5th Grade Rockin‘ the Test!!

Coming soon to Arno…

April 22

Earth Day Stations

April 23

No events

April 24

MTSS meeting 7:45

Fire drill p.m.

April 25

Mobile Dentist in media center

Safety committee (Steve/Sandy)

April 26

No events

April 29

PBIS reward

April 30 

No events

MAY 1

ALICE evac drill to Church 1:30

May 2

PTA meeting 6:30

May 3

National School Lunch Hero Day (honoring lunch employees)

ARNO VISION

ARNO ELEMENTARY WILL PROVIDE A SYSTEM OF SUPPORT TO EMPOWER

AND INSPIRE STUDENTS TO BECOME COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS

THAT STRIVE FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

5th grade M-STEP Booster

Our 5th graders were treated to applause and cheered on as they made their way to the ELA M-STEP on Tuesday.  We are so proud of our students and know that they will be successful!!

From the PTA

A huge thank-you to April Lowry and Amy Muse for planning a very successful Daddy Daughter Dance! The event was absolutely beautiful, so well organized and very memorable! This event is a massive one, it requires lots of time and dedication to host a party for 337 people! These ladies along with a team of volunteers totally rocked it! Thank-you all from the hearts of many!

 Staff appreciation week is coming up!! This year we are having a summer theme Staff Appreciation Celebration the week of 5/6-5/10! Join us in giving back to the staff by donating items or your time & signing up below! All items must be labeled “for staff appreciation” and turned in to Arno office by Fri 5/3 unless noted below. We can’t wait to spoil all of Arno’s wonderful staff! 

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f4ca4aa2aa4fe3-20191

 Are you interested in chairing an event for  next school year? We still are in need of several chairs for next years events. Without a chairperson the PTA can not hold the event. Contact the Arno PTA atarnopta@gmail.com and reserve your event today!

We are happy to announce the Executive PTA board for 2019-20 school year will be:

President: Stacey Sisson

VP of Fundraising: Maribel Martinez

Treasurer: Julie Hegedus

Secretary: Sascha Mansfield

This will be the last year on the Executive board for several members. If you are interested in shadowing a board member during the next school year please contact us at arnopta@gmail.com.

Daddy/Daughter Dance

What a beautiful night filled with Arno Princesses- at the annual Daddy/Daughter Dance.  Once again the Prestige was filled with excited families and friends who enjoyed good food, fun dancing, and some daddy/daughter time.  Thank you to the Arno PTA for putting on another spectacular event for our families!

Pics from the Martian Marathon

From the District

Allen Park Summer Kids Camp is open to all districts and offers children ages 3-13 an opportunity to enjoy a variety of fun activities, field trips and more! Each week offers a different theme and a special event. Our staff will help your child have fun, make memories, and create friendships in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.  Flyer with more info attached – registration form on district website – allenparkschools.com – https://www.allenparkschools.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=971884&type=d&pREC_ID=1292547

Summer Kids Camp 2019 – Ages 3 to 13 (1)-1ylxuew

Allen Park Public Schools Latchkey program is designed to provide children with a safe, well-supervised environment when an adult is unable to be at home. The activities include crafts, games, outdoor and indoor play. Our program is play-based and encourages a relaxed environment for the child who is in school all day. We are licensed with the State of Michigan to take care of children between the ages of 3 and 13 years of age.  Flyer with more info attached – registration form on district website – allenparkschools.com – https://www.allenparkschools.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=971884&type=d&pREC_ID=1292543

Latchkey 2019-20 Information (1)-1vk2sdk

Honor Choir Opens Up April

Congratulations to all of our Arno Honor Choir members and Mr. Hoffman for a fantastic performance on April 8th!

Limited Schools of Choice Program for 2019-20

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 2019-20 school year for Kindergarten through 8^th Grade.  (Requests for specific elementary schools cannot be guaranteed)

Applications will be available beginning Monday, April 8, 2019 at the Riley Education Center, 9601 Vine or at www.allenparkschools.com Completed applications will be accepted beginning Monday, April 8 through Friday, April 26, 2019 from 7:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. weekdays in the Pupil Accounting Office at the Riley Education Center. Completed applications may also be emailed to schoolofchoice@appublicschools.com by Friday, April 26, 2019 at 4:00 p.m.  Absolutely no late applications can be accepted.

A random draw selection will be held on Tuesday, April 30 at 9:00 a.m. at the Riley Education Center.  The draw will determine numerical selection for acceptance of candidates.

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 or call (313) 827-2105.

Schools of Choice Program Info 2019-20-1pahcni

Kindergarten Registration 2019

https://arnofamily.edublogs.org/files/2019/02/Kindergarten-Enrollment-Flyer-2019-20-School-Year-2ko4e62-1wjdhtc.pdf

Preschool Information

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 an AP teacher, with hands-on topics led by community guest speakers as well as visits from the Allen Park Police & Fire Departments. Teen volunteers from Allen Park High School lead the children through Safety Town every day and receive valuable training along with obtaining National Honor Society service hours. The children learn about stranger danger, water and beach as well as playground safety, fire safety, pet and bus safety, electrical and gun safety, and personal safety with an emphasis on pedestrian safety. The kids will be bicycling through a miniature town complete with streets, sidewalks, buildings, stop signs and a working traffic signal. Importance is placed on having the children memorize a cell phone number to call if they should ever become lost. We use fun songs to reinforce all of these principles and the children memorize our very own Safety Town Pledge!

Parent Orientation: All children and parents will meet for a 30 minute orientation on the first day of your session (Children stay for full session).  It is the parent’s responsibility to bring their child to Safety Town daily and to pick them up promptly. Parents who will have someone else picking up the child will designate that on the enrollment form the first day.

Safety Town REGISTRATION 2019-18qyuq5

March Wrap-Up

A BIG Thank you to all of the teachers who participated in or had a role in organizing March is Reading Month activities, especially Mrs. Smalley and Mrs. Cervantes!

Flashlight Friday in Mrs. Haskin’s Young 5’s room

Reading with Rotary in First Grade

Tech Time

Word Hippo – Convenient Source of Definitions, Antonyms, Translations, and More

Word Hippo is a nice little tool that students can use to find definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and translations for words. The service also provides students with verb conjugation assistance, pronunciation assistance, and assistance with prefixes and suffixes. In total, Word Hippo offers more than a dozen tools for students.

Applications for Education

Word Hippo could be a good aid to ELL students. Some of Word Hippo’s features could be useful for all students. For example, the synonym finder could be useful to a student that finds himself using the same adjective over and over throughout a paper.

