November Notes

November seems to be such a short month with Teachers' Convention and our Thanksgiving holiday.  The brisk air brings with it a sense of excitement for things to come!

Teachers' Convention certainly made a trip to Atlantic City exciting with all the workshops, key note speakers, and trade show happenings.  I attended fantastic workshops and came home with lots of new ideas:) 

Having attended the CEP Character Education Conference in October, it was certainly validating to attend the Create Classroom Climates where All Students Thrive and HIB Withers session in AC facilitated by Rutgers professor Dr. Maurice Elias.  Dr. Elias spoke of the challenges we face in education today as educators, students, administrators and parents.  He provided evidence that the higher expectations of academic achievement (CCSS) can only be reached if students are focused and ready to learn.  Students with strong character values are ready to learn and ready to achieve.  Our CORRECT values reflect Dr. Elias's research!

Another session I attended was led by Lisa Funari Willever, a well-known NJ author that once was here at OCS for an "author visit".  Currently, our class is reading her 2nd book- Garden State Adventure".  Mrs. Willever has written seven books about adventures in NJ.  Here characters Nicky Fifth and T-Bone have been presented before the legislature in Trenton to be made state ambassadors.  Mrs. Willever's books present NJ's history, resources, beaches, state parks, etc. in a way that captures the attention of the reader.  Recently Mrs. Willever has partnered with the NJ State Forestry Services (DEP) to bring awareness to NJ's environment and our great outdoors.  Our class hopes to be able to read all of her books by the end of the year.  They are fun, entertaining, and teach us much about the great state we live in- New Jersey.

Last week we had the first Level 3 Core Word Spelling Challenge (60 words).  Congratulations to Z. Neves for achieving 100% and being placed on our class Wall of Fame.

Spelling Words this week include:  life, little, left, without, thought, there, enough, know, something, these, another, house, took, animal, find and once.  This week we will be adding a "sentence dictation" section to our spelling assessment.  It is important to be able to apply correct spelling to our everyday writing!