving Porsches, BMW's or Jag's and other parents who use public transportation and can barely afford to properly clothe their children, and everything in between. Our PAC is very active and allot each teacher lots of money to cover buses and admission costs for field trips and classroom expenses, as well as paying for school-wide events and specially requested equipment (such as a class set of Orff intruments).


 * Here are the Daily 5 websites I found useful:**

[] Has detailed instructions how to set up the program -drawback- all handouts come from their book you have to buy…but you can still get a lot of info from the site.

[] Gives a brief overview of what the Daily 5 is

[] A whole ton of Daily 5 ideas, visuals and links

http://mnwelementary-daily5andcafe.wikispaces.com/Daily+5+Resources -Daily 5 for Dummies – includes a word-for-word script for each of a few lesson plans – literally walks you through how to introduce Daily 5 and teach reading strategies -Also has tons of other resources

[] Lots of ideas, visuals, lists, etc. on implementing the Daily 5

[] The Daily 5 Book Study - different bloggers have written about and reflected on each chapter, and are continuing to do this in the Summer of 2012

Sue

No that was not my school - the imaginary one. I will add what you said...anything else?

Our School Holder Community School consist of 300 students grades K to 6. It is located in a middle to low income community where both parents usually work just to full fill their family needs. Our students need hands on activities with connections to life. Most of the learning needs to be taken place in the classroom as homework usually is not done at home. Holder Community School has a very active PAC (Parent Advisory Committee) who does tons of fundraising to supplement the school budget.

Catherine

Looks good to me, thanks. Anyone else have ideas that they want to add or change...Julie or Mandy? Sue

Ok- I added the mission statement: Our School Holder Community School consist of 300 students grades K to 6. It is located in a middle to low income community where both parents usually work just to full fill their family needs. Our students need hands on activities with connections to life. Most of the learning needs to be taken place in the classroom as homework usually is not done at home. Holder Community School has a very active PAC (Parent Advisory Committee) who does tons of fundraising to supplement the school budget.

The Mission of Holder Community School is to inspire students to learn and become life-long learners.

Want to add anything? Change? Catherine

Ok - I added the vision statement now and a few more things about our imaginary school:

Our School Holder Community School consist of 300 students grades K to 6 who range in academic ability and cultural backgrounds. It is located in a middle to low income community where both parents usually work just to full fill their family needs. Our students need hands on activities with connections to life. Most of the learning needs to be taken place in the classroom as homework usually is not done at home. Holder Community School has a very active PAC (Parent Advisory Committee) who does tons of fundraising to supplement the school budget. The school has a few resources available for teachers and students. These include new and exciting books for the library, classroom libraries, computers, and a knowledgeable staff. The library is located in the middle of the school and is opened throughout the day; the computer room is attached to the library. The school also has Smartboards in all of the classrooms and access to a class set of IPADS.

The Mission of Holder Community School is to inspire students to learn and become life-long learners. Our Vision is that every student at Holder Community School learns to collaborate, ask questions, and investigate with their learning.

NOT SURE ABOUT THE VISION AND MISSION - MAYBE THEY ARE TO BE SWITCHED. Catherine

Hi Catherine, Susan, and April Sorry to get to the conversation a little late. The description of the school sounds through. I have added/changed the mission and vision statements to be a little bit more complete and to hopefully go with our school community. Please let me know if this is okay, or if you have any other suggestions.

The Mission of Holder Community School is to provide students with real life, hands on activities that challenges the student body academically. We strive for an atmosphere of cooperation, with respect for individual differences and community values.

Our Visions is that every student at Holder Community School will be provided with the tools to collaborate, question, and investigate while being a valued member of the school environment.

Mandy

I've changed our school description to take out the informal phrase "tons of fundraising":

Holder Community School consist of 300 students grades K to 6 who range in academic ability and cultural backgrounds. It is located in a middle to low income community where both parents usually work just to full fill their family needs. Our students need hands on activities with connections to life. Most of the learning needs to be taken place in the classroom as homework usually is not done at home. Holder Community School has a very active PAC (Parent Advisory Committee) who fundraise throughout the year to supplement the school budget. The school is staffed with a full time principal and a .40 FTE vice principal, 13 classroom teachers, 2 support teachers, 7 SEAs (Special Education Assistants), and a .50 FTE trained Teacher-Librarian. The school has a few resources available for teachers and students. These include new and exciting books for the library, classroom libraries, computers, and a knowledgeable staff. The library is located in the middle of the school and is opened throughout the day; the computer room is attached to the library. The school also has Smartboards in all of the classrooms and access to a class set of iPads.