Seven Good Tools for Creating Word Clouds

The popularity of word cloud generation tools seems to have declined from their peak of about six years ago. None-the-less they are still useful in providing students with a nice way to visualize the most frequently used words in a passage of text. Wordle is probably the best known tool for making word clouds. But Wordle doesn’t work well in many web browsers today so here are seven other word cloud generators to try.

On WordClouds.com you can create word clouds in a variety of shapes and sizes with a wide array of color schemes. I’ve even used it to make a word cloud about cats in the shape of a cat. In my video embedded below I demonstrate the features of WordClouds.com

Word Cloud Generator is a free Google Docs add-on for creating word clouds based on your Google Documents. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to quickly create a word cloud in Google Documents.

WordWanderer attempts to be different from other word cloud creation tools by letting you drag and drop words to rearrange the look of your word clouds. Additionally, WordWanderer includes a search tool that you can use to find a word. The context of your chosen word is shown below the word cloud itself.

Paste your text into Analyze My Writing and it will generate a ton of information about your writing. Analyze My Writing will give you a break-down of the readability of your writing on five indices. The analysis will include listings of the most common words and most common word pairs in your writing. A listing of how frequently you use punctuation and punctuation types is included in the analysis provided by Analyze My Writing. Finally, a word cloud is included at the end of the analysis of your writing. The word cloud and the graphs can be saved as images.

ABCya! offers a nice word cloud generator. Like all word cloud generators you simply copy and paste chunks of text into the text box to have a word cloud created. Common words like “the” are automatically excluded from your word clouds. You can edit the font style, adjust color schemes, and flip the layout of your word clouds on the ABCya! Word Cloud Generator.

Word It Out creates word clouds out of any text that you paste into the word cloud generator. Once the word cloud is created you can customize the size and color scheme of the cloud. You can also customize the font used in your word cloud. The feature of Word It Out that I like the best is that you can choose to have Word It Out ignore any word or words you choose. Ignoring words keeps them out of the word cloud.

Tagxedo makes it very easy to customize the design of your word clouds. You can select from a variety of shapes in which to display words or you can design your shape for your word cloud. You can enter text into the word cloud generator manually or simply enter a URL from which Tagxedo will generate a word cloud. As with other word cloud generators you also have options for excluding words from your word clouds.

General Count DeMonet in Penny Wars

Coming soon to Arno…

***Spring Break April 1-5 No School

April 8

School Resumes

Choir Concert APAC 6:30

April 9

Spring Aide Lunch Meeting Bennie 9:00

April 10

PBIS meeting 7:45

Fire Drill

April 11

Staff Meeting 7:50

Penny War Movie 1:45

PTA Meeting 6:30

April 12

Daddy Daughter Dance

April 15

Ad Council 9:00

ICC 4:00

April 16

SIP all day meeting

Bid Pool 4:00

April 17

SIP meeting 7:45 all staff are invited

PBIS district meeting 1:00

April 18

Energy Safe Kids 4th grade

DIP Meeting

April 19

Good Friday- No School

ARNO VISION

ARNO ELEMENTARY WILL PROVIDE A SYSTEM OF SUPPORT TO EMPOWER

AND INSPIRE STUDENTS TO BECOME COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS

THAT STRIVE FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

2019-2020 SCHOOL YEAR

Please review the following dates for the Bidpool/Transfer process:

Transfer Sheets – Due April 9

Bid Pool April 16 4:00 LGI

New Second AED Coming 

In the coming months, Arno will be receiving a second AED from a Foundation that I applied to one year ago.  The plans are to place it down by the 4th grade doors,  reducing response time for that side of the building and the playground

2494_001-2kndxmu

Thank you so much for your generous donations to Rock Your Socks Day at Allen Park Schools!  This celebration of World Down Syndrome Day has been so much fun!  The students loved showing off their socks.  It was so amazing to see the community come together to support and celebrate all “EXTRA” special kids.  The district’s Cognitively Impaired programs greatly appreciate your support more than words could ever convey.

Arno…Next Gen

M-STEP TRAINING

MSTEP Resource Page: https://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-22709_70117—,00.html

NEW:

Test Directions 3rd Grade:

mstep test direct 3-2dbm018

Test Directions 4th Grade:

mstep test direct 4-1hnnmhm

Test Directions 5th Grade:

mstep test direct 5-1ekixag

MOBILE DENTIST IS COMING TO ARNO ON APRIL 25TH (SEE LINKS BELOW)

After-Hour Emergencies-1wmaa7e

Letter to Parents – Big Smile – English-Spanish (1)-178vxyg

From the PTA

Help Wanted!!  The PTA is in need of some help for the Daddy/Daughter dance (Friday April 12th)! This would be a great opportunity for moms of boys! You can sign up at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4CA4AA2AA4FE3-volunteers1

Our next PTA meeting will be Thursday April 11th at 630pm. Lots of updates and changes to be discussed! Have a happy and safe Spring Break!

5th Grade Camp Rocks!!

Limited Schools of Choice Program for 2019-20

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 2019-20 school year for Kindergarten through 8^th Grade.  (Requests for specific elementary schools cannot be guaranteed)

Applications will be available beginning Monday, April 8, 2019 at the Riley Education Center, 9601 Vine or at www.allenparkschools.com Completed applications will be accepted beginning Monday, April 8 through Friday, April 26, 2019 from 7:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. weekdays in the Pupil Accounting Office at the Riley Education Center. Completed applications may also be emailed to schoolofchoice@appublicschools.com by Friday, April 26, 2019 at 4:00 p.m.  Absolutely no late applications can be accepted.

A random draw selection will be held on Tuesday, April 30 at 9:00 a.m. at the Riley Education Center.  The draw will determine numerical selection for acceptance of candidates.

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 or call (313) 827-2105.

Schools of Choice Program Info 2019-20-1pahcni

Kindergarten Registration 2019

Preschool Information

March Reads On…

Dr. John Tafelski reads to Arno students

Chief Edward Cann reads to our Cougars

Tania Jett has our Cougars 

Penny Wars

Congratulations to Mrs. Cervantes and Ms. Stanley’s class for winning the Penny Wars.  In addition to first place, each year an additional winning spot is chosen- this year, 4th place were also the winners!  Each class will enjoy a snack and a movie with Mr. Zielinski.  We raised $2814.98  which goes towards next year’s March is Reading Month activities.

