Phone Message 12/15/19

Good afternoon to all of our Cub Families.  This is Mr. Vernon with announcements for our last week of school before Winter Break.  First, thank you to all of our Cubs who donated on Holiday Hat day.  We were able to donate $429 to the Relay for Life.  That means we had 429 fun hats on campus Friday.  It was fun to see them all.  This week will be another exciting week at Deep Creek.  On Tuesday, December 17th our chorus students will be performing in our annual Holiday Concert.  The concert will begin at 6:30pm in our cafeteria. Please join us for an outstanding performance.  I know they have been working hard preparing for this night.
Our teachers will also still be working hard this week to continue learning, so attendance is still so important.  However, even with all that learning we do have two more opportunities where our students can join our staff in celebration.  Thursday is Grinch Day.  Students will be allowed to wear a green shirt to school with their uniform bottoms.  Our goal on Grinch Day is spread kindness to our community and we will be collecting and donating food items to our local Homeless Coalition.   We will post their Holiday Food Wish List to this email and on our Facebook page.  We are hoping that on Thursday our Cubs will bring one item to their class and just like the Grinch their heart will grow three sizes when they discover the power of kindness and giving.  Finally, on Friday our students can participate in Pajama Day and wear their pajamas to school.  Appropriate footwear will still be needed as students will still have PE and participate at recess.  
Thank you all for listening, I am excited for this week and can't wait to see our Ready, Responsible, and Respectful Cubs tomorrow morning.  Have a great evening.

Monday Memo for 12.9.19

The ten day countdown has begun!  The coming days will be tiring, but fun at the same time with all of the planned dress up days and yummy treats that will be provided.  We hope that this helps keep your spirits high and will float you through to winter break.

A big thank you goes out to James and Joanne for hosting our staff holiday party at their home on Saturday evening and to all of you for bringing delicious foods to share.  It was a great night of togetherness and laughter.  Getting to take a few hours to breath and spend time with one another was great.  Our DCE staff is truly a family.

Many of you have been implementing ideas mentioned in PD sessions or from your own research into your classroom lessons.  Below are some pictures from Sarah Baldwin's classroom that may spark some ideas for you!

 

In this picture, students are proving their progress up the standards ladder by posting a student work sample at each rung.  This is a great way to get students interacting with the ladder and understanding what is expected of them at each level for mastery.  Not only did the students in this classroom need to learn the content at each rung, but they had to "prove" that they had the rung to mastery and at the appropriate rigor level.  Even if you do not use ladders in your classroom, think about the ways that you communicate to students the learning goal, how they own it, and how they know they have attained it.  The use of the ladder in this way also helps boost the score for element 5: organizing the physical layout of the room.  In that element, the rubric provides teacher and student evidences at the top.  Two of these evidences mention that items around the room are student created and are attended to by students.  It also mentions that these items should be related to the current content. This is an example of that portion of the rubric!

Sarah has also found a way to increase student academic ownership in her classroom by the way that she has set up her word wall in her classroom.  The word wall is student created and is referenced without teacher prompting on a regular basis in her classroom.  Most progressions for standards begin with having an understanding of the vocabulary needed to get through the content.  This small tweak in her classroom has improved the likelihood that students will reference the wall and master the vocabulary.  And, just like in the previous picture, it supports the expectations of element 5 as it is student created, attended to throughout the lesson, and related to current content.

One last quick picture from Sarah's room!  Here, you can see students doing a Kagan Structure to discuss what they recorded on their sticky note.  Sarah provided students with a sticky note and asked them to answer a question at the start of her lesson that was related to content learned the previous day.  After having independent work time, Sarah partnered students up to discuss their answer on their sticky note.  Sarah circulated the room during the independent work time and during the partner discussion to take mental note of the level of retention of the content of the previous day to determine her starting point for the new lesson.  Sarah selected key students after the partner discussion to share their information with the class and she clarified any misconceptions through additional student response chaining.  This review was brief and engaged all students !

Here is this week's schedule.  

