Just a few days

We will be back together in just a few days.  I honestly can hardly wait!  There is so much excitement to start the year, and I'd love to find ways to keep this excitement at a high level all year.  This year I'll be challenging all of us to be the spark for at least one student.  Are you ready to take the challenge?  I know you are.  But there are still three days before we are together.  Do your best to fill them with family and friends.  It's how we can make sure that are buckets are full to capacity so that we can be ready for our colleagues next week.

Calendar

Full School Year Calendar can be found here

Monday, August 20th- Thursday, August 24th
Summer Academy

Monday, August 27th- Thursday, August 30th
Summer Academy

Wednesday, August 29th
Open House

Tuesday, September 4th
First day of school!

Tuesday, September 25th
Boosterthon pep rally

Saturday, September 29th
EdCampMiddleLevel at Concordia University

Thursday, October 4th
Boosterthon fun run

Tweets, quotes, and blogs

The Manifesto We Should Read to Students Every Day (from AJ Juliani)

In the Presence of a Hero (from Tom Murray, a friend I admire even more after reading this post)

A Reminder for Those Tough Moments with Students (from George Couros)
The Power of Being Seen (from edutopia)

The NYC skyline from the Brooklyn Bridge

Lessons from the "Bad" Kids (from Pernille Ripp)
Every Opportunity- great video
How to live the life you never imagined- another great video
Take a breath (from my blog)

A great opportunity

The Scholastic Book Grant from Meemic is due September 30th.  It is honestly a super easy grant process for free books from Scholastic for your classroom.

Team time and individual meetings
Either Monday afternoon or Tuesday any time following our meeting, I'd like to meet with each of the grade level teams, the specials team, and all individuals.  The length of the team time is up to you.  I'd like to discuss norms and a few other things with you as well as setting our meeting days with you.  The individual time will only take 5-10 minutes.  I'd like to just catch up, and ask you my three favorite beginning of the year questions- what should I stop doing, what should I continue doing, and what should I start doing.  Here is a link to a Google form that I'd like for you to fill out before our individual meeting.

That's all for now.  I'll be off grid this weekend until at least Sunday night as we're celebrating Jen's birthday.  Powering down to connect face to face with Jen, our family, and our friends.  I suggest that you do the same.
Be the one!
Jay
Take care of the kids.  Take care of each other.  Take care of yourself.- John Gunnell