It’s an intentional way to look each child in the eyes every morning and let them know that who they are, how they feel and what they bring to the classroom matters.

Tech Time

Lessons About the Making of Maple Syrup

Today is Maple Syrup Sunday here in Maine. This is always a welcome sign of spring.

The method of collecting sap from maple trees has changed a bit over the years, but the concept of boiling sap to make syrup remains unchanged. In the following videos you’ll see the traditional collection method and the modern collection method.

My friend Gardner Waldeier AKA Bus Huxley on YouTube collects maple sap to make maple syrup. He does it the old fashioned way and he made a video about the process. Gardner’s video shows viewers how he collects maple sap and turns it into maple syrup. In the video explains why maple sap is collected at this time of year, how much sap he’ll collect from a large tree, and just how much sap it takes to make a gallon of maple syrup. You also get a nice tour of Gardner’s woodlot and plenty of images of his helpful dog.

Maple Syrup the Modern Way is a three minute video about the process commercial producers use to make syrup.

Make Trading Cards for Historical and Fictional Characters

Read Write Think Trading Cards is a free tool that students can use to create trading cards about people, places, and events both real and fictional. You can use it in your web browser, as an Android app, or as an iOS app. In this video I demonstrate how to use Read Write Think Trading Cards in your web browser.

Applications for Education
Some of the ways that the Read Write Think Trading Card app could be used by students is to create a set of trading cards about characters in a novel, to create a set of cards about people of historical significance, or to create cards about places that they’re studying in their geography lessons.

 Roary enjoys a visit with some Cougars

Coming soon to Arno…

March 18

Reading Kalis 2:10

Reading Smalley 2:45

March 19

Reading Trionfi 1:00

Tornado Drill 10:45

March 20

SIP meeting 7:45

MTSS 7:45

Steve @Conference all day

Mr. Peace assembly 3-5 9:00

PTSA @Arno 7:00

March 21

Steve @MACUL all day

March 22

No events

March 25

No events

March 26

5th Grade Camp

Choir Concert 6:30

March 27

Steve @camp

March 28

5th grade camp return

PBIS reward

March 29

Early Dismissal 11:30

Spring break begins at the end of day

2019-2020 School Year

Please review the following dates for the Bidpool/Transfer process:

Preference Sheets distributed Monday- Due March 22

Building Assignments Posted by March 29

Transfer Sheets coming soon- Due April 9

Bid Pool April 16 4:00 LGI

Even the Governor…

The Warneck/Chuby vocab team has accomplished the top- a video from Gov Whitmer!  Tremendous thanks to both!

 M-STEP Training

Coming soon for grades 3-5 on March 19 @8:00.  In the meantime you can review the resources below, Test Directions are new.

MSTEP Resource Page: https://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-22709_70117—,00.html

NEW:

Test Directions 3rd Grade:

mstep test direct 3-2dbm018

Test Directions 4th Grade:

mstep test direct 4-1hnnmhm

Test Directions 5th Grade:

mstep test direct 5-1ekixag

Mobile Dentist is Coming to Arno on April 25th (See links below)

After-Hour Emergencies-1wmaa7e

Letter to Parents – Big Smile – English-Spanish (1)-178vxyg

Before/After School Hours

We currently have an Exactpath/Khan academy running in both reading and math and morning tutoring for our identified bubble kids.  I have additional hours to offer if anyone else is interested in helping out.  We can still use additional tutors, or you can propose something if you have a program in mind.  Please let me know if interested.

Limited Schools of Choice Program for 2019-20

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 2019-20 school year for Kindergarten through 8^th Grade.  (Requests for specific elementary schools cannot be guaranteed)

Applications will be available beginning Monday, April 8, 2019 at the Riley Education Center, 9601 Vine or at www.allenparkschools.com Completed applications will be accepted beginning Monday, April 8 through Friday, April 26, 2019 from 7:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. weekdays in the Pupil Accounting Office at the Riley Education Center. Completed applications may also be emailed to schoolofchoice@appublicschools.com by Friday, April 26, 2019 at 4:00 p.m.  Absolutely no late applications can be accepted.

A random draw selection will be held on Tuesday, April 30 at 9:00 a.m. at the Riley Education Center.  The draw will determine numerical selection for acceptance of candidates.

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 or call (313) 827-2105.

Schools of Choice Program Info 2019-20-1pahcni

Crazy Socks to Support World Down Syndrome Awareness Day

Penny Wars  Strategy- Do Whatever It Takes!

March is Reading Month Pics

Superintendent Mike Darga stopped by Arno to read to our Cougars

Mrs. Metzger, Bennie Principal, read to some of our classrooms- including Mrs. Smalley’s and Ms. Higgins

Many of our Cougars participated in “Unplugged” Night!

Our Book Exchange Advertisers Nora and Jenny hard at work!

Penny Wars are Back!  This fun activity raises funds to be used on next March is Reading Month!

Frindle Illustrations in 3rd Grade

Word of the Day with Mrs. Smalley’s Class

Even the Texas Roadhouse mascot got into the reading festivities!

The Detroit Lions and Roary the Lion rolled into Arno rooting on Reading! 

Tech time

Nature Sound Map – Explore the Sounds of Nature

Nature Sound Map provides a neat way to explore the soundscape of the natural world. On the Nature Sound Map you will find placemarks containing recordings of nature. The recordings have been added to the project by professional sound recorders. Some of the recordings you will find feature the sounds of just one animal, the sounds of a jungle, sounds of a marsh, sounds of a storm, or sounds of oceans and rivers.

Get a Copy of My Jeopardy Gameboard Google Slides Template

In a workshop that I led last week I introduced the concept of linking slides together within a set of Google Slides. That concept can be used to have students create a choose-your-own-adventure story or you can use to create a Jeopardy-style gameboard. I made a Jeopardy-style gameboard using Google Slides that you can use as a template for own review game. You can get the template here. And watch the following video for my explanation on how to modify the template.

 

Arno’s Outstanding Founder’s Day Winners!

Coming soon to Arno…

March 4

No events

March 5

Higgins 11:15

Unplugged Night

March 6

2nd grade field trip

Wear it Wednesday: Hat with words 

March 7

Lions Assembly 9:00

Spring Pictures 

PTA meeting 6:30

March 8

End of 2nd Trimester

Early Release 11:30- Teacher PD

Flashlight Friday

March 11

Ad Council 9:00

March 12

Johnson obs 10:00

March 13

PBIS meeting 7:45

Wear it Wednesday: Be a word day

March 14

Bingo for Books

March 15

Report Cards Go Home

Fundraiser Gaming Truck at Arno

Flashlight Friday

Congratulations to all of our Founder’s Day Winners!