Sue PS The work on the mission and vision statements look good so far...I'll give it more thought today.

Hi all, I'm sorry I'm late entering the convo as well. The description looks great. I have just added notes about their TL time. I decided to be generous with TL time and give it 50% which I think is just barely enough to support inquiry but realistic enough that we won't lose marks, and I added additional staffing info regarding admin and classroom teachers : ) -April

Love the description! Great team work! Ok, now the tough part - district goals - I have started with some ideas - we would need to go into some detail, but what do you think of these themes? 1. That every student will succeed. 2. Our students' education will transformed through collaboration and innovation. 3. Our students will develop 21 century skills to succeed.

Here's the link to Saanich School District's goals. It is clear and easy to read. The first 3 are the same as Sooke School District (my district). Each goal has objectives and rationales. p. 7 has the goasl, p. 8 has the objectives and rationales for goal 1, p. 19 has the objectives and rationales for the literacy goal. Reading these might help us formulate our goals and rationales. []

I also found a wonderful quote in the Saanich District Goals, which I would like to include in our presentation. (Saanich had the first sentence only, but I like the second sentence, too.) After a bit of a search, I found the original article the quote appeared in: [] The quote is on page 23 and is: "Think of literacy as a spine; it holds everything together. The branches of learning connect to it, meaning that all core content teachers have a responsibility to teach literacy."

Phillips, V., and Wong, C. (2010). Tying together the common core of standards, instruction, and assessments. // Phi Delta Kappan: 12 Must- //// Reads from Kappan 2009 – 2010, // 19-25. Retrieved from: [] The original article came from: // Phi Delta Kappan //, 91(5), 37-42. (February, 2010).

July 11 The District goals look good to me. I was thinking about the presentation portion of this project and was wondering if others could check out Prezi? I've been wanting an excuse to play around and explore that for a presentation. It looks easy to use and makes a great visual impact....... -April

I've looked up several district goals onVancouver Is. All of them have a goal about gr.12 completion for all students. I like the phrasing of the Comox Valley SD goals, which I have included here for tweaking: "To develop a sense of belonging and to enhance the engagement in learning for all students" "To develop literacy performance by purposefully engaging diverse learners in the process of making meaning across all subject areas" "To improve numeracy knowledge, skills and attitudes across all grades K-12" "To increase the [school] completion rate of all students" ( added the word school) Their rationale for all of these goals is that the first 3 increase the likelyhood of the school completion goal, none of the goals can happen without the first one, and of course, literacy and numeracy are the foundations of all academics.

When we finalize our goals, we'll have to decide if we want briefly stated district goals or more detailed ones. I prefer more detailed ones. The first ones Catherine listed are a happy medium. Some districts have very brief goals.

Re-Prezi. I'm OK with the idea of using Prezi. I think they look really cool. I've heard they're not very user-friendly to set-up, but on the other hand, my 12 year old nephew says they're really easy and he's done them for school presentations. Sue PS The final versions of the vision and mission statements are great...specific, clear, and no overused language.

July 11 Here is the link to a very quick TEST PREZI it took me about 10 minutes to join and slap together a sample Prezi. Prezi can be shared and has the option to share editing responsibilities which would make it ideal for a collaborative assignment. We can also embed other Web 2.0 tools/links to present our project (ie. YouTube, graphic organizers....) **I'm with Sue regarding the more detailed goals. I also really like the "sense of belonging and engaging learners"...very much in line with Inquiry. -April

July 12, 2012 Sorry guys - I got busy the last little bit! Ok...I agree we need to add some more details to the goals. I like Comox Valley goals: "To develop a sense of belonging and to enhance the engagement in learning for all students" "To develop literacy performance by purposefully engaging diverse learners in the process of making meaning across all subject areas" "To improve numeracy knowledge, skills and attitudes across all grades K-12" "To increase the [school] completion rate of all students" ( added the word school)

