May 29

Hard Working Cougars on Planting Day

Coming soon to Arno…

May 29

5th grade Health program

Art for the Sky assembly 1:15

May 30

5th grade Health program

May 31

Art for the Sky @Lindemann

**Lunch will be from 11-12.  The entire school will be at Lindemann from 12:15-1:45

June 1

Art for the Sky wrap up assembly 10:00

Senior Walk 1:30 (Line up in hallways)

Kids Hope end of year party 2:00

 

***June 2

Color Run 10:00

June 4

Field Day

June 5

Field Day

3rd grade to Greenfield Village

June 6

Super Cougar pizza

Data Dive per schedule

June 7

AP Library assembly

K to zoo

Data Dive per schedule

Staff Meeting 7:45

June 8

IRIP go home

 

June 11

1st grade to bowling

PBIS Reward

PTA Board Meeting 7:00

Ad Council 9:00

June 12

Super Cougar Ice Cream

Warneck and Kalis to park

**Early Dismissal 11:40 

June 13

5th Grade Celebration

**Early Dismissal 11:40

Class Lists per schedule

June 14

**Early Dismissal 11:40- LAST DAY for Students

June 15

NO SCHOOL- Last Day for Teachers- Please complete check out list

 

We did it!

June is here!  This school year went by so quickly, and it was another great year to be an Arno Cougar.  I am just so proud of all the things that went on here over the course of the year, Readers Workshop and Guided Reading have certainly become the norm in all of our rooms and our building data is on the upswing once again as you continue to transform our building in the best ways.  Although we still have a few weeks left in this year, be proud of everything you have accomplished, the things you have done to better yourself as an educator, the kids you made feel special, or all of those extra acts of kindness we do for our students everyday.  Have an awesome summer- stay safe and enjoy the break you so truly deserve!

Final Blog of the 2017/18 School year

Please look for our first blog as we head towards the end of August.

Supply Lists

Here once again is the link to register you grade supply list by June 1

https://www.teacherlists.com/

Class Lists 

We will be doing the final review of class lists with Sandy, Michelle, Barb, and Andrea.   Please come with your lists in hands for review.

Schedule:

1:00-1:20 K

1:25-1:45 1

1:50-2:10 2

2:15-2:35 3

2:40-3:00 4

 

M-STEP

Spring 2018 Administration and Technology Surveys Available.

The Michigan Department of Education would like to THANK YOU for your part in another very
successful assessment administration! We ask you to take a moment to provide feedback regarding
your administration experiences in our 2018 M-STEP Administration Survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018M-STEPAdministrationSurvey

Final Evals

Walkthroughs are almost complete, and your student assessments for your goal areas should be complete soon, please be sure that your STAGES information is updated and we can plan to have our year-end goal meetings.  You can start by making sure your Self-Assessment is complete and submitted, your Results for Professional Growth Goals are complete (just a narrative), and you have uploaded any evidences you would like to be considered as a part of your final evaluation for the year.

EVAL Final Checklist:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_1XbTEDwNNunyBxh0AkptLN1cH_7gnmTGMRE0b7Hmhs/edit?usp=sharing

School Improvement

Please remember to complete you grade/class SIP dic of activities for this school year.  This must be finished before you leave for summer.  They are housed in the “First Staff Meeting” folder -> School Improvment

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByBcxrtSW_W4SFAwYkRKNTdET28

 

PD LOG

Please log your PD in your MOECS account to be sure that your certification stays current!   Please remember that you must print and sign your PD log as part of your final evaluation process.  That can be done as soon as you have finished entering it!  Stay tuned!

Guiding Readers by Interest, Not Level

 If you are interested watching this informative video webinar, here is the link:  https://thankyou.heinemann.com/fountas-pinnell-put-reading-minilessons-into-action-webinar

Office closes June 22

Be sure to let us know of any needs prior to that date

 

Supplies

If you have special requests for supplies, please get them to Cathy by Friday, June 15

 

PBIS Stations

Please see below for the plan for the first Thursday of school in the fall for our new PBIS learning stations.  Let us know what questions you have, or ideas moving forward.   Thank you to our chairs Lisa and Katie and all who have participated this year on the PBIS team for the hard work to maintain a positive climate for kids and teachers at Arno!!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OWAfRZl2k_lk0vJNMIuqpIqw1LJQWIecakFj4-86qAU/edit?usp=sharing

 

Rovers in 5th grade action

Color Run 2018 Info

Arno Color Run 2018.docx-2b8wbkc

2018 Color Run T-Shirt Order Forms copy-udxkx0

Arno Planting Day

 

 

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Class Lists- Important Changes- on parent blog

It is very important that you are sure your email address is updated in our system as class lists will not be posted this year, instead they will be emailed out via MiStar Parent Connect on August 31.  Paper copies will be available the first day of school to be sure everyone gets to their correct classroom.