What a wonderful event to celebrate our Founder’s Day winners at last week’s dinner to honor our own. The night even featured the musical stylings of our own Mr. Creutz!  Congratulations to all of our winner on a job well done!

Business Partner: Awesome Audio Video Solutions- Tim Sisson

Support Personnel: Heather Manson

Outstanding Program: Fun Run- Tiffany Aquino

Distinguished Service Award: Julie Hegedus

Outstanding Educator: Alexandra Cervantes

Data points up!

As you can observe from the chart comparison below, grades K-3 have shown great improvement with all of the early interventions on place!  The missing gaps represent those students who moved out of the tiers 2 and 3 to tier 1!

Fall 2018                                          Winter 2019

Have you seen the great benefits of a literacy coach?

http://drchuby.edublogs.org/

Dr. Chuby working with a small group of Young 5’s students. The children are using a literacy program called Reading Eggs on their new Chromebooks.

Seat Belts Buckled?

Trauma-Informed Support for Children – A Follow Up to “What Lies Beneath Behavior?”

 LOUISE GODBOLD6/7/172:25 PM

From the PTA

Happy Reading Month!!!

Our next PTA Meeting is on March 7 at 630pm and we can’t wait to see everyone!  Arno teachers/staff will be presenting Funding Proposals during our meeting.  Please join us to learn more about what will be on the ballot during our April meeting. We will also have plenty of updates since our last meeting was cancelled due to weather/school closing.

Spring fever is coming up on March 9^th at the Allen Park High School, from 9am-3pm. Spring Fever includes a great mom2mom sale, multiple vendors, concessions, Bake Sale and silent auction.

Arno PTA is chairing the silent auction and would love to have your support!!! We are still in need of Spring fever volunteers to work the silent auction, each volunteer block is 2 hours.  The sign up genius link for this is https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b094faba723abf85-spring1

A BIG thank you to all of the teachers, staff and parents for contributing to the themed baskets for the silent auction!!! Thanks to all of you, the Arno family will be donating the following themed baskets for the silent auction: Coffee, Taste of Italy, Games, Movies(2), Arts & Crafts, Chocolate and Michigan.

If you are interested in an executive board position please email us at ARNOPTA@gmail.com.

Tech Corner

Rewordify: This user-friendly website allows you to adjust the reading level of a text. All you need to do is copy the webpage URL of the text you want to adjust and paste it into the yellow box at the top of the site, then click “Rewordify text.” Rewordify will simplify the text to the reading level you selected in the settings. If you don’t want the whole page to be Rewordified, you can copy, paste, and Rewordify text excerpts as well. You also can change how the text is displayed. My favorite part of the tool is to have simpler words displayed next to the challenging words that were in the original text. Finally, if you click on the “Print/Learning Activities” page, Rewordify will create vocabulary lists with definitions from the text, generate vocabulary quizzes for the text, and create close activities for the text. With this website, you can make more challenging texts accessible to all students.

INSERTLEARNING

insertlearning.com

With this tool, you can basically take any page on the Internet and turn it into a lesson. Suppose you find a great article from The Guardian that you’d like students to read, but you’d also like to ask them a few questions about it, add a bit of commentary of your own, and insert a related video. With InsertLearning, you can do all of that right on the article.

InsertLearning, formerly called DocentEDU, is an extension you add to your Chrome browser. Once it’s there, turning any web page into a lesson can be done in minutes. You start with a web page of any kind, then highlight text, add notes, and embed your own questions—either multiple-choice or open-ended—that students answer right on the page. You can also embed other content like YouTube videos, ThingLink images, flashcards from Quizlet, mind maps from Coggle, even videos you record straight from your webcam.

Once an InsertLearning lesson is created, you assign it to classes of students with a special code or through Google Classroom, and student responses are sent to a teacher dashboard, where you can grade them right inside the app. You can also share lessons with other teachers, so they can copy and edit them for their own use.

I think we’re getting beyond the point where we count on one platform to do everything for us. Instead, teachers are probably better off using different tools depending on what best fits the learning goals at any given time. A tool like InsertLearning would be a fantastic addition to your collection of resources for creating engaging, dynamic lessons.

Awesome example of Superb teaching at Arno

Coming soon to Arno…

Feb 18

No School- Winter Break

Feb 19

No School- Winter Break

Feb 20

MTSS 7:45

SIP 7:45

MEMSPA conf – Steve

Founders Day Banquet

Feb 21

Safety Committee Meeting 9:30

Feb 22

No Events

Feb 25

No Events

Feb 26

3rd Grade Maple Syrup

Feb 27

PTA Restaurant Fundraiser

District PBIS Meeting 1:00

3rd Grade Maple Syrup

Feb 28

3rd Grade Maple Syrup

SIP Full Day

March 1

Report Card Window Opens

PBIS Reward

Gordon Miller Visit 1:00

Arno Vision

Arno Elementary will provide a system of

support to empower and inspire students to become

collaborative learners that strive for academic excellence-

NWEA Celebration

As you may have watched the video already- we celebrated the student’s accomplishments in NWEA- but they are also your accomplishments.  Starting with the first day of kindergarten to holding a certificate of accomplishment- your skills in teaching our Cougars is evident everyday and you should be proud that your the reason they stand so tall…

Cookie Dough Fundraiser Deadline Approaching

It appears that the fundraiser is going well so far.  Please remind students that the deadline for all sales to be completed and turned in with payment is Feb. 22

March is Reading is Here! Please see the attachment below

MIRM Teachers 2019-2mbstck

3rd Grade Reading Laws Updates:

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/Read_Grade_3_Guide_638247_7.pdf

February is Black History Month!

Every day this month, the Arno Announcements are highlighting a special African American person in history – ranging from Rosa Parks to Lebron James! During these announcement videos, students are learning interesting facts and accomplishments by past and present scientists, athletes, artists, activists and more. 

In addition to this special programming, classroom teachers are extending instruction with various activities. In the school library, there is a designated area of books featuring African American characters and book pertaining to African American history.

Keep the conversation going at home! Ask your child who they learned about in each day’s announcements. Use multiple resources to do more research – like YouTube, books from the local library, and visits to museums and institutions that highlight black history, including:

Henry Ford Museum

Motown Museum

Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

Detroit Historical Museum

Detroit Institute of Arts

We are so proud of the diversity at Arno, and the new learning happening everyday! Keep it up, Arno Cougars!

