Update, Week of April 5, 2010

Monday- We are off to a busy start this week at the middle school. Tonight after school we had show choir and track practices. The track teams were lucky enough to dodge some of the bad weather and be outside for most of their practice time.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to visit any classrooms today. I had a series of meetings that kept me pretty well occupied all day. I hope to visit some classrooms tomorrow.

Tuesday- Today I had the opportunity to visit Ms. Newton's 7th grade reading class. This class is 100% focused on reading. There are about 25 students in the class and the students spent their time either discussing what they are reading as a small group, five or six students, or reading their own book silently at their desks. It is really cool to listen to 7th graders talk about what they are reading and what connections or questions they have about their books. It's equally exciting to see how engaged our students are in reading!

Wednesday- Good afternoon everyone! I hope this was a great day for you. I was up and out of the house this morning just a little after 6 AM and off to Des Moines for a meeting. I had the fortunate opportunity today to attend the first annual Iowa 1:1 Institute of Learning. The institute was focused on schools that have 1:1 student/computer initiatives. This means that the school has provided a computer for each of their students. In some schools they have done this at the high school level. At other school this has been done grades 7-12. It was a very interesting day of learning for me personally. There are some really cool things going on in our state with technology. There are currently about 15 schools in the state with a 1:1 computer initiative. I will share more about what is going on in other schools sometime soon.

This afternoon our teachers used professional development time update their instructional planners. Some teachers also used the time to continue grading student writing pieces using the district developed rubric.

Thursday- Interesting day today! One of our 7th grade students organized an event at our school today. To learn about the event watch KCRG news tonight as they will do a special piece on it.

Something I'm going to start doing is to occasionally ask one of our students to do a special article as part of my blog. Tomorrow I will ask the 7th grade student that organized the event today to write about the experience.

Next week our track teams will have their first meets. The boy's and girl's teams will both travel to Solon. Check out our track schedules.

I'm hoping to have more time to write tomorrow.

Now it's time to watch some more of The Masters!!!

Brad