Coming soon to Arno…
April 4
School Resumes
April 7
Fire Drill
Staff Meeting 7:45
PTA Meeting 6:30
April 8
Data Meetings
April 11
MSTEP window opens
April 12
Ad Council
MSTEP 5th Grade SS
April 13
PBIS 8:00
April 14
MSTEP 5th Grade Science
SRCR 8:00
April 15
Good Friday- No School
April 17
HOPPY Easter!
April 19
MSTEP 5th Grade ELA
5th Grade Parent Orientation APMS 6:00
April 20
Fire Drill
SIP 8:00
SRCM 8:00
April 21
SEL 8:00
April 26
MSTEP 5th Grade Math, 4th Grade Math, 3rd Grade ELA
April 29
PBIS Reward
ARNO VISION
ARNO ELEMENTARY WILL PROVIDE A SYSTEM OF SUPPORT TO EMPOWER
AND INSPIRE STUDENTS TO BECOME COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS
THAT STRIVE FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
Committee Updates
PBIS
The PBIS team continues to fill out required paperwork, analyze current data, and plan for next year as well as purchases.
SRCR
The team is working with the staff on M-STEP work to prep up for the big test next month
SRCM
The math team created a take home calendar of math tasks to be completed at home. It’s optional if you wish to collect them for grades, incentives etc. The hope is to provide additional time and engagement around math skills.
SEL
The team has recently sent out resources and information regarding Women’s History Month, as well as created a bulletin board in the main hall.
SIP
The team covered the survey results and discussed some of that information received. We will talk about next steps with any actionable items from the results.
The moment you have all been waiting for- Spring Break is here!
Data Diving
We had a great data session last week looking at all our at risk students and their current status with progress monitoring. We will meet again in April just ahead of the MTSS meeting. If you brought forth someone to consider for child study, their name will be brought up at that meeting. We will also be looking at those who are receiving service, and whether or not it needs to continue. Depending on staffing, I also hope to make a move with information to start inviting kids to summer school sometime in April.
Check this Out…
Watersheds Contest
As a Wayne County Green School award recipient, Arno Elementary School is one of just 25 Schools eligible to participate in this year’s Adopt a Storm Drain contest!
The Alliance of Downriver Watersheds Schools for Clean Water Adopt a Storm Drain Contest is an easy online contest where you encourage parents, school staff, and community members to pledge to adopt a storm drain near their home. When they take the pledge they assign that pledge to your school.
The schools that get the most pledges will win cash prizes up to $1,500 for class materials and educational projects!
Here are the contest details:
The Alliance for Downriver Watersheds (ADW) is proud to announce the 2nd annual Schools for Clean Water Contest! As a current, or recent, Green School located in the Downriver area, your school is eligible to participate and win!
What is the Schools for Clean Water Contest?
The Schools for Clean Water Contest is a friendly competition to reduce pollution in our local waterways. Like last year, we will focus on keeping yard waste and litter out of storm drains.
How does it work?
Participating schools urge parents, alumni, and faculty to visit www.SchoolsForCleanWater.org between April 4th and April 22nd (Earth Day) to complete a simple online pledge to do their part. When they submit the pledge form, they assign that pledge to your school. At the end of the contest, we tally up the totals and the schools with the most pledges win cash prizes.
Who can pledge?
Anyone 18 and older can take the pledge including, but not limited to: parents, alumni, student’s family members, teachers, school support staff, friends, neighbors, etc…
What do schools win?
Eight schools will win a share of the $5,000 in prize money. The money can be used to pay for educational projects and classroom materials.
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First Place – $1,500
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Second Place – $1,250
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Third Place – $1,000
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Wild Card – 5 x $250 (all schools with 50 or more pledges, will be entered into a random drawing for the five wild card prizes)
In 2021, winners used the prize money to help fund programs like an outdoor classroom, a reading garden for special education students, school gardens, and other green initiatives.
Kindergarten Roundup
We are pleased to be bringing back the normal kindergarten round up this spring for all incoming kindergarteners. This year’s event will be on May 2 starting at 6:30 p.m. Parents will attend in the gym, all future Cougars will attend within the 3 different classrooms. Remember that Kindergarten registration is now open at Riley.
The M-STEP Window Opens
M-STEP kicks off on May 4 for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade for all students. Please see the schedule below for testing dates, and remember there will be some prep changes during this time period:
ALL testing starts at 9:15.
