Shifting Lunch and Recess Schedules

We are excited to make some changes (starting Monday, 3/31) to our lunch/recess schedule!

The kindergarten and first grade lunch/recess times were able to remain, for the most part, unaltered. Second through fifth grades had to rearrange some of the things that they teach so that everything still fit into their day. We believe that these changes will have a positive impact on our students. As a result, some of the highlights are:

• Providing increased adult supervision during transitions (to and from lunch and recess)
• Providing increased consistency and supervision at recess
• Four adults instead of three adults on the playground
• No longer taking away staff to bring-in classes while other students remain at recess
• Benefit of recess before lunch for the upper grades
• A longer gap between lunch recess and afternoon recess for the upper grades
• No longer a need for lunch helpers from the upper grades to be pulled away from the classroom during instructional time
• It will reduce the amount of student traffic flow in and out of our locked front entry way over the lunch hour

We are going to try this for the last two months of the school year. We are open to making adjustments as we go.

Our School is Worth a Pot of Gold

One of the things that I love about Riverside Elementary School is how so many different people possess different leadership traits that allow us to thrive. On any given day, any given person will take the initiative to get something accomplished. Each staff member is a leader.

Maybe you have noticed the visually appealing rainbow, the four leaf clover border, or the pot of gold that contains staff and students reasoning as to why our school is worth a pot of gold written on the posted gold coins. That is the product that a group of teachers took charge to organize and create. They have displayed a platform that shares the positive things and success stories of our school for everyone entering our building to see. What resulted is described and pictured below.

Our school is worth a pot of gold because...
...of our pride in what we do and the respect, responsibility, and caring of our people
...we all work hard
...our teachers are understanding
...we all show the Huskie way
...we are Huskies that like to learn
...we are respectful, responsible, and caring
...we have really good teachers and students
...everybody is caring to each other
...the teachers are making school fun for the students
...we are all kind and proud to be a Huskie
...data is showing growth
...we have teachers and students who are always learning
...there is a lot of good people
...we have teachers who help everyone
...everybody is so nice to each other
...everyday the teachers are teaching us a lot and we learn everyday
...it is safe for children
...everyone is friendly
...we do fun things
...we have good friends and good teachers

Take a look at the bulletin board the next time that you are in our school. It should make you smile.
In fact, I encourage you to take a gold coin (look for blank coins to be clipped (and labeled) on the bulletin board later this week) or comment at the end of this blog to share your thoughts as to why you think our school is worth a pot of gold.

Grateful for Gifts and Grants

The new technologies that we have acquired this year at Riverside Elementary School is like waking up to a room full of presents on Christmas morning!

This year we have been fortunate to add 20 iPads and 25 MacBooks to our technology arsenal. Our ESO was kind enough to buy all of our teachers an iPad this past fall. The Riverside Casino and Golf Resort's Washington County Riverboat Foundation, through a grant this winter, allowed us to purchase the MacBooks and the resulting mobile lab for our students. I (we) want to thank everyone who played a part in allowing us to receive these gifts and this grant.  

I am a firm believer that putting new technology in the hands of students leads to increased student engagement, and increased student engagement leads to increased student achievement. It is evident that the students really look forward to using the devices and they enjoy having them in their hands as a learning tool. As a result, seeing our students use these devices is fun. Watching the students exhibit a high level of respect for these devices while using them is neat to see, too. 

However, using the iPads and MacBooks are a new experience so there is a learning curve that goes along with that. After we received the iPads, we were able to send two teachers to a three-day course at the Grant Wood Area Education Agency (AEA). Throughout this course, our two teachers learned about iPad basics, as well as incorporating QR codes, screen casting and story telling applications, and student blogging. These two teachers, along with our Grant Wood AEA technology consultant and myself, have been responsible for passing along this learning to the rest of our teaching staff throughout three professional development sessions. Additionally, we have created a forum for sharing educational apps amongst staff on a regular basis. The MacBooks are still pretty brand new, and the learning for these devices has been fairly informal up to this point.

It is common knowledge that a picture is worth a thousand words. Because of this shared understanding, I have included, below, some of my favorite pictures that I have been able to capture, this year, that shows our students and teachers with some of our new technology.

