The Network offers professional development opportunities to support Wisconsin school districts exploring and addressing racial and social justice.
I have signed up for the American Indian Studies training titled Indigenizing Learning Spaces for All. You can join me and we can view it together. It is Wednesday, January 5 and Thursday, January 6 from 3:30-6:30
There are many other virtual learning opportunities for you to explore from this organization that center around racial equality.
The Institute for Personalized Learning has a partnership with DPI to offer professional development for all schools in Wisconsin at no cost to educators through a grant funded through the ESSER program. The courses will remain free until June and certificates of completion will be awarded. You can check out the opportunities available here: i4pl courses And you can register for courses here: Learning Opportunities for Wisconsin Educators
I registered for High Leverage Online Tools to Support Learning and am finding it a valuable learning experience.
I am using these professional development opportunities to get C-comp points.
Teaching Books
TeachingBooks.net is a BadgerLink (Wisconsin) online library of instructional resources to bring books and authors to life. Definitely a great resource for you to discover more about the books you are sharing and one of my favorite resources.
Search by title or author or check out some of these helpful resources:
You can create your own TeachingBooks account using your school email. With an educator login, you can:
Share resources with anyone
Create a collection of resources aligned to the books you're reading
Offer students multi-leveled lessons that personalize reading instruction
Analyze text sets and single titles for text complexity and differentiation
Receive newsletters with support, strategies, and integration ideas
Osmo
The Osmo kit is a system that fosters social intelligence and creative thinking using various learning experiences using an iPad and an Osmo kit. Let me know if you want me to show Osmo to you.
Numbers is a creative math game where tiles of dots or numbers are arranged to complete various levels. This is an extension in the Math Curriculum.
Words is a puzzle game where players guess and spell out the on-screen hidden words.
Tangram is a puzzle game where players arrange puzzle pieces to match on-screen shapes.
Library Skills
The Hour of Code is the first week of December and started as a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify "code" to show that anybody can learn the basics, and to broaden the exposure of coding to all students. I infuse coding in skills classes to introduce our students to the coding language and promote computational thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and creativity.
1st grade has had an introduction to Kodable using arrows to code. I did add Kodable to the December Choice Board so students can explore on their own time. They would click on their teacher's name and then on their name to get to their account. They also did color coding with Ozobots.
Kindergarten used the Beebots for a coding experience and will experience Kodable next.
Check out the new books added to the library. Many new fairy tales, non-fiction, and others. One I want to share is Balloons for Papa by Elizabeth Gilbert Bedia. This is a story of hope and empathy that you may want to share during the month of December.
SLATE Conference
I will be presenting at the SLATE Conference next week December 6 - December 8 so will be out of the building. I am presenting with Melinda Lemke, Library Media Specialist from Park Community Charter School. Our presentation is titled Bringing Books to Life. It is my passion to truly engage our students in the love of reading while building on literacy skills as well as life long skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication. If you care to take a peek at our presentation and resources, here is the link. After the conference I would love to share the other things I have learned so please ask.
