11-8-2024

 Sherry celebrated Day of the Dead with her spanish classes last Friday.  I love the partnership she has with parents and making them part of her celebrations while providing a helping hand. 

How fun is the baby/child picture contest student council is running!  Thanks to Colleen for putting this together and thanks to all of the staff that participated by turning in a childhood photo.  

Our Veterans Day Assembly is coming up on Monday.  April, Danielle, Stephen and Morgan have been working hard behind the scenes to prepare for an awesome assembly to honor our Benjamin Veterans.  Always one of my favorite assemblies.  

We concluded a second night of conferences Thursday evening.  Teaching all day, conferencing at night and coming back Friday morning to teach some more is definitely the hardest stretch of our three night conference commitment.  Thanks for putting in the time to have positive conversations with parents for the improvement of our students.  Special shoutout to Kim for working with parents each evening to get their schedules and to Kim and Margaret for putting together our menu for our delicious dinners.  

Thanks to Greg for working behind the scene to get certain data sources to our partner company Abre who will be helping to create a data dashboard for us.  Among other things this will help our ease of access to data making it easier to use for student improvement.  

13 formative assessments that inspire creativity.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/creative-formative-assessments?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Fall+24&utm_id=Fall24&utm_term=creative+formative&utm_content=feature

At the school board on Monday we will be honoring our school board members and all of the school and district secretaries for what they do for our schools/district.  Thank you!

I want to thank Michele D, Lauren, Nicole J., Jessica, and Danielle along with the rest of our 6th grade staff for working so hard to help gather curriculum and other tools, resources and strategies to help one of our  6th grade kiddos.  

On November 21st our 8th grade kids will be taking the Pre-ACT with our HS counselors and 8th grade staff.  Because of the new test and new HS staff, this date was put together quickly as the HS is behind schedule.  Mark will send out a schedule in the near future and we will notify parents of the importance of their child's attendance on this day.  

I have reached out to Principal Smith to find out what space they can provide for us on November 15th during the Institute Day. (during the 9:30-11am time)  

I appreciate everyone's continuing effort to recognize our students for positive actions and hard work with specific positive praise, student of the month recognition, fish slips and What is a Benjamin Student common language.  I was able to sit in on a couple student of the month conferences with students bubbling with joy as teachers heap praise on them.  I also love the 7th grade student shout outs posted on the 7th grade hall wall.  

11-1-2024

 

Thanks to Colleen, Alex and student council for sponsoring both the spirit week (music in the Halls is always a Kim G favorite)  and the HR pumpkin decorating contest.  It was a close contest and everyone should be proud of their efforts.  Congrats to Cathy, Jim and Melissa for motivating their homerooms to win at all costs!  jk

Speaking of Halloween Fun.  I was thrilled with the amount of students that dressed up and that everyone followed the costume guidelines.  Staff would not be outdone and were definitely showing their Halloween Spirit.  What a fun day!

I was able to make it over to Evergreen for their Halloween parade and groundbreaking ceremony, the latter which was livestreamed to the staff and students in the gym.  There was a lot of work involved to make this happen including but not limited to securing participation from the fire department, police department, bus company, construction company, architects and school board members.   Dr. Woell, Dr. Filas, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Agres should be proud of their accomplishment.  Danielle, Angela and Vanessa also played vital roles in making all of the technology work. 

Parent teacher conferences are coming up on November 4th, 7th and 14th.  We will have the PTA dinner on the 4th and the office will provide dinner for the 7th and 14th. Details to follow.  Thanks for your preparation for these important nights of parent teacher communication and problem solving.

Station Rotation for ELA

Save the Date: November 11th is our Veterans Day Assembly.  April sent out details of the structure of the assembly earlier today.

4 ways to build student reflection into science lessons.

Science Reflection

I was able to do a lot of classroom pop-ins yesterday (I know, not exactly ideal on Halloween) and was able to see some great teaching and learning activities taking place.  Some escape rooms, music composer research, background research on a story the class was about to read, and math problem solving to name a few lessons I saw.  

Thanks to Margaret for doing a great job of organizing and putting together this months newsletter.  This is another avenue  of communication to inform our parents of what is going on in our school.  

Tryouts for Bye Bye Birdie were very successful this week.  Thanks to Stephen, Danielle and April for their hard work in making this run smoothly.  