 

 

From the PTA

☀️SUMMER VACATION IS COMING!☀
As our year comes to an end and many of the existing Executive Board Members step down from their positions to allow new faces and ideas help transform the PTA throughout the next year, we just wanted to take a moment to reflect on all of the good things that has happened at Arno over the past 2 years!
☀️First: THANK YOU! Thank you so much for all of the support and patience we have received from the Arno Community during our tenure as PTA Board Members. Your patience through our transition and “growing pains” and with all of the new things we implemented from Spirit Wear to FINALLY accepting online payments for our events cannot be more appreciated! We would also like to thank those that stepped out of their “comfort zone” and helped us Chair/Lead Events because without you, events would not happen! THANK YOU!
☀️Second: Thank you to all of the Staff that has supported us throughout these past 2 years. We threw a lot at you and know that even though it may not always be ideal what we have in store, we knew we could count on you to help us build good relationships and bring new and exciting things to Arno like: our new Kindergarten Play Structure and our Play Works Recess Program! We appreciate all you do and give to the students at Arno!
☀️Finally: Daddy/Daughter Pictures will be distributed at the end of next week! Thank you for your patience!!!
✒️Congratulations again to our 2018-2019 Executive Board Officers! We look forward to your success and ideas!

2018-2019 Executive Board

2016-2018 Executive Board

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Senior Walk

This year’s Senior Walk will be at Arno @1:30.  Our proud graduates will be walking our halls for some final memories.  It’s a great moment for all!

 

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5th Grade Celebration

We are looking forward to another wonderful 5th grade graduation ceremony on June 13th at 9:00.  Following the ceremony there will be “picnic” for all the students with lots of yummy treats.  Please contact the office with any questions.

 

 

No Backpacks please…

Please note that students may continue to carry backpacks through Monday, June 12.  They will no longer be allowed for the next 3 half days leading up to the last day.

 

Safety Town Program

Who: 2018-19 Kindergarten and 1st Graders

When: June 18 thru June 28 – AM & PM Classes Available

Where: Lindemann Elementary, 9201 Carter, Allen Park

Safety Town is an interactive safety awareness program for children from 5-6 years of age.  Each day the children will be introduced to various safety issues in a fun and safe environment.  The program is taught by a Police Officer and a retired Allen Park teacher, with hands-on topics led by community guest speakers as well as visits from the AP Police & Fire Departments.  Please see attached for more information and sign your child up today!

Safety Town Program – June 2018-1pxtjoz

 

Tech Corner

ClassDojo Introduces a New Digital Portfolio Option

For the last couple of years ClassDojo has offered a digital portfolio feature called Student Stories. This summer ClassDojo is introducing a new portfolio option called simply ClassDojo Portfolios.

The new ClassDojo Portfolios will be student-led portfolios. Students will choose the items that they want to include in their portfolios. They can include pictures, documents, videos, notes, and drawings in their portfolios. Just like in the current Student Stories teachers will have to approve all submissions before they are shared. Parents will be able to see only the work of their children and not of other children in the class. And parents will be able to see the portfolio from the same ClassDojo app that they already use to stay informed about how their children are doing in your classroom.

ClassDojo Portfolios will be available to use on iPads and Android tablets. Students will be able to log-in without a username and password. Students scan a QR instead of using usernames and passwords.

The new ClassDojo Portfolios will be available in July. You can learn more and register for early access here.

Nine Fun and Challenging Geography Games

Yesterday, I shared the City-Guesser geography game. That game was just the latest in a long list of online geography games that I have tried over the years. Many have come and gone over the years but the following are still going strong.

GameOn World is a multiplayer geography game developed by a high school teacher and his student in Portland, Maine. The game is similar in structure to that of Kahoot. In GameOn World the teacher selects a game category (cities, places, and timeline are three of the nine categories) and starts the game. The students join the game by going to GameOn.World and entering a game pin. In the location and timeline games, students answer the questions by moving a placemark on a map or selecting a date on a timeline. In some of the other games students answer by choosing a number on a sliding scale.

WikiWhere is a neat map-based trivia game. The goal of the game is to identify cities based on their descriptions. The descriptions come from Wikipedia entries. You can get up to three clues before you have to answer by clicking on the map to identify the city that you think is described by the excerpts. When you click on the map you’ll be shown the correct answer and how far away you were from the correct answer.