Let’s get some Wings!!

buffalo wild wings-y2tyep

Kindergarten Registration 2019

 Kindergarten Enrollment Flyer 2019-20 School Year-2ko4e62

Zumba Reward

Arno students finally were able to enjoy the January PBIS reward- Zumba.  As you can see below, it takes lots of energy to keep up!

From the PTA

Join us at Buffalo Wild Wings, located at 13655 Eureka Drive in Southgate on February 27 th 2019. All day, 20% of ALL purchases will be given back to ARNO PTA! Flyers will be sent home next week. Flyer must be presented.

-Our next PTA meeting is March 7 th . Arno teachers/staff will present proposals for items they would like the PTA to consider assisting them with. Hope to see you there!
-Spirit wear has been discounted!! Children’s shirts are $5 and Adults are $10 (2x and up are an additional $2) Spirit wear will be available at our March meeting. The PTA accepts cash, check or credit/debit card.
-Join us March 9 th at Spring Fever (9am-3pm at APHS) to bid on gift certificates, baskets and other auction items. You can also treat yourself to some bake goods, and shop the craft show and mom 2 mom sale.
-Mom2mom and vendor tables are still available. More Spring Fever information can be found at https://apptacouncil.weebly.com/
-Do you own a business, or belong to a club or department and want to help AP students further their education? The PTA is looking for basket donations for the silent auction.
-Please email ARNOPTA@gmail.com if you are interested in making a donation.
Are you interested in becoming part of the PTA executive board? If so please email
ARNOPTA@gmail.com with your full name and the position. Your name will be added to the ballot. Voting will take place at our April meeting.

PTA Spring Fever is Almost Here!

Spring Fever Craft & Vendor Show-Now Renting Tables-25klkfa

Here’s a list of the Smencil sales dates:

January 16, 2018

Do your mindfulness students fall asleep? Daydream? Use the time to plan their evening? Giggle?  Try to distract other group members?

These responses might have a variety of reasons behind them.  Your students may in fact be tired, unsure of the instructions, or engaging in their habitual social roles.

Or –they may be stressed and therefore having difficulty engaging in the practices, even if they’d like to. Perhaps there was a car accident on the way to school; perhaps their beloved pet is ill and dying; perhaps there is violence in the home or neighborhood.

Because it is impossible to know which of our mindfulness students on any given day are arriving to the session in a fight/flight/freeze stress reaction, following trauma-informed guidelines will allow the greatest number of students to engage in the practices, and thus gain the benefit of them.

Mindfulness practices have many short and long term benefits, and research shows these benefits may be even greater for those who come to them with increased stress or trauma histories. Therefore, these guidelines are even more important when we are teaching to groups known to have traumatic stress due to PTSD, high ACES scores or a current acute trauma such as the death of a parent.

Five Guidelines:

1. Give control to the participants through options and choices – When our brain is stressed, feeling out of control, anything that sounds like a demand or command will increase this sense of being out of control. Give options and choices early and often—eyes open or closed? If open, on your lap, on the desk, on the floor?
2. Teach ways to self-sooth and calm in advance – When someone is trying to be present—therefore not fleeing or freezing, “fight” is a common response of the brain. Therefore teaching simple methods to self-sooth and calm the nervous system when encountering self-critical thoughts prior to any mindfulness or awareness exercise enhances control.  Learning to notice when we are stressed and taking steps to down-regulate our own nervous system is an valuable life skill.
3. Begin with orienting students to time, space, grounding and doing a practice to down –regulate the nervous system.  Why not start the practices in ways known to calm and sooth, bring us into the here and now, and away from other times and places that might include unpleasant memories?
4. Limit silence until students know how to work with it constructively.  Our minds wander most during silent meditation, and it wanders preferentially to the unpleasant, due to the negativity bias of the brain.  Learning to work with the wandering mind one of the things that builds new neural networks in the brain.  Limiting silence for beginners can help grow confidence in the practices.
5. Increase structure in the class and in the meditation itself –Structure can provide a sense of security so look for ways to increase it.  “If you can name it, you can tame it” is a neuroscience truism.  Teaching naming skills for present-moment experiences. Find ways to break down meditation instructions into manageable steps.

Tech Time

How to Create a Self-grading Quiz from Google Classroom

This afternoon I received an email from a reader who had watched one of my YouTube videos about Google Forms. She wanted to know if it was better to manually place the link to her Google Form into Google Classroom or if she should make the Form within Google Classroom. The answer is that it doesn’t really make a huge difference which way you do it because the Form will operate the same regardless of how it was started. All that said, here’s how you can create a Google Forms quiz from your Google Classroom Classwork page.

 

Ten Overlooked Google Docs Features

On Monday I featured ten overlooked Google Slides features. Like Google Slides, Google Docs has a lot of features that new users often don’t notice. Some these are features that even experienced Google Docs users overlook. Some of these features will save you time, some will give you more formatting flexibility, and others will improve the way that you share your documents.

1. Word Art
Just like in Google Slides, you can insert Word Art into Google Documents. The process of using Word Art requires that you use the “drawing” option found in the “insert” drop-down menu. Word Art is great for inserting colorful headlines into your documents.

2. Insert your signature
Once again the “drawing” option found in the “insert” drop-down menu is quite helpful. Use the drawing pad’s free-form line drawing tool to create your signature and insert it into a document. You can do this with a mouse, but if you have a touch-screen computer it is even easier to do. Inserting your signature is a great way to personalize letters that you send home to parents.

3. File Export
Not everyone with whom you have to share documents is going to jump on the Google Docs bandwagon. For example, I used to write for a publication that only accepted Word files. That didn’t mean that I had to write my articles in Word. I wrote my articles in Google Docs then just downloaded those articles as Word docs before sending them off as attachments. You can also download your Google Documents as PDFs, Rich Text documents, HTML, Plain Text, Open Document, and ePub.

4. Sharing Restrictions
One the original selling points of Google Docs was document sharing and collaboration. That feature is still the thing that makes Google Docs special. In fact, just yesterday at the BETT Show I saw someone presenting just that feature. But sometimes you want to share your documents without letting other people make copies of them or print them. So when you open your sharing settings select “advanced” and you can prevent people from copying, downloading, or printing your documents.

Restricting printing is a great option to use when you just want someone to look at your document for a final review but you don’t want them to print it. For example, when writing up a IEP you might want a colleague to look at it, but you don’t want him or her to print it because you know that he or she is the one who sends everything to a network printer and then forgets to pick it up for an hour.