Part Two...Great Growth

The following four slides are visual representations of our students' growth from the Math and Writing benchmark assessments that students have taken in the fall (end-of-August) and winter (mid-January). They compare how many of our students have met their year-end benchmark goals for proficiency in the fall, versus how many of our students have met those same year-end benchmark goals in the winter. This is worth sharing and celebrating, and it is a testament to everyone's hard work. We are very excited with these results, and very proud of the efforts that contributed to this growth.

The math computation probe consists of 25 problems representing year-long, grade-level math computation curriculum. Depending on the grade-level, students get between three and four minutes to answer as many of the problems as they are able.

The math application probe consists of 18-25 problems representing the year-long, grade-level math concepts and applications curriculum. Each test is three-pages long. Depending on the grade-level, students get between six and eight minutes to answer as many of the problems as they are able.

Students are given a writing probe; they have one-minute to think of a response, and then three-minutes to write a response. Total words written is a count of how many words students were able to write within the three-minutes

The same writing probe that was used to score total words written is used to score correct word sequence. To receive credit for correct word sequence, writing must be correctly spelled and grammatically correct.

This information helps us in determining how students are responding to instruction so that we can make necessary changes. The following pictures represent some of the ways that we are monitoring progress in-between benchmark assessments. Students are setting goals, and students are keeping track of their own progress compared to those goals. These are things that are having a positive impact with our students.

All of our up-to-date benchmark assessment data (Reading, Math, and Writing) is on display inside the glass case across the hall from the office at Riverside Elementary School. I encourage you to check it out the next time that you come into our school. Also, for individual child/student fall and winter data, as well as grade-level expectations for throughout the year, please be on the lookout for a note coming home on Friday, February 14th that will provide those specific results.

Measuring Success by How Far We Travel

It is hard to believe that we have surpassed the half-way mark of the 2013/14 school year. In fact, sometime this week (weather pending) we will celebrate the 100th day of school at Riverside Elementary!

At Riverside Elementary School, our students complete benchmark assessments in the fall, winter, and spring to see how they are progressing throughout the year. This helps us in determining how students are responding to instruction so that we can make necessary changes to instruction. We recently completed the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessment, which is our Reading benchmark.

The DIBELS results show that there is substantial growth and improvement taking place amongst our students throughout our building. This speaks volumes for the hard work put forth from our students, teachers, staff, and parents. Thank you. Your work is appreciated.

The following data, which is a testimonial to everyone's hard work, is worth sharing and celebrating!

Correct words refers to how many correct words students can read in one minute
DORF is an acronym for DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency

Accuracy refers to the amount of errors that students make when reading for one minute

Retell refers to how many words students can retell, in one minute, about the passage they just read

Last week, University of Iowa Football Strength and Conditioning Coach, Chris Doyle, Tweeted, "Weight room success is not measured by how much you lift, it's measured by how far you travel." I think that the same rings true when it comes to our DIBELS testing. We want improvement, and, overall, our results are very positive in this aspect.

Please be sure to check-out more of the building-wide and grade specific data that has been updated and is on display inside the glass case across the hall from the office at Riverside Elementary School. For child/student specific fall data, winter data, as well as grade-level expectations for throughout the year, please be on the lookout for a note that should be coming home on Friday, January 31st.

"The more you focus on what's good, the more good you will see."

Time. Time is the holy grail of education. If we only had more time... Related to that quest, I recently read a book by Todd Whitaker (@ToddWhitaker) and Annette Breaux (@AnnetteBreaux), The Ten-Minute Inservice. Contained in the book are 40 quick (10-minutes) training sessions to build teacher effectiveness. Ten-minute training sessions! That's a manageable amount of time; 10-minutes is affordable.

The first inservice that I wanted to use at Riverside Elementary from the above mentioned book was 'Twenty-Five Reasons to Be Proud of Our School.' A quote that stood out from this chapter of the book inspired the title of this blog post. So with the help of several teachers we planned how we would deliver this to our staff at a staff inservice

First, we showed our staff a video containing of our students. Leading up to our inservice, I was stopping students in the hallway and asking them what they liked best about going to school at Riverside Elementary, or why they were proud to go to school at Riverside Elementary. After the students initially answered, I asked them if I could ask them again so that I could record their responses for a project that I was creating. The following is the iMovie that was shared with our staff.

After the video was shown, we presented an example of what each staff member was about to do next. Each staff member was given four paws to write four reasons why they were proud of our school. All of the paws were then collected and compiled into a giant Huskie paw, which now hangs near the front entrance of our school. We want everyone coming into Riverside Elementary School to know ALL of the reasons that our staff is proud of our school!

