Sunday, January 29, 2017

Community Builders


 We have been wishing our administrative assistant, Mrs. Kelly, all the best as she moves on into retirement with her husband. Current and recent PTA presidents surprised Mrs. Kelly with a donation to the Wheeling Food Pantry and Best Friends organizations in appreciation of her service to our school community. 



Every classroom stopped by to see her on "We Love Mrs. Kelly Day" to share a song, tell a funny joke and wish her well with a hug or high-five.  


Mrs. Kelly has been a wonderful support to the Dryden community for over 10 years. Her spirit of giving extends beyond our school. Mrs. Kelly has been actively involved with the Wheeling Food Pantry, the VFW and local animal shelters, in addition to being a leader on the PTA when her own children attended D25 schools. We are so grateful for her service to Dryden!

We are also deeply grateful for another wonderful community builder--Michael Kosinski! Michael's Eagle Scout project brought a beautiful hand-crafted seating area filled with children's books to the Dryden office. Michael played a leadership role in coordinating this project and book donation. We greatly appreciate Michael’s leadership in creating a child and family-friendly welcome area where children can enjoy reading!






Community building is also happening in our classrooms. One example is when students engage in conversations where they can share their perspectives and opinions and learn from the perspectives and opinions of others. As students read, they share their interpretations of the text and try to understand the way their peers may be interpreting the same text, but in a different way. 




These types of interactions help students build positive relationships, and better understandings of themselves, others and the content they are learning. We are building a strong community in many ways at Dryden, and we are thankful for all the community builders who help us do so!!

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Teaching, Learning & Playing with Purpose

Student Council planned a fun Friday for us. It was "Dress Up As Your Favorite Book or Movie Character Day". There were a lot of creative costumes, and we enjoyed getting to know more about each others interests, and learning about some new books to read or movies to see in the future. 

Can you guess which teacher loves to read the Fly Guy books?
Even Echo the Dolphin dressed up as the Gingerbread Man!
Speaking of books, our students are learning to dig deeply into their reading. During Reading Workshop, teachers read and discuss rich literature with students and show how to use strategies that will help students comprehend and think critically about their reading. Miss Wilson is demonstrating how to think about and document the "5 W's" (who, what, where, when, how) as she reads non-fiction. Students then practice using this strategy with a variety of self-selected and teacher-selected books during their independent reading and small-group reading times, while Miss Wilson checks in and conferences with individuals and small groups. 


The second grade hallway is coming to life as the students share their research on the polar regions. 


The students have been excited about putting their work together and sharing it with the whole school. They have identified a clear purpose for their research and an audience to share this with. It's great to see that even our young students can teach others in our school!




It's been a busy, messy few days in the fourth grade classes, as students wrapped up their Native American research...



But, it all came together, and WOW, what an amazing Native American museum they created! Each class studied Native American tribes based on their regions. Students transformed their classrooms into a replica of that region to show what they learned about the environment, homes and lifestyle of Native Americans in a particular region. 



Students made voice recordings about their research and linked them to QR codes. Their peers could then scan the QR codes to learn and take notes about many more Native Americans from all of the different regions. 










This is another FANTASTIC example of how (with the purposeful, guidance from their amazing teachers) our students are teaching and learning from one another. They truly are motivated by their purpose for learning and having an audience to share it with. 


Monday, January 16, 2017

Children Learn, Parents Learn, Teachers Learn, We All Learn!

We hope you have been enjoying the three-day weekend, as we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. and remember his legacy of supporting civil rights and peaceful problem-solving. It's not only our students at Dryden who have been digging deeply into their learning. Our staff and parents have been learning a lot as well!

What a great discussion the fifth grade students are having as they research the costs and impacts of space exploration. They are thinking globally about "cost" in terms of money, human life, time, etc. It will be interesting to see if any students' views change as they read and research different sources. 

These fourth graders also had a great discussion as they attempted to discover multiplication equations whose product equals 499. They used many strategies, such as trial-and-error, division, repeated addition and estimation. 

School Social Worker, Mrs. Thompson, met with our PTA to teach them about Zones of Regulation and the strategies our students and staff use to help identify emotions and empathize, and to help one another be in the "green zone" for optimal learning. We greatly appreciate the interest and support from our parents in our school's use of the common language and strategies. This consistency is so helpful to our students. 


Advanced Learning Facilitator, Mrs. Wasik, led our staff in reading and discussing this article about mindset.  During this activity we had a lot of fun trying new and different tasks and reflecting on the self-talk and strategies we encountered in trying to learn something new. We highlighted that in addition to effort and attitude, looking for and trying new and different strategies helps us learn when we are stuck. We gleaned some powerful insights from one another that will help guide our personal goal-setting as well as our goal-setting with students as we dive into this new year of learning, 2017!





Sunday, January 8, 2017

Learning and Playing, Playing and Learning

As I've been reflecting on our first week back to school and reviewing some photos, I'm finding that our staff and students are putting such great enthusiasm and purpose into what they are doing regardless of whether they are in a club, at recess or in the classroom. We are learning as we play at recess and clubs, and the learning in the classrooms is so enriching, interactive and fun that it often feels like play! Kudos to playful but important work of amazing teachers and students!!

Lots of deep and strategic thinking during Chess Club



Interactive discussions and problem-solving during indoor recess with pattern blocks, a game of checkers and with geo-boards


No snow? No problem! Students can visualize and write how to build a snowman with their teacher in first grade.


Kindergarteners were excited to share predictions and connections about comparing weights and discovering how a pan balance works.










Monday, January 2, 2017

Uplifting!


Happy New Year!  It feels great to be back at school! I'm filled with optimism when I think about all that 2017 has to offer. 

In continuing with the strategy to choose one word as a central focus for the year as we kick off 2017, the word that immediately came to my heart and my mind was UPLIFTING

By focusing on this word, I hope to maintain a priority of uplifting everyone around me--to help others feel proud of their efforts, accomplishments and unique qualities and to support them through life's struggles. 

I find the time I spend with our students, staff and families incredibly UPLIFTING. Following are a few uplifting moments I experienced with them during the week before winter break:


Fourth grade students sang, danced and performed their hearts out--BRAVO!

5th grade students collaborating to solve a tricky math problem with fractions

Kindergarten students working together to build contraptions to help the Gingerbread Man safely escape--what awesome young engineers!

Fourth grade students helping one another create holiday gifts for their loved ones. 


The PTA provided a WONDERFUL Winter Wonderland experience for our students on the day before winter break. Older students helped younger students with crafts, card-making and BINGO. 


It was an extra special treat to have our superintendent, Dr. Bein, join us in reading 'Twas the Day Before Winter Break for our story time at Winter Wonderland. 



Third grade students proudly walked the red carpet to the Solars Awards assembly. This was a fun way to celebrate their accomplishments of their research on the various planets of our Solar System. 


It was great to see the third grade teachers all dressed up, interviewing the audience, telling jokes and presenting awards to the planets, very similar to the Oscars!