5. Voice Typing
It used to be that you needed a third-party application in order to use voice input in Google Docs. Now you can just open the “tools” drop-down menu and select “voice typing” to start using voice input into Google Documents.

6. Google Keep Notepad
Are your students using Google Keep to bookmark references for inclusion in a research paper? If so, they can access those bookmarks without having to leave Google Docs. They can access those bookmarks and insert them into their documents by opening the Google Keep Notepad from the “tools” drop-down menu.

7. Change Default Page Layout
The question that new Google Docs users ask me more than any other is, “can I use landscape mode?” Yes, you can use landscape mode. Open the “file” drop-down menu and select “page setup.” From there you can change the page orientation, the page size, change and set default margins, and you can even change the page’s background color.

8. Columns & Grids
Need columns in your document? You can insert those from the “format” drop-down menu. However, the columns will apply to the whole page. If you only need columns for part of the page, use the “table” drop-down menu to insert a simple 1×2 table. The table’s cells will expand as you type.

9. Headers, Footers, and Page Numbers
In the early years of Google Docs headers, footers, and page numbers had to be manually inserted. Today, you can have headers, footers, and page numbers automatically inserted into your document by making those selections from the “insert” menu. You can even apply them retroactively.

10. Import & Convert Word Documents
If your school is transitioning from a Windows environment to a G Suite environment, you probably have old Word documents that you’d prefer to not have to copy and paste or rewrite entirely. You can import and have those old documents instantly converted to Google Docs format. There are two ways to do this. First, if you just have one or two documents you can import them by selecting “file upload” in Google Docs. Second, if you have a lot of Word documents, bundle them into a folder then use the “folder upload” function in Google Drive. Just make sure your Google Drive settings (the gear icon in the upper-right corner) is set to “automatically convert to Google Docs.”

Big Thanks to Nicole for doing another excellent job in organizing this year’s Arno Olympics!

Coming soon to Arno…

Feb. 4

No events

Feb. 5

MTSS group full day

Feb. 6

P/T Conf 5:00

Feb. 7

P/T Conf 5:00

NWEA Reward Assembly 2:00

Feb. 8

NWEA reward movie 1:45

Feb. 11

Spirit Week starts

Ad Council 9:00

Nwea Rewards Recess 1:45

Feb. 12

Data Dive

Feb. 13

PBIS meeting 7:45

Data Dive

Skating Party 6:00

Feb. 14

Happy Valentines Day!

Feb. 15

Early Dismissal 11:30- Teacher PD

Arno Vision

Arno Elementary will provide a system of

support to empower and inspire students to become

collaborative learners that strive for academic excellence-

***NWEA Reward assembly has been rescheduled to Feb 7 at 2:00- Don’t forget to order your MSTEP shirts ASAP from Rachel.

STAFF SURVEY

It is that time again, our annual staff survey will be active from Jan. 18-Feb 7 for staff, students, and parents.  We primarily use our survey results to inform the school improvement plan and take a careful look at things we may need to change.

We will once again only survey grades 3-5, and I would like that to just be completed during their tech time.   Please see your staff link below, I would love to see lots of staff completing it, it should not take you long.

https://eprovesurveys.advanc-ed.org/surveys/#/action/95817/20337

Let kickoff M-STEP Season…

MSTEP Resource Page: https://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-22709_70117—,00.html

In Preparation for our February PD

Six-year-old Jada feels a persistent expectation of danger. She overreacts to provocative situations and has difficulty managing her emotions, which often flare up without warning. To her teachers, Jada appears touchy, temperamental, and aggressive. She is easily frustrated, which makes her susceptible to bullying. When something happens at school that triggers Jada, she may lash out in fury.

How can teachers manage a kid like Jada who may have suffered trauma, but whose emotional reactions make it difficult for her to learn? Not by getting angry, for sure. That would just trigger her, because she’s hypersensitive to criticism.

In my new book, The Trauma-Sensitive Classroom, I present key, alternative strategies teachers and schools can use to help kids who’ve experienced trauma to do better in school. I’ve found that when teachers recognize the symptoms of trauma, build supportive relationships and classroom environments, and build upon strengths to help traumatized kids learn self-regulation, they can play an important role in helping them heal.

How can teachers do that while still managing a roomful of other kids? It can feel overwhelming to contemplate, but many of the strategies are useful no matter who is in your classroom. And, as long as you couple them with care for your own well-being, they are certainly worth the effort.

Here are some of the suggestions I make in my book.

1. Build supportive relationships in the classroom

As human beings, the most important factor for our survival is supportive relationships. But trauma and adversity can disrupt the development of the important bonds that children need to reach their full potential. Fragmented families and communities make it harder for children and teens to find attachment figures to connect with, leaving many kids unmoored.

To support children and teens exposed to trauma and adversity, we can demonstrate alternative working models of relationships by building social trust. While a warm and supportive classroom environment is beneficial to all students, for students exposed to trauma and adversity, it’s a necessity. Teachers can make efforts to get to know each student individually, their strengths and challenges. They can pay special attention to the classroom social network, promote positive peer relationships, and teach and reinforce kindness and respect, while avoiding competitive situations that create social hierarchies.

Teachers can build relationships with students by practicing a mind shift—one that focuses on students’ strengths rather than their weaknesses. Instead of asking yourself, “What’s wrong with him?” when a student exhibits difficulties, ask yourself, “What happened to him and how did he learn to adapt to it?” Reframing in this way will help you to understand where he is coming from and how best to help him.

It’s best not to ask students who’ve misbehaved, “Why did you do that?”—because their behavior may be as perplexing to them as it may be to you! Educators need to understand that exposure to trauma often impairs self-awareness, self-regulation, and perspective taking, which interferes with these students’ ability to understand or explain reasons for their behavior.

If teachers can move away from blame, and provide warmth, empathy, and a respect for students’ strengths, it will go a long way toward building positive relationships in the classroom.

2. Create safe spaces

Effective treatment of complex trauma requires coordinated community systems that can effectively identify, treat, and provide support for children, teens, and families. The first order of business in building a trauma-sensitive school is creating a safe environment for all concerned.

What does that mean? It means that all students feel protected by and connected to their teachers and the school community, and that rules for the students are always fair, made with their needs in mind.

At the classroom level, teachers can help build safety by creating fair, logical rules that are consistently reinforced. For children exposed to trauma, this is particularly important, because they come from homes where rules may be associated with arbitrariness and severe punishment. It may help to use the word “expectations” rather than “rules” to communicate with students in a way that is less likely to trigger them.