Below is a sampling (in no particular order) of the responses.

Proud of my school because...

1. ...of the kids. They are the most important part of our school.
2. ...we practice being respectful, responsible, and caring.
3. ...we have a great support system. The ESO has done a lot to help our school.
4. ...all of the great learning going on.
5. ...everyday the students make me smile.
6. ...we care about our students
7. ...our students and staff work hard everyday.
8. ...the staff never gives up on a student. They work hard with each child's education.
9. ...we are always learning new things.
10. ...we are a team.
11. ...it is fun to be at a smaller school where everyone knows the kids.
12. ...we have fun while learning.
13. ...we grow a little everyday and we are always getting better.
14. ...we have fun learning with the students.
15. ...the students are very creative.
16. ...our students show enthusiasm for learning.
17. ...the kids are so much fun.
18. ...our students are eager to learn.
19. ...we have parents that are involved and communicate.
20. ...our students are willing to help others.
21. ...our community is supportive and involved.
22. ...we are the Highland Huskies!
23. ...we get to be a part of a tight-knit community that is committed to kids.
24. ...teachers work together to improve student achievement.
25. ...it is very rewarding.

Hearing Our Students' Stories

One of the things that I hope we can accomplish through social media is to give our students at Riverside Elementary a voice in telling our story. To accomplish this, prior to Thanksgiving, I asked our fifth grade teachers to select a couple of students that I could work with and we found times that I could work with them that didn't cause any of the students to miss out on any new learnings in their classrooms. We started to work through the writing process (brainstorming, drafting, editing, revising, drafting, and publishing) with a topic that I provided. Posted today are the finished products. So please enjoy what a small selection of our fifth grade students had to say when asked, what are you thankful for in regards to going to school at Riverside Elementary (I had planned to have this published by Thanksgiving, but plans don't always come to fruition; sorry).

Alyssa Clarke
I'm thankful for going to Riverside Elementary School for many reasons. We get to go on field trips, have pep rallies, watch good plays, and do the Walk-a-thon. The teachers help the students and are nice to us. I'm also thankful for going to this school because we get to do fund raisers that help us to buy things for our school like iPads for the teachers and our Promethean Boards. I'm really thankful for this school because the kids are respectful and caring to everyone; also, they help us when we need to be helped.

Matt Colbert

At Riverside Elementary I am thankful for our cooks and their good food.  Also, I am thankful for teachers, students, and friends who are respectful, responsible, and caring.  I am thankful for people that respect me and don’t say mean things, but instead say nice things.  I am thankful for our fun specials’ teachers: Mr. J, Ms. Feldman, Mrs. Burns, Ms. DeLacy, and Mrs. Pat; they are cool because they are nice and caring. Lastly, I am thankful for all the teachers and my principal.

Jocelyn Day
Thanksgiving isn't just about eating meals and getting together, it's also about thinking about what you're thankful for. I am thankful for being at this school every day because I get to see all these fun and nice teachers that help us with problems at recess, and do things to make learning fun. All the students at Riverside Elementary get a good education. The teachers are great because they let us have fun through learning programs and online things that help us learn. Our specials teachers do a great job at making sure we are good at what we do in our specials, and preparing us for our futures. Also, our students are respectful, responsible, and caring, which is the Huskie Way.

Grant Prybil

I am thankful to go to Riverside Elementary. Our good cooks make awesome food, and they have a good selection of food, too. We have people that teach us the best possible things that we need for our future. Our kids are very good at helping the teachers out,too. This school has money because we do all the fundraisers that allow the teachers to have iPads , Promethean Boards, good white boards, and other stuff for our classrooms. All of the specials teachers are very nice, too; they help us out with a lot of stuff.

Mr. Ewald

Riverside Elementary School is a great place! There are many things at this school that make me thankful. Number one among these things is the students; they are the best. I am, also, thankful for the willingness of our staff and students to work hard towards learning. I admire the staff for how eager they are to try new things.  As a result of the iPads and everything else that we are provided with for our staff, students, and school, our Elementary Support Organization (ESO) deserves recognition of our thanks. Furthermore, it should be known that the exceptional involvement and support that we receive from all of our parents and families that contributes toward our students' education causes a great sense of gratitude amongst us.

It is my hope to continue to work with various small groups of students throughout the school year so that our kids - our best storytellers in our school - have a platform where they can share.