We hope that you have an amazing week!  -Keli and James

Phone Message for the Week of 12/9/19

Weekly Messages for Week of 12/9/19

Good afternoon Cub families,

This is Mrs. Sare calling with our messages for the upcoming week. Our Candy Cane Lane shop is still open the first half of this week and our last few classes will be shopping. If your child would like to participate please be sure you have completed the needed information on their money envelope.

Although we are busy learning in our classrooms it is also time to have a little bit of fun! This week there will be two special opportunities for the students to join our staff in celebrating the holidays. On Wednesday, our students are welcome to wear holiday themed socks to school. On Friday, we will be participating in a fundraiser for our school's Relay for Life Team. To do this, we are allowing students to wear a holiday themed hat or headband to school for one dollar. Students will bring in their dollar to their homeroom teacher Friday morning if they are wearing a hat or headband! This allows us to have some fun while supporting a great cause. On both days, students will still be expected to be in school uniform.

DCE will continue to have school all this week and the following week with our last day for students being December 20th. During that last week of school before winter break we will be allowing students to participate in two more dress up days and wanted to give you some preparation time! On Thursday, December 19th, students will be allowed to wear a green t-shirt or Grinch shirt to school as we will be hosting a Grinch Day and will be working throughout the day to spread kindness to others. On this day students still need to wear uniform bottoms. On Friday, December 20th, our students can stay nice and cozy and wear their pajamas to school!

We are looking forward to the upcoming two weeks before break. Even though this is a busy time of year, please help us keep school attendance a priority. Our goal is to remain above 96% average daily attendance and during the month of November we slipped quite a bit below that goal. Keeping our students in school all day keeps them in routine and shows them just how much we value school and learning. Of course, we do understand that some circumstances are unique and unavoidable.

I hope that you have a great rest of your Sunday afternoon with your family. I am looking forward to seeing our ready, responsible, and respectful Cubs at school bright and early tomorrow morning!

Phone Message for Week of 12/2/19

Good afternoon Deep Creek Families,
     This is Mrs. Sare with some messages for our upcoming week.  Tomorrow, our Candy Cane Lane store opens.  This store will be available during school hours for our students to shop.  Each homeroom class has been assigned a shopping day and time.  The flyers with their date and time went home about a week and a half ago and also included the money envelope as well as directions on how to prepare for shopping.  This shop is a wonderful opportunity for your child to purchase small gifts for their family members and friends.  If you would like for your child to participate, please take a look at the details on the flyer.
      Tuesday night will be our December SAC and PTO meetings.  These meetings will be held in our media center and will begin at 5:30 pm.  This month's meeting includes FSA testing information and a presentation from a member of our transportation department about a parent survey that is going home this week. PTO will also be discussing our upcoming events and reviewing the success of our OTIS fundraiser. Speaking of PTO, they are in need of volunteers as well!  Please check SignUp.com which is posted to our Deep Creek Elementary Website in the bottom left hand corner.  Volunteers are needed to assist with our Candy Cane Lane shop as well as our OTIS fundraiser prize events which take place during school hours.
     On Thursday, we will also be hosting our Candy Cane Lane evening event.  Please consider joining us in our cafeteria and courtyard from 5:30 to 7:00 pm to visit with Santa, watch a movie in the courtyard, participate in many holiday games and crafts, and also shop at our Candy Cane Lane store!  Our third grade team will even be selling delicious treats that night.
      Friday night is the Tree Lighting ceremony in downtown Punta Gorda.  Our chorus will be there to join in on the festivities.  Mr. Vernon and I are looking forward to seeing many of you there!  The fun continues Saturday morning with many of our students participating in the Girls on the Run 5K event at Laishley Park.  Our girls have been training hard and have learned many valuable lessons that have prepared them for this event.  Their perseverance and the support of their running buddies will show through this Saturday!
      Finally, our December school newsletter has posted to our school's website.  Please take a minute to read through it!  I hope that you all have enjoyed a few extra days home with your families.  I'm looking forward to seeing our ready, responsible, and respectful Cubs back to school tomorrow morning.
December Newsletter:   
https://sites.google.com/yourcharlotteschools.net/dces/december?authuser=0
Volunteer Sign Up:
https://signup.com/group/765026996040?utm_source=group-badge-volunteer-green