ISY Elementary School Faculty Blog

Enjoy Your Weekend!

Mike Simpson

November 5, 2021

The answer to my question was ‘Yes.’ Yes, you really can stretch and do yoga while eating an ice cream…

We all know we are doing our best…. even when we are not at our best!

Check in. How am I? What do I need? How are they? What do they need from me?

Ask for help and be helpful.

Be present and patient. Take time to fully understand others and allow time for others to understand you. Pausing, Paraphrasing and Posing Questions promotes our common understanding.

Share your ideas and be open to the ideas of others. Once shared, they become our ideas and anything could happen!

ES COLLABORATIVE AGENDA

Please add any questions, items that come to mind to this ES Collaborative Agenda. The idea is that once we have a few things to discuss that can’t be addressed by email, we will meet.

 New Quarter 2 Schedule

Here is the link to the ES Quarter 2 Schedule which is also available on the Elementary School Faculty Pages.

The changes that have been made are highlighted in red.

 Friday Emails + Quarter 2 Offline Learning

We will send out our Grade Level Friday Emails this Friday, November 12.

You will find the email templates in the folders below. Please update these emails in blue by 12pm Thursday MMT.

In these folders you will also find the Offline Learning Activity templates that will be converted to a PDF to be emailed out every Friday. We will need to update these offline learning activities to reflect what we are doing in Quarter 2. Please update them by 12pm Thursday MMT.

ISY Annual Compassion Conference

Friday, March 4

This will be organized under the umbrella of ISY Definition of Compassion: The will and understanding to respect and value the identity, culture, perspective, and experience of others in acting to make a positive difference to their lives.

In addition to a key-note speaker addressing resilience in young people and an ISY student panel presenting on LGBTQ+ issues, teacher workshops will be an important part of this conference. 

Teacher workshops might relate to any of our ISY Inclusive Practices and will be organized under the following strands:

    • Inclusion
    • Service
    • Diversity

Workshops can focus on anything under these strands and we are particularly interested in workshops on the following:

    • Responsive Classroom Strategies
    • Science of Learning – memory, etc.
    • Teaching Creativity
    • Integrating Technology

Our TIF team of Ian and Lindsey will be helping us put this day together and will be popping into classes from time to time to get ideas and encourage teachers. Please reach out to them if you have an idea you would like some support with – whether you intend to present it or not on March 4.

      From the Library

      Lindsey and Christian in the library would be very happy to help get books to you that you might want to read to your class or have your students read. These books can be scanned so they can be used online so let them know if you are looking for something.

      Interdisciplinary Units

      Curriculum Maps and Scope and Sequences

      Quarter 2 has begun.

      I shared how this all connects in our faculty meeting on Monday but let me know if you have any questions…

      Here is where you can find our Curriculum Maps (updated for Q1 using report subject comments).

      Here is where you can find our Q1 Scope and Sequence. Please link your planning to the Scope and Sequence. I have done this for PE and Culture and Communication to give you an example. We want to give you some autonomy as to how you organize your planning and resources but your planning needs to be in an ISY Shared Drive. 

      Here is where you can find our Q2 Scope and Sequence. 

      To fill out this year’s Q2 Scope and Sequence, you might want to refer to the skills you focused on this time last year in these Q2 scope and sequence documents:

      PK-1 Q2 Scope and Sequence 2020-2021

      2-3 Q2 Scope and Sequence 2020-2021

      4-5 Q2 Scope and Sequence 2020-2021

      Please also link your planning to the Scope and Sequence. 

      If you have not already, please check off the standards that you intend to cover in your subject in Quarter 2. Please make sure there is an ‘x’ in the second column of any standard you will cover in these Grade Level Standards Checklists.

      Wednesday Assemblies

      Our next 3 assemblies need games so please sign up on our Assembly Sign Up Schedule if you have any ideas.

       Grades 2-5 Google Classroom Set Up

      Please use the following heading for each week (Quarter followed by the week…)

      From our TIFs

      Here are a curated list of helpful links for students and families as we begin the year. These videos can be helpful as you share information with them. 

      Previous Elementary School Posts

      Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 19, 2021

      Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 19, 2021

      Mar 19, 2021 |

      We might not feel like experts but today’s assembly was a chance to remind ourselves that we are now good at many things that we did not know how to do at all just a matter of months or weeks or days ago.

      Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 12, 2021

      Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 12, 2021

      Mar 12, 2021 |

      The reality of the current situation can make finding the bright side difficult. But research shows that in difficult times, it is important for our mental health to allow ourselves to acknowledge that times are difficult and to feel rather than suppress negative emotions.

      Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 5, 2021

      Elementary School Faculty Blog – March 5, 2021

      Mar 5, 2021 |

      We have long term, yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly plans but our planning and preparation has now taken more of a day by day focus. It will therefore need to be very fluid as we plan for our students’ safety and wellbeing, connectedness, and learning.