April 12 5th Grade Social Studies
April 14 5th Grade Science
April 19 5th Grade ELA
April 26 3rd Grade ELA, 4th Grade Math, and 5th Grade Math
May 3 3rd Grade Math, 4th Grade ELA
2022 State Testing Dr. Michael Rice
APPS Summer Camp Info
Summer Kids Camp 2022
Limited Schools of Choice Program for 2022-23
The Allen Park Public School District has established a successful Schools of Choice Program for the past several years and the Board of Education has approved continuation of the program for the 2022-23 school year for Kindergarten through 8th Grade. (Requests for specific elementary schools cannot be guaranteed)
Applications will be available, online only, between Monday, March 28, 2022 through Sunday, April 17, 2022 on our website, https://www.allenparkschools.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=971881&type=d&pREC_ID=1847418
Completed applications will be accepted beginning Monday, March 28 through Sunday, April 17. Absolutely no late applications will be accepted.
A random draw selection will be held on Monday, April 18, 2022. The draw will determine numerical selection for acceptance of candidates. Parents will be contacted with their students’ waitlist number, by email or phone call by April 20, 2022.
We ask that you help us by sharing this information with friends and/or family members who may be interested in having their children become a part of the Allen Park Public Schools Family.
For more information about the Schools of Choice Program, please see the attached FAQ’s, visit our website at www.allenparkschools.com. You can also address questions to schoolofchoice@appublicschools.com or call (313) 827-1154.
SOC FAQ 22-23
Teacher Tech Time
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Click here to listen to these updates!
- Embed charts from Google Forms – You can now embed the charts automatically generated by Forms into Docs, Slides, and Sites. These charts automatically update as new data is received.
- Schedule an assignment in multiple classes – FINALLY! This is a long awaited update to Google Classroom!
- Practice Sets for Google Classroom – you can sign up to beta test the latest feature for Google Classroom which is scheduled for release during the 2022-23 school year.
- ChromeOS Flex (beta) – Google opened up beta access to a new version of ChromeOS designed to run on old Mac and PC hardware.
- IT Admin Tip: custom admin roles – I recently used the Google Admin Console to create three custom roles to delegate simple Chromebook management tasks. Here’s what they look like.
- Google Forms phishing scam – The scammers are back, and this time they’re trying to trick us using Google Forms!
- Screen Pal (video where you type) – This is a cool new Chrome extension from Screen-Cast-O’Matic that lets you add a video recording in any text box. It’s like the video version of Mote!
- Grammar practice with Slides – I created this Google Slide template for a teacher who needed a new way to help students complete their grammar exercises.
- 30 ways to use Forms in the Classroom – Each year I update this list of ways educators are using Google Forms for assessments, feedback, grading, and other creative applications.
- April fools pranks – Here’s a list of some harmless tech pranks you can play on your students or administrators on April 1.
Five Ways to Create Online Drag-and-Drop Activities
Last week I wrote about TeacherMade’s new drag-and-drop online activity creation tool. It’s a nice tool for turning documents into online sorting and matching activities for your students. Of course, there are other ways to create online drag-and-drop activities for your students to complete. I’ve written about a handful of them over the last couple of years. Those are highlighted below.
I’ve created drag-and-drop activities for geography lessons by using Google Drawings. To do that I put a map in Google Drawings then created a bank of labels that students drag onto the map. I share the activity in Google Classroom with the “make a copy for each student” option so that students aren’t affecting each others’ work. Watch this video to see the whole process.Google Jamboard
A couple of years ago a reader named Chuck asked me for suggestions on how to create a virtual philosophical chairs activity. My suggestion was to try using Google Jamboard. The idea is to have students move their avatars around the Jamboard to indicate their positions on a given discussion topic. Here’s a video explanation of how the activity works.Wizer.Me
Wizer.me is a tool that I’ve used periodically over the last half-dozen years. In Wizer you can create online worksheet activities that include drag-and-drop activities. This tutorial is a little bit dated now, but it gives you an idea of what’s possible in Wizer.TinyTap
I recently wrote a lengthy post about using TinyTap to create online puzzle games for students. Those puzzles are all solved through the use of drag-and-drop. Watch this video to learn more.TeacherMade
TeacherMade’s latest feature lets you create drag-and-drop activities based on your existing PDFs and Word docs. Read my full post about it here or watch the tutorial video as embedded below.
How to Make Your Own Wordle-style Game
I’ve yet to play Wordle and by the time I do the fad will probably be over. That said, I know a lot of people enjoy the game and are looking for ways to bring it into their classrooms. If that describes you, this blog post is for you.
Flippity.net offers more than two dozen templates for creating all kinds of online activities including a Wordle-style game called WordMaster. You can see a live demo of a WordMaster game right here. The template for creating the game is available here and is very easy to use. All you need to do is enter a list of five-letter words and Flippity will handle the rest. Your game will be assigned its own URL that you can share with your students via Google Classroom, via QR code, via email, or any other means that you typically use to share resources with your students.
In the following short video I demonstrate how to create a Wordle-style game with Flippity’s WordMaster template.