Since children exposed to trauma often feel powerless around what’s happening in their lives, having them participate in creating classroom rules, and giving them choices and alternatives when making assignments, can help empower them. However, it’s important not to lower your academic expectations. I have witnessed teachers give trauma-exposed students a coloring worksheet as an alternative to a math assignment out of fear that the assignment might trigger an outburst. While offering alternative assignments may be helpful at times, the alternatives must give the student an appropriate opportunity to learn the same material.

What can teachers do when students act out? While you must always address behavior that disrupts the learning process, it’s important not to rupture the students’ connection with the school community. Exclusionary policies, such as suspension and expulsion, only reinforce students’ feelings of rejection and low self- worth.

Instead, give students the opportunity to calm down by de-escalating the situation. Recognize that such behavior may be adaptive in their home environment and they may need support to learn adaptive strategies that are appropriate for the school environment. Alternative strategies include inviting the student to take some “time in” to settle and calm down, either in the classroom “peace corner” or in a “resilience room,” a place set up to give students space to self-regulate at their own pace.

3. Build upon strengths by supporting self-regulation

Hypervigilance, hyperarousal, and a tendency to disassociate—these are all ways students who’ve been exposed to traumatic environments try to adapt. Unfortunately, while being adaptive in some stressful environments, they can interfere with a student’s ability to focus their attention on schoolwork.

To support students exposed to trauma and adversity, teachers can help them learn to understand and manage their emotions better—both directly and indirectly. For example, you can monitor your students for signs of hyperarousal and use soothing talk to help them calm down. You can also teach calming strategies such as simple mindful awareness and relaxation practices, which help all students to deal with difficult feelings. Having a meditation or compassion-based practice yourself prepares you to teach practices to students and maintain your own resilience at the same time.

Be careful to avoid situations that are confusing, chaotic, or erratic. If these situations do arise, try to prepare these children in advance. Here is an example of how this might be done:

Let’s say that you learn of an upcoming fire drill, and you fear that it will set off a student. While all students deserve a warning, you can give special support to a student who may be particularly frightened. Taking her aside during early morning recess and explaining what will happen can help avert a meltdown. Also, asking the student to take a leadership role—perhaps leading the other students as you walk out of the classroom—gives her a chance to feel empowered in the situation. Giving her a last warning just before the fire drill happens and preparing for her special role can help her to build some self-confidence.

Exposure to trauma and adversity during childhood and adolescence has a significant impact on a child’s development, often interfering with learning and social and emotional functioning. While children may have learned to cope with a stressful environment in adaptive ways, their coping strategies can pose challenges to learning in school environments, especially if schools are not employing trauma-sensitive practices.

Schools can play an important role in helping students heal by recognizing and building upon their strengths and by building supportive relationships, creating safe and caring learning environments, and supporting their development of self-regulation. This requires adults who are committed to caring for themselves first, so they have the resilience to be compassionate in their teaching.

While this is not always an easy task, I believe that the benefits in terms of improved school climate and student learning are well worth the effort. Long-term, the benefits to our students and society may be immeasurable.

Thank you Allen Park Public Schools Board of Education for all you do for our students and families!

Letter to Community & Staff – SBRM 2019-2cg86dm

From the PTA

Thank you for your continuous support with the food pantry drive donations! You guys rock!

Spirit week is coming up on 2/11-2/15! The PTA still has spirit wear available, please email
arnopta@gmail.com for sizes and prices.

The Founder’s day tickets will be on sale until Feb. 4th .  Mrs. Anderson has tickets in the office as
well as all school secretaries, or you can purchase online at: https://apptacouncil.memberhub.store/shopping/categories/8610

The Valentine’s Day Skate party is on 2/13/19 from 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. Flyers will go home
next week. The link to sign up is: www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f4ca4aa2aa4fe3-arnos1

We have an awesome new fundraiser at Buffalo Wild Wings on 2/27/19, be on the lookout in
your child’s folder for the flyer to come home!

Skating Party Coming Soon…

Valentine’s Skate Party Flyer 2019-2gooiys

 

Way to go Arno Olympians!

Our Arno cougars came in with their game face on for our annual Olympics last week.  In addition to the fun, medals were passed out to out top athletes! Thanks to Nicole for another outstanding job in organizing this year’s Olympics!

Congrats to our winners and all of our Olympic competitors!

 

Tech Time

How to Create Charts and Graphs in Google Docs

A good chart or graph can sometimes help a writer paint a complete picture for his or her reader. I used to have students in one of my civics course include at least one chart of their creation when writing about voting patterns in state elections. Google Docs makes it easy for users to create graphs and charts even if you don’t particularly enjoy or are scared of using spreadsheets. Watch my short tutorial video to learn how to create charts and graphs in Google Docs.

 

Congrats to Rachel for receiving a grant from MEEMIC. 

This a great and easy endeavor to pursue- you just need an idea

Coming soon to Arno…

Jan 21

MLK Observance- No school for students

Teacher PD

Jan 22

2nd grade BAS

Metro Parks Cervantes

Jan 23

MTSS meeting 7:45

1st grade BAS

Jan 24

K BAS

Arno Olympics 6:00

Jan 25

No events

Jan 28

ICC 4:00

Jan 29

SIP full day

Jan 30

No events

Jan 31

Staff Meeting 7:45

PTA 6:30

Feb 1

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-

Staff Survey

It is that time again, our annual staff survey will be active from Jan. 18-Feb 7 for staff, students, and parents.  We primarily use our survey results to inform the school improvement plan and take a careful look at things we may need to change.

We will once again only survey grades 3-5, and I would like that to just be completed during their tech time.   Please see your staff link below, I would love to see lots of staff completing it, it should not take you long.

https://eprovesurveys.advanc-ed.org/surveys/#/action/95817/20337

NWEA Rewards

Update for all staff- Last week I went around all rooms in grades 3-5 with a short motivational ppt to rev up the kids just before they took their reading NWEA.  This month we will be having a rewards assembly that will recognize any student who either achieved their personal RIT growth, or made the grade level cut score for winter.  They will receive a charm for their MSTEP necklace, and an additional recess.  Top 10 from each grade can also receive a movie.  So far the students have been very excited with many saying that they made the reward.  The rationale is too stress the importance of them doing their best- and that it’s not just another test they can’t make a connection to. We will review the data and see how this round goes before the next rewards in the late spring. The assembly will be on Jan 31 at 2:00.