Outline Maps offers a free set of geography games. The site contains games about Africa, South America, Europe, the United States, and the world. There are two basic types of games on the site. The first type, “find by name,” displays a state, country, or city name and you have to click the map to identify that place. The second type of game, “find by feature,” highlights a location and you have to type the name of the highlighted location.

GeoGuessr shows you a Google Street View image and a clue to try to guess where in the world the imagery was captured. Playing GeoGuessr is a fun way to get students to look at all of the visual and text clues they have in order to form a good guess as to where in the world they think the imagery came from.

Quizzity is an online geography game that uses a familiar concept. Quizzity presents you with the name of a city and you have to click on the map where you think that city is in the world. Quizzity quizzes you on cities all over the world. To increase the accuracy of your guesses you should zoom-in on a region before clicking the map. Each round of Quizzity presents you with six city names. Points are awarded for accuracy and speed.

Spacehopper is a game based on Google Maps Street View imagery. Spacehopper shows you a Street View image and you have to guess where in the world the image was captured. You can click the clue button to have the country identified before making a guess. After three incorrect guesses the correct answer will be revealed to you. You can play Spacehopper on a global level or you can specify that you only want to see images from a particular continent.

Smarty Pins is a Google Maps game develop by Google. Smarty Pins presents players with a trivia question that they have to answer by placing a pin on a map. Players earn “miles” for correctly placing a pin on the map. Players can lose miles for answering incorrectly and or taking too long to answer. Games are available in five categories; arts & culture, science & geography, sports & games, entertainment, and history & current events.

Capital Toss is a free geography game from ABCya. The game has a state capitals mode and a country capitals mode. In both modes of the game works the same way. The name of a state or country appears at the bottom of the screen and three rows of capital names scroll across the top. When the correct capital name appears players virtually toss a ball at it. After ten correct answers players can choose a new ball. Three consecutive incorrect answers ends the game.

City-Guesser is a challenging map-based game. The game shows you a section of a map centered over a city. The labels are removed from the map so you have to guess the city’s name based on other clues like bodies of water and orientation. City-Guesser gives you four answer choices to choose from. If you choose correctly, you move to the next level. If you choose incorrectly, the game is over and you have to start again from the beginning.

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May 14

Band Concert Excellence

 

 

Coming soon to Arno…

 May 14

Ad Council 9:00

May 15

Dr. Hall reads to 4th

K screeners

May 16

Jazz Band 10:30 Grade K-3

SIP Meeting 3:45

May 17

No events

May 18

Arno Planting Day

Cub Scouts Reps to talk to kids

 

May 21

5th Grade transition meetings

District SIP meeting

ICC 4:00

May 22

5th grade Counselors at Arno 9:00

Smalley boat trip

May 23

No events

May 24

MTSS meeting 7:45

May 25

PBIS reward

Senior Walk

 

Supply Lists

Here once again is the link to register you grade supply list by June 1

https://www.teacherlists.com/

 

Final Evals

Walkthroughs are almost complete, and your student assessments for your goal areas should be complete soon, please be sure that your STAGES information is updated and we can plan to have our year-end goal meetings.  You can start by making sure your Self-Assessment is complete and submitted, your Results for Professional Growth Goals are complete (just a narrative), and you have uploaded any evidences you would like to be considered as a part of your final evaluation for the year.

EVAL Final Checklist:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_1XbTEDwNNunyBxh0AkptLN1cH_7gnmTGMRE0b7Hmhs/edit?usp=sharing

School Improvement

Please remember to complete you grade/class SIP dic of activities for this school year.  This must be finished before you leave for summer.  They are housed in the “First Staff Meeting” folder -> School Improvment

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByBcxrtSW_W4SFAwYkRKNTdET28

 

PD LOG

Please log your PD in your MOECS account to be sure that your certification stays current!   Please remember that you must print and sign your PD log as part of your final evaluation process.  That can be done as soon as you have finished entering it!  Stay tuned!

Guiding Readers by Interest, Not Level

As a member of the Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Community, we’d like to invite you to an exclusive live webinar with Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. We’ll be picking up our series on the NEW Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ with Part 6: Put Reading Minilessons Into Action.

Reading Minilessons are short, concise, purposeful lessons with a practical application in a specific area of literacy. Each minilesson engages children in inquiry that leads to the discovery and understanding of a general principle. Growing out of the interactive read-aloud experience and linked to independent reading, teachers use many of these texts as examples from which they generalize the understanding. In this hour-long webinar, you’ll learn more about how to incorporate this important instructional context into your classroom.