Anyone have any thoughts about tweaking them or would you like to go another root? Maybe: - District wide our students would feel a sense of belonging to their learning and they feel engaged in their learning - To develop literacy skills by purposefully appealing to all diverse learners by making meaning in all subject areas - To improve numeracy knowledge, skills and attitudes across all grades K-12 - To increase the all schools completion rate of all students

Also, the Prezi is a great program as I used it last class I was in. So I think that is a great idea! Catherine

re-rephrasing goals -To increase the school completion rate of all students -To develop a sense of belonging and to enhance the engagement in learning for all students by making meaning across all subject areas -To improve numeracy knowledge, skills and attitudes across all grades K-12 -To develop literacy skills...//have to think about this one...it's hard to change perfect wording!// -To develop 21 century skills to succeed.

Sue

Hi guys, Haven't been able to be on here too much, working on assignment 1, which seems to be a lot longer than I thought it would, so probably will not be too focused on this one until Monday after 9 am. Anyway. It sounds like we all agree on the mission and vision statements, so maybe would could make it official. District Goals that Catherin tweaked and Sue re-rephrased sound good, I just am unsure about the last one develop 21 century skills to succed (we would have to describe what 21st century skills are: such as students that are able to work in teams, collaborate, etc.) I am okay with Prezi as one of our tools to present our information, but am thinking that we might need something that lets people find information easier: wiki, LivBinder, blog... I am also thinking about what our focus is going to be with Daily 5/Cafe? Are we going to be providing resources and information about how to implement it into the classroom, teacher focus. Or is it going to be more of a student focus? Hope this makes sense. I have also created a few more pages so that we can keep things a bit more organized. Please feel free to add pages, I hope you can, if not let me know and I can add some or change some settings.

Mandy

Mandy, thanks so much for keeping us more organized. And I totally understand about assignment one - a bit more work than I was expecting. I was thinking the focus would provide teachers with ideas they can implement in the classroom. But I am open to changing the focus - what does everyone else think?

Hi all, Whew, I'm glad assignment 1 is done. I agree, much more work than anticipated! I'm thinking Prezi for the district goals, values and mission statements as well as description of school. I'm going to play around on Prezi tonight and tomorrow to see if the final link on the Prezi can lead to a Live Binder. How does that sound? I'm totally good to set up the Prezi and add those elements to it : ) -April (July 16th)

Hey Everyone, I agree with Catherine with the focus, Provide teachers with ideas they can implement in the classroom. I am also fine with April do work out a Prezi for the areas she suggested. Maybe tomorrow Tuesday we can start to agree on a main focus, and then divide and conquer what we need to get done. I see the Jennifer has sent out some examples from the year before which should help us a lot.

July 17, 2012 I have added another couple of pages to our planning - curriculum, why and how of our plan...I believe we have covered our teaching staff in the school description. Catherine

July 17th, 2012 (11:52 am) I have started the Prezi. I can add videos, hyperlinks, jpegs to the Prezi. I'm thinking that the Prezi would be ideal to have the following information: Introduction/Project rationale School Descrition Vision and Value statements District Goals And the final link on the Prezi could be to a Live Binder to organize the resources. What do you think? Here is the link. So far I have only begun the template and added placeholders for the information. If I get the "all clear" from everyone to start, I can add the information : ) April

April, I am more than happy that you are putting that together. Thanks. I guess we need to come up with a Introduction/Project rationale. Do you have one in mind?

July 17th, 7:47 pm Hi Mandy, I don't have one in mind yet. To tell you the truth, I'm still trying to wrap my head around using the Daily 5 as an inquiry project. Is this something that we can brainstorm together as a group? -April

Hi Everyone, Sorry I was away from this for a couple of days...project 1 took longer than I expected, plus I had a million computer problems (kept freezing, slowing waaaay down, and other weird things...bought a new laptop and router and have to set it up....probably tomorrow. I added a suggestion for combining daily five and inquiry under the section where Mandy lists some ideas. Thank you April for setting up the Prezi...it looks great. Now we get to learn about another web 2.0 tool...I've always wanted to learn how to use this (since the Web 2.0 course) .Sue