Basketball got underway this week with home games on Tuesday and Friday.  Thanks to Dan, Matt, and Nicole for their coaching.  Bill and Marcia for taking care of the scoreboard and book and to our supervisors for making our home games run efficiently.  

Teen Advisory Board has some unbelievable participation this year.  Thanks to Michelle for guiding and supervising this group.  

The Fun Run results are in and the PTA raised an amazing amount of money!  (over $10,000)  I will try to keep this in mind when I have to be a human sundae later this year for some of the top fundraisers.  Thanks again to Jen V, Joe and Matt for doing the lionshare of the work on this project.  

I appreciate the extra help I received from Greg this week in trying to get a Savvas problem fixed by working with their customer support staff.  #patience

I appreciate Nicole C organizing the PST breakfast this week.  It was fun bonding with everyone over food, stories and some problem solving.  

"Tell me what you yearn for and I shall tell you who you are. We are what we reach for, the idealized image that drives our wandering." -- James Hillman

"I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is daring to dare." -- Maya Angelou

"The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for." -- Joseph Campbell

 

10-25-24

The Fall Sports Awards were a great success on Wednesday night.  I appreciate the hard work put in by Matt, Joe, Megan, Bill and Dan all season to help the students grow in skill and in leadership abilities. 

The Pera Committee met on Tuesday to review language in our Professional Evaluation Document to make sure everything is accurate and up to date.  Thanks to Dr. Woell, Sherry, Mark and Kimpha for spending time on this.  

Students need time at the end of class to make sense of what they just learned. Here are 8 engaging closing activities to help with that.

The Science Resource Adoption Committee met on Wednesday for a presentation from HMH.  This was the third of five presentations.  I appreciate not only the time spent on meetings, but the time put into reviewing the resources (online and physical), filling out evaluations and communicating information back to peers.  This is a lot of work!  Thanks to committee members  Sherry M, Mercedes D, Stacey M, Kristen H, Julie Seeman, Melissa F, Josh K, Suzanne T, Amy H, Danielle D, and Angela A for all of their hard work.  

Thanks to Colleen and Alex for organizing the Student Council Pumpkin decorating contest.  I have seen excited students decorating their homeroom pumpkins during lunchtime.  I'm excited to see who will win.  

I appreciate Dr. Woell talking to our staff about coaching and then leading math and ELA discussions on capital project improvements during our early release on Wednesday.   

Speaking of Coaching if you haven't read the Instructional Coaching newsletter yet there is an excellent article/video on Rubrics that you should check out.  I appreciate the time and effort that Danielle, Angela and Allison put into each newsletter.  

Stephen, Danielle and April have been busy with the Musical Clinic, Crew Meeting and parent meeting in preparation for the musical tryouts.  I also enjoyed the promotional video they put together in the BB300 this week.  

Thanks to Margaret for keeping up with the eligibility reports each week.  Please make sure that you are contacting students and parents if the students in your class are on the ineligible list due to bad grades. 

The core skills of learning are a critical eye and an open mind. Critical thinking is refusing to accept ideas at face value. Don't believe information until it's verified. Openness is refusing to reject ideas at face value. Don't disbelieve information until it's falsified.

Thanks to April for organizing a successful fire drill this week, the kids did great and we also caught a few areas of improvement.  Tim is also on top of the alarm volume issue in the new 5th grade classrooms.  

I enjoyed getting into classrooms this week and saw some great learning activities from our staff.  Next week I will finish up my first round of formal observations.  Please make sure you are monitoring your growth goals and alternative plans to check for anticipated progress.  

I appreciate the combined efforts of Ally and Nicolett working with our students in the check-in check out system.  They have done a great job of working with our students and each other so that our students get more  organized and efficient with their assignments.  

"The most efficient way to live reasonably is every morning to make a plan of one’s day and every night to examine the results obtained." -- Alexis Carrel

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

Benjamin Franklin

Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water.

W. C. Fields 

10-18-2024

 Outdoor Ed (as a short-timer) was a blast.  I enjoyed getting out there with the kids, seeing their excitement and talking with them about their favorite activity and hearing about "the best food ever"!  I want to thank the chaperones  Mark Bradbury, Coleen Morgan, Jim Allard, Jessica Erickson, Dan Baker, Jen Vidic, Joe Hauser, Michelle Davis and Bill Wadman for giving up time with their families to provide this opportunity for students.  

