http://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=816
Hello All,
I’m not sure if your week last week felt like mine, but I would have to say that holiday stress seems to be making it’s annual visit. As Winter Break gets closer, we can likely expect student and family stress levels (and probably our own too) to increase, which usually means an increase in “interesting” behaviors. Tip of the triangle kids tend to escalate this time of year, so remember to take a deep breath and relax during these hectic last two weeks of school before the break.
Seven items of note for this week.
• Winter Benchmark Testing Begins Monday – Winter Benchmark testing starts this week. Be sure to give me your student scores before this Friday, December 9th if you are not entering them yourself. All scores must be entered by Friday, December 16th. Let me know if you have any questions regarding testing.
• United Way Forms Due Friday – This Friday will be the last day to turn in your United Way Pledge forms. Remember, you can always earmark specific organizations or purposeless for your donation (even your own classroom through EEF). If you missed it, here’s a link to Shelley’s memo to staff regarding this year’s United Way Campaign.
• Eugene Concert Choir Free Classroom Presentation – The Eugene Concert Choir is offering free classroom visits the last week of February through April 20th. In a 30 minute visit to your K-5 classroom, ECCO Music Director Kathryn Leonard will teacher De Colores, a traditional children’s song, in Spanish. Each participating class will also receive an instructional CD of the song. It’s their hope that children who learn the song come to perform on stage at the Hult Center during the Latin Beat for Kids concert on April 21, 2012 at 11:00 AM, with over 100 adult singers. Kids participating in ECCO will receive performer passes that allow them and an adult to attend and perform at the concert at no charge. If you are interested, contact the ECCO at choir@eugeneconcertchoir.org
• Hazardous Weather and School Closures Memo – Linked here is the 2011-12 Hazardous Weather Conditions memo. The short version for building staff is that if there is a snow day, no staff members need to come to school except custodians and principals. Also, besides making announcements about school cancellations via local media and email, downtown is now also announcing school closures over their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
• November Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Newsletter – The Lane Regional TBI representative has asked principals to share the first Lane Regional TBI “Tidbits” Newsletter for the 2011-2012 school year. This month’s issue is titled, “Concussions in the Classroom: Symptoms and Accommodations”. The newsletter is just one page long and provides information and web site sites where staff can learn more.
• School Tours of the Lane County Historical Museum – Travel the Oregon Trail and sample a day in a pioneer child’s life! The Lane County Historical Museum offers free school tours Tuesday-Friday. School tours are approximately 75 minutes in length. Due to space limitations, groups of more than 30 children are not recommended. For more information on the school tours, or for their traveling “Road Show” or “Traveling Trunk” which can come to your classroom, visit the Lane County Historical Society and Museum website.
• Allan’s Announcements Tip – It’s Searchable! – If you’ve never noticed, partway down, along the right column, of my blog, there is a search box. Just type in a keyword and you’ll pull up any posts I’ve made that contain the word or words you’ve entered. For example, if you are needing to find the link to the Bus Safety video, you could type “bus” or “bus safety” to find the link (and be sure to let me know when you’ve shown that video to your students).
Have a great week, everyone!
Allan