Exclusive Members-Only Free Webinar

Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™
Part 6: Put Reading Minilessons Into Action

Live Webinar with Fountas and Pinnell

May 16, 2018 at 4:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER NOW

Educationally Yours,

Erika Denn 

Thank you PTA!

All of Arno joins me in thanking our PTA for their dedication and hard work in raising the bar on what this group can do.  What our PTA has accomplished over the past two years is nothing short of remarkable.  Their willingness to do things different, and bring the digital age into the mix has allowed our PTA to bring in funds to do amazing things, as well as amazing events.  Please check out their post below, Thursday’s PTA meeting vote has given us a brand new kindergarten playscape! Amazing!  Thank you Jenny Sauve, Shannon Mihalik, Nicole Atkinson, and Julie Hegedus for all your service.

Congratulations to our new Board as well, whom was sworn in for the upcoming 2018-19 school year.  Our new Board includes Stacey Sisson, President, Sascha Mansfield, Secretary. and Julie Hegedus continues as Treasurer.  There were no candidates for VP of Fundraising, the Board is actively looking for someone who is willing to step forward and help out.

PTA Board delivers Robots used for coding lessons to Carrie Solak, Tech Teacher.  Julie Hegedus and her husband Gary received a combined grant from Consumers Energy that paid for the entire purchase.  As you can see, there were many smiling faces.

Congrats to our new Board at their swearing in!

President Stacey Sisson, Secretary Sascha Mansfield, and Treasurer Julie Hegedus are sworn into office by Shannon Mihalik.

 

From the PTA

Happy Friday! Let’s hooe the weather this weekend is kind so all of us mothers can enjoy a wonderful, sunny Mother’s Day!! Happy Mother’s Day to all the hard-working, wonderful moms!

💐A BIG THANK YOU to Stacey Sisson and her mom, Jill, for chairing our Daddy/Daughter Dance that was held at the Prestige Banquet Hall on Friday, April 27th! The girls and dads had a great time dancing to the music played by Scott Piestrak! This event would not be possible without ALL of our wonderful volunteers that helped to make it so successful!

✅Our last PTA Meeting was quite eventful! Our members voted in a new Executive Board, to replace the older, orange playscape with a brand new one (coming this Summer!), two of our PTA Members (Julie and Gary Hegedus), gifted Mrs. Solak with coding robots and mice from a grant they earned from Consumers Energy for all of their volunteer work, the PTA was able to donate 10 Books about ALICE to the school, a new wheelchair and foot rest for the school, and we have our chair for the Fun Run next year!!

Please help us congratulate our 2018-2019 Executive Board Members:

President: Stacey Sisson

VP of Fundraising: Tricia Moore

Secretary: Sascha Mansfield

Treasurer: Julie Hegedus

⚾️Last week also kicked off a fun week to for our staff: Staff Appreciation Week!

This years theme was Tigers Baseball! The Fin started the week before on April 21st with a FREE Tigers Game courtesy of the Detroit Tigers commission and then continued the full week of April 30th! That week started with a catered breakfast by our wonderful resident Caterer: Mr. Kyle Kalis! Kyle dishes out homemade muffins, eggs, fruit, bacon, sausage, and biscuits and gravy. The staff also enjoyed juice, water, coffee, and Larabars! We were also able to share with them some the homemade cookies from Yah-ki-doc Bakery! Thursday was a catered Lunch from Brass Kitchen! Homemade sandwiches, bags of chips, fruit, pop, and water! It was a delicious spread that Kyle was able to obtain for us and everyone enjoyed it so much!

The week was also filled with lots of treats in the lounge and a gifts that were distributed to the staff on Thursday at the luncheon from many of the parents! Some of our teachers received headphones and gift cards from our Sign Up Genius link! For a full list of all of the goodies, check out our Facebook Page!

🎉If you are looking to help out with 5th grade and Kindergarten Celebrations please contact Mrs. Hool (for the 5th Grade Celebration) and Ms. Stanley (for the K Celebration).

Thank you to everyone who helped to make these past two weeks so fun and successful! We appreciate all that our members do for our school community!

