Week of 06FEB17

UAI Staff News

Volume IV

Issue 21

Week of January 30th, 2017

This Week's Memories

 

Youmna (Class of 2023) and Tamia (Class of 2019) are this month's SEL students of the month.  In addition the kindness quilt is inspiring our middle schoolers to remember the importance of positive, pro-social emotions.  In times the leader of the free world fails to display appropriate social-emotional skills on an international platform, it's doubly important to make sure we help our students internalize behaviors that will promote their own and our country's future success.  Please help celebrate our students of the month in your classes by congratulating them or drawing the rest of the class's attention to their posters in the halls.  Also, help the rest of our students understand the significance of pro-social behaviors like SLANT, accountable stem talk or emotional regulation in creating positive learning environments.  Remember, SEL in an of itself is not a set of complex skills. The rigor for SEL is in the routine! Let's make sure to touch on it daily, in small ways, with consistency!

To Do's for this Week

[MONDAY, 07FEWB17] Full Staff PD - Unit Planning.  We will be continuing our work from last Monday's PD.  Please bring unit planning materials to PD on Monday!  The majority of time will be IWT for unit and/or lesson planning.

• [10FEB17] Door Decorating Competition. The doors are starting to develop nicely.  Some look amazing!  Please try to complete your doors this week.  Reach out to Ms. Jen or Ms. Kree to get support (both supplies and labor) in order to finish your door by Friday 10FEB17.

• [07FEB17] Middle School Dance Tickets Are on Sale. Ms. Jen & Ms. Kree are coordinating a middle school dance.  Please encourage students to seek out tickets from Ms. Jen or Ms. Kree

• [10FEB17] February's Family Friday.  Ms. Kristina & Ms. Marsha are planning a celebratory event to have their students show off their written work with their families for our Family Friday (which occur the first Friday of every month) in February!  Thank you Kristina & Marsha for your hard work in getting our parents in to celebrate our girls' academic achievements!

• [15FEB17] Winterfest.  Our annual celebration of After School activities and display of students arts and artistic talent will be on Wednesday, 15FEB17.  Please join us in celebrating our girls in the gym from 6-8PM.

• [17FEB17] Black History Month Assembly.  We will be having our next full school assembly on Friday, Feb 17th.  This will be a slightly early assembly to accommodate a staggered rapid dismissal for the building (SLJ and AIL are dismissing early on Friday).  The Assembly will begin at 1:30 and we will rapidly dismiss at 2:15PM.

SEL Updates

HS SELThis week students focused on being aware of and managing their emotions. They learned how to recognize emotions in themselves and the cues (physical, mental and behavioral) that come with them. They learned to recognize what escalates their emotions and some de-escalation strategies (i.e. belly breathing, self-talk, flipping the script and time out). 

Next week they will focus in on two emotions; anger and stress. We will discuss how we react and how to cope with both. For anger, they will practice and expand upon de-escalation techniques, learn to be proactive instead of reactive and how to let go of residual anger. For stress they will focus on how our body and mind may react in the face of stress and changing your state vs. changing your situation. Relaxation techniques will be introduced and practiced.  Managing negative emotions is a learned skill.  Help students solidify these skills by referencing their SEL work during lessons and work time.

MS SEL6th grade students finished up their discussion on de-escalation strategies this past week. Students can now articulate any number of different strategies that they can use if they are becoming angry, sad, anxious, etc. If you notice a student becoming overwhelmed by a particular emotion, please cue them to practice one of these strategies, by saying something like, "I notice you're becoming angry- is there a de-escalation strategy from Power Group that I can help you practice right now?"

The theme of next week's 6th grade SEL lessons will be "Fighting Off Victimitis" and "Taking Full Responsibility," something we're very excited to spend some time reviewing! Students will hear stories of teenagers and adults who overcame significant misfortune and obstacles to achieve great success. Students will spend time discussing how effort, hard work, and taking advantage of things we do have control over can help them move past their own obstacles as well. 

Add this calendar to your own!  See that little "+" sign in the bottom right hand corner?  Click on it to have it show up in your personal google calendar!

Per Session Posting

Saturday Recruitment.  This Saturday we will be conducting interviews for our incoming 6th graders.  Cherry,  Paula, Doris, Kristin, Kristina, Jamie, Marsha, Elena, Matthew, Carol, Del, Nancy
Sursattie, Jen, and Val have already signed up, but I'm still looking for a few more teachers.  We have a lot of kiddos coming, so if you can join us to help, that would be greatly appreciated.  Staff report at 9AM for orientation.  Students and Families arrive at 10AM.  We will finish around noon with interviews and clean up will take about 30-45min.  So the entire day will be 9AM-1PM.