How do you help learners tackle a challenging text? In Denmark, a popular approach is role reading, where 3 students work together to help the whole group’s comprehension.

A huge shout out to our great Subs, Rich, Jill, Jennifer M, Jen R, Kelly C for getting us through this week.  Their dedication and expertise helped to support our school this week and it is much appreciated.  Special thanks to Lauren Dunne for subbing and covering the staybacks and Lynette and Angela for also providing specials support.  

Dr. Filas ran the district furniture committee on Wednesday in preparation for the second phase of our capital improvement plan.  He will make his way around to teams or subject area meetings to discuss an upcoming meeting with one of the room designers.  Sherry will also send a copy of the furniture committee feedback form to you so you can start thinking of items we will need your input on.  I will be around to answer questions.  

The dance/cheer and boys basketball teams are getting ready to start the winter sports season.  Thanks to coach Baker, Tylk and Colburn for setting the stage for our student athletes for a successful season with messages of sportsmanship and building up their teammates.  

The benefits of concept maps:

Concept Maps

Megan S worked diligently to get all of our students medical records before the exclusion deadline.  I appreciate her hard work towards this end.  

Coach Wolski started off our chess season with a pizza open house on Thursday Night. I appreciate his willingness to come in on the evenings and weekends to coach our kiddos.  

Establishing Classroom Routines for Productive Learning.

routines = Learning

I loved the Instructional coaches newsletter and their insight on how each classroom and teacher are different.  This allows the coaches to be flexible and differentiate in how they meet the needs of individual classrooms even when  teachers are working in the same grade or subject matter.  Give it a read if you haven't made the time yet.  

Just an FYI,,, First Student Bus Company will be rolling out a bus app that parents can download to track the bus routes of their children.  I have been very pleased with the level of service and communication we have had from our new bus company.

Just another thank you for the breakfast, gifts and kind words you provided me this week. I appreciate the dedication, collegiality, teamwork, and care that we always show each other that makes our school stay strong.  

"We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time." -- Brene Brown

"Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy." -- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Risk something or forever sit with your dreams." -- Herb Brooks

10-11-24

 I know we all wish Jen Matthews a speedy recovery.  She is at home now and will hopefully be back with us soon.  

I appreciate all of our subs including Nicolette and Holly who have picked up open sub periods when asked and a big thanks to Michele Fiorini for making herself available to do a lot of the subbing in Jen's class this week.  I appreciate her flexibility and willingness to help out.  I also appreciate Lori's expertise in the class routine which has been vital in making the kids have a normal experience this week.  

Using Short term goals to lead to success!

https://youtu.be/0PD3GVbKdqQ?si=osfCTqjXsMv40NF-

Congrats to Joe and Megan S for a successful completion to a Cross Country season on Tuesday and to Bill and Matt whose teams both won in the playoffs Thursday night and will continue on this weekend.  

Michelle Davis and Jen Harvel did a great peer editing lesson with their 8th and 5th grade students respectively.  This is so awesome to see and I know that both grades of students will benefit from this experience.  I hope to see more of this type of collaboration in the future from our staff.  

The staff learning meeting this week continued our focus on school safety.  Thanks to April for securing Officer Mrkvicka.  I know his presentation made us think about uncomfortable situations but will make us more prepared in the event of an emergency situation.  

I have enjoyed hearing the musical clues all week and am super excited to find out what production Stephen, Danielle and April will be working on this year!

17 tweaks for group work from Cult of Pedagogy

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/group-work-17-tweaks/ 

Let's all root on Leslie this weekend as she will be running in the Chicago Marathon!  Many of you probably don't realize she has been training hard for this for months.  What a huge accomplishment!

Frank and Isidrio are the furniture assembler champions!  Yesterday they attached the wheels on 14 mobile cabinets in record time.  They are always there for us when we need them.

Hats off to the Pierogi Queen Michelle Davis.  It is quite a feat to bring in enough of any food item to feed this hungry staff and there was still some Pierogis left after the lunch periods were over!  Thanks for going above and beyond!  

I am looking forward to our PTA Fun Run today!  Thanks to Joe and Jen for making this happen!

"I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted." -- Jack Kerouac

"My life is full of mistakes. They’re like pebbles that make a good road." -- Beatrice Wood

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life." -- Will Durant

10-4-2024

I want to thank everyone for participating in the evac/safety/reunification drill on Wednesday. I have heard a lot of positive comments about the drill and that everyone realized it's importance. Thanks for being great sports about the walk over!