Update from the District

1. Jags Boys and Girls Basketball Camp (July 10, 11 & 12) sessions for kids in grades 3-5 and grades 6-8
2. Barracuda Swim Team – AP Competitive Swim Program (May 15-July 25)
3. Summer Kids Camp (June 18 thru August 30)
4. Park Colony Tennis Lessons (Discount for AP residents)
5. Park Colony Tennis Lessons (Discount for AP residents)

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Arno Gardening Club

Twenty 3rd-5th graders have been meeting on Tuesdays for 25 minutes after school to attend Garden Club and beautify the courtyard.  On our first meeting, we created some goals for the area which included planting some food plants and flowers, weeding, and doing experiments.  We weeded last week and are getting our garden boxes ready for a salad garden.  A salad garden is a garden that grows salad produce (think different lettuces, radishes, etc.) at a faster rate allowing us to enjoy some of our fresh produce before summer vacation.  We are also one of this year’s MSU Tollgate Education Center and MSU 4-H Children’s Garden Cool Kid Plants collaborating classrooms to determine which plants (petunias, geraniums, pentas, and marigolds) attract butterflies.  While we are collecting data through June, Garden Club has requested that the classrooms that are studying butterfly life cycles release their hatched butterflies in our courtyard to encourage butterfly attraction to our plants and add to our data.  Happy Spring!

 

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Safety Town Program

Who: 2018-19 Kindergarten and 1st Graders

When: June 18 thru June 28 – AM & PM Classes Available

Where: Lindemann Elementary, 9201 Carter, Allen Park

Safety Town is an interactive safety awareness program for children from 5-6 years of age.  Each day the children will be introduced to various safety issues in a fun and safe environment.  The program is taught by a Police Officer and a retired Allen Park teacher, with hands-on topics led by community guest speakers as well as visits from the AP Police & Fire Departments.  Please see attached for more information and sign your child up today!

Safety Town Program – June 2018-1pxtjoz

 

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4th Grade Inquiry based learning using cupcakes…

How are earth’s layers formed? How. An geologists view what is underground?

Students predicted, took core samples of their cupcakes, drew models of their findings, and shared with the class.

4th grade photos from our stormwater drain stenciling with Arch Environmental Group. 

Smart Money Magic Show

Arno was treated to some Smart money advice via magic at an assembly last week.  Great tips were given to students, while having a fun time.  Arno students also received a free book with similar money lessons.

 

Arno Planting Day

2018 Arno Planting Day -1urt1p0

 

Want to Sign up?  Click on the link below

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4eaaac2ea4f94-arno

 

Tech Corner

Book Creator Now Offers “Read To Me” Mode Online

Last summer the Book Creator team launched a web-based version of their popular iPad app. The web-based version, called Book Creator for Chrome, has been a hit with teachers and students.

The latest update to Book Creator for Chromeincludes a feature called “Read To Me.” Read To Me is a text-to-speech function that reads the words on the pages of any book created in Book Creator. Read To Me highlights each word as it is read aloud. The pages of the books automatically turn when the end of a page is read aloud.

Read To Me works in Chrome, Safari, and Edge. It also works within the iPad app.

Book Creator’s Read To Me includes the option to change the speed at which the text is read aloud. You can also specify whether or not words are highlighted and whether or not multimedia elements are played within the book when Read To Me is enabled.

5 PowerPoint Features Often Overlooked by Students and Teachers

About ten years ago I started to notice a lot of alternatives to PowerPoint popping-up on the web. Some of those presentation tools like Google Slides and Prezi are still going strong while others have faded away. Through it all, PowerPoint kept chugging along even though it wasn’t a darling of Web 2.0 users. Today, PowerPoint has all of the features students and teachers need, including collaboration, but often those features are overlooked. If you haven’t taken a look at PowerPoint in a while, here are five PowerPoint features that you should try.

Screen Recording
Making a presentation about your favorite software or websites? Try using the screen recorder that is built into PowerPoint. Your recorded video is automatically inserted into the slide that you have open at the time you make your recording. Of course, you can use that video in other slides too. Find the screen recorder in the “Insert” menu in PowerPoint.

Sound Recording/ Sound Upload
Add your voice to your slides through the audio recorder built into PowerPoint. This is particularly useful if your slides will mostly be viewed independent of your presence.

Have music or sound effects that you want to add to your slides? In PowerPoint you can upload those recordings directly to your presentation and play them on the slides of your choice.

The sound recording and sound upload options are found in the “Insert” menu in PowerPoint.

Add-ins
Google Slides has Add-ons, PowerPoint has Add-ins. Add-ins offered by third parties can provide additional functions in PowerPoint. In my video embedded below I demonstrate how to find and install PowerPoint Add-ins. The video features the Pixabay Add-in that provides access to thousands of images that are in the public domain.


Word Art
Tired of the same old Times New Roman, Georgia, or Comic Sans (gasp!), use Word Art to create custom fonts. You’ll find Word Art in the “Insert” menu in PowerPoint.

Morph
Morph is a PowerPoint feature available to Microsoft 365 subscribers. Morph allows you to create animations by combining two similar slides into one display.