I appreciate Danielle and Angela doing the "Know your Benjamin Students activity with teams since we used our October meeting for safety.  They also did a great job of explaining it's importance in their coaching newsletter.  Todd and Nicole will do the second part finding out student's trusted adult.  

Want to improve your emotional intelligence.... start using these phrases.

Margaret is officially in charge of Purchase Orders....you can still also include me on them as I can help out as well.  

April has made a final call for spirit wear and PTA has just sent me their link for PTA school related spirit wear with an October 16th deadline.  Get your spirit wear on!

April Link

link if 

PTA Link

Home | Benjamin PTA School Store (ugsportsinc.

4 ways math teachers can differentiate instruction

https://www.rethinkmathteacher.com/4-ways-math-teachers-can-differentiate-instruction/

Our activity bus has added more stops and more students are using it as a result.  I appreciate our new bus companies flexibility and service model.  

We love our subs and I appreciate Jamie, Kelly and Jill who have been subbing a lot lately.  I also appreciate Nicolette and Holly as they have made the switch to sub when needed when no one else was available.  Jamie will be leaving us for a while as she explores new adventures and we wish her the best of luck.  If you know anyone that you think would make a good sub tell them what a great school district we are and encourage them to see Solly!

Just a reminder to look at the meeting schedule for the month as it is a little different than most months.  Next week we have a School Board meeting on Monday, a Mentee Meeting on Tuesday and another staff learning meeting on Wednesday with guest speakers from the DuPage Co Sherriff's office to go over scenarios and answer questions.  

Proud of our science teachers as our ISA results came in with great scores.  70% meeting and exceeding in 7th grade and over 80% meeting and exceeding in 8th grade.  

Something to ponder:

Check out the new Fish store cabinet that has been wowing the students as they turn in fish slips for prizes.  Thanks to April for the upgrade that makes prizes much more visible and accessible for students.  

Best of luck to Bill, Dan, Joe, Megan, and Matt along with our Volleyball, Cross Country and Soccer Teams as they enter their last week with final meets and tournaments.  

Using small wins to motivate students!

small wins

Would you like to be part of an assessment committee?  Think about it...more information coming soon.  

"No one will protect what they don't care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced." -- David Attenborough

"Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Make the work interesting and the discipline will take care of itself." -- E. B. White

9-27-2024

 Watch the newest parade video....stay for the walk out songs!

https://youtu.be/Ey9KTjVr-AU?feature=shared

I appreciate all of the time and effort that the science resource committee is putting into attending meetings/presentations, looking at multiple online and physical products, and evaluating what they see.  Our district will benefit their hard work.  

Please remember to be in the hallways when you can during passing periods and keep up the positive reinforcement of good student behavior with fish slips and reminders of What is a Benjamin Student.

Empowering students is the key...from critical thinking to collaboration 30 questions every student should be able to answer. (read the article not just the image)

https://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/student-should-be-able-to/

Student growth goals are due Tuesday as well as alternative evaluation proposals.  Please let me know if you have questions.  

We had a lot of student meetings Thursday! I appreciate everyone's participation and feedback that make these meetings successful, especially the care and concern that goes into the communication with parents through this process.  

In club news Jessica's  volleyball crew has been busy in the morning, newspaper and HW club is underway...art club and Choir are busting at the seams and Maker Space and Chess club will be starting soon.  These are just a few of the clubs that are providing students extracurricular activities and opportunities to explore their interests and talents.  

Nicolette is knocking Check In/Check Out out of the park.  Her kindness and firmness in follow-through is a great combination that yields great results.   

Newsletters were due to Margaret yesterday.  This is a great avenue of communication from Teachers to Parents to let them know what is happening with their children in the classroom.  

Danielle has taken on the responsibility to receive coaching training from HMH in Writable, Into Reading and Into Literature.  This will allow her to be our connection to HMH and become even more of an expert in these programs.  

I am proud of our sports teams as they hit the home stretch of the fall season under the leadership of our coaches.  

Thanks to April for organizing our bus safety drill today.  Please remember to go out at your designated time.  

I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.

Mitch Hedberg

As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something.

Hagar the Horrible 

From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.

Groucho Marx