Coaching

A reminder that Barb is available and standing by with many ideas that she can coach, team teach, and model in your classroom.

Yoga starts soon…

YogaFlyer-1zeyaov

From the PTA

Way to go Arno Cougars we had the most students enter the Reflections contest in the AP District. Stay tuned to see if any of the Arno students will move on to the state wide Reflections.

We are looking for support for the APHS Food Pantry again this year. A box will be placed in our main office to collect items from Monday January 14th through Friday January 25th. Suggested items are cereal, cereal breakfast bars, pop tarts, and any canned food items such as vegetables, fruits, and tuna. Pasta and pasta sauce, macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles, various types of snacks, and any quick fix meal or food item. We are also looking for personal hygiene items to be donated as well as socks. A PTA member will be transporting our boxes to the HS Pantry. Thank you again for your continuous support for our Allen Park Families.

 Your Arno PTA presents Mother Son Bowling night on January 18, 2019 from 7-9:30 pm at Skore Lanes in Taylor.   Please sign your son up for the Lane they would like to bowl on.  Up to 5 boys can be signed up per lane.  Please only enter your son’s name in the Comment section.   

🎳🎳The price is $30 for a mother and one son.  Each additional son is $5.  The mothers will be bowling with your sons during each frame like last year.  This price includes 2 games of bowling, shoe rental, 2 slices of pizza, pop, and picture with your son(s) and some really awesome memories!

Mother Son Night Flyer 2019 (1)-26fb9iz

REMINDER! Our PTA meeting for January will take place on the 31st at 6:30 p.m.! We cannot wait to see all your smiling faces!

Board of Education Announcement – Congrats!

 Congratulations to Mr. Michael J. Klein, Mr. Robert Loyd, Mrs. Jeannette MacDonald and Mrs. Julie Sheppard (incumbent), officially becoming members of the Allen Park Board of Education after taking the Oath of Office last evening.

Also on January 14, 2019 the Allen Park Board of Education conducted its annual organizational meeting, selecting the following as 2019 Board Officers:

Mr. Gordon Miller – President

Mr. Michael J. Klein – Vice President of Operations

Mr. Robert Loyd – Vice President of Human Resources

Mrs. Jeannette MacDonald – Vice President of Teaching & Learning

Mr. Rick Moynihan – Vice President of Extra Curricular Issues

Mrs. Julie Sheppard – Secretary

Dr. Jennifer Warren – Treasurer

The insight, concern for the well-being of all students, and professional experiences of these civic-minded individuals will contribute significantly to the Allen Park Public Schools.  We are grateful for their commitment to serve the school community and wish everyone the best of luck as we strive to make this year the very best for children throughout the District.

Barbara Zdrodowski

Administrative Assistant to

Michael H. Darga, Superintendent

Tech side

How to Find, Download, and Borrow Books from the Internet Archive

On Tuesday hundreds of thousands of works entered the public domain. That includes early movies, pictures, early audio recordings, and many pieces of literature. Many of those works are available through the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive offers millions of texts that can be borrowed and or downloaded for free. In the following video I demonstrate how you can borrow ebooks and download ebooks through the Internet Archive.

Applications for Education 
There are a couple of things that teachers should note about the Internet Archive before sending students there to look for free books. First, the Internet Archive does contain some works that you definitely wouldn’t want elementary school students to see or listen to. Second, borrowing through the Internet Archive requires registration with a valid email address. Therefore, the best way for teachers to use the Internet Archive is to find what they want students to access then download it and place it into a Google Drive folder or OneNote folder for students to access without having to actually go to the Internet Archive.

Coming soon to Arno…

Jan 7

ACE conf @RESA – Steve

School Resumes

Jan 8

No events

Jan 9

Reflections district celebration APAC 6:30

PBIS meet 7:45

Jan 10

No events

Jan 11

No events

Jan 14

Carin Cougar Week Begins

Ad Council 9:00

Jan 15

SIP Team meeting all day

Title I Parent Night 6:00

Jan 16

SIP Meeting 7:45

Jan 17

ALICE Drill 1:30

Jan 18

Play at APAC Grades 2-5- Bus departs 9:00

Mother/Son night Skore Lanes

Arno Vision

Arno Elementary will provide a system of support to empower

and inspire students to become collaborative learners

that strive for academic excellence-

I would like to wish you and your family

a very Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season!

Arno students send Christmas cheer!

Thanks Todd and Jeff for another great performance!

Board Recognition

In case you haven’t heard yet, Rachel, Barb, and Todd were honored Monday at the Board meeting for their involvement in the vocabulary our students enjoy every week, and coordination through broadcast.  They informed the Board of the reasons behind the program, and also showed a great clip with Bernie Smilovitz.  Well done- we are very proud of them for all the extra effort to benefit our kids!

Yoga is back…

Arno Elementary School Before School Yoga

Who: All students Grade K-5 are welcome!

When: 8:10-8:25 a.m. every Thursday

Where: The Arno Elementary School Gym

*please enter through the main office doors*

Why: Yoga at an early age encourages self-esteem and body awareness. Fostering cooperation and compassion is a great gift to give our children. Children derive enormous benefits from yoga. Physically, it enhances their flexibility, strength, coordination, and body awareness. In addition, their concentration and sense of calmness and relaxation improves.

YogaFlyer-1zdxsrl

Choir Lights up the Holiday Season

From the PTA

Christmas is almost here! Have you been Naughty or Nice? Of course, ALL our Arno Cougars are on the nice list! December 22^nd though January 6^th is Arno’s Winter Break! School will resume January 7^th and we cannot wait to hear about your wonderful Holiday! We hope all our Arno families have a happy and safe Christmas and New Year!

Calling all Dad’s! Have you joined the ARNO PTA? We are looking to add “dad” memberships to the ARNO PTA! Dads, stepdads, uncles, grandfathers etc. ALL count! To join the ARNO PTA please visit https://arnopta.memberhub.store/shopping/categories/2860 or complete a membership form along with the $7 membership fee. ***When you join the PTA before December 28^th 2018 each new “dad” membership will be entered to win a free couples entry to the Mother/Son night or Daddy/Daughter Dance***

Our District Reflections Tea Luncheon is on January 9^th. Invitations have been sent home to the Reflections winners.

Save the date! Mother/Son night is coming up quick on January 18^th at Score Lanes!  A Sign-Up Genius link will be sent out soon.

Save the date! We have our Family Caring – Pantry Food Drive for Allen Park’s Community Pantry (inside APHS) going on from January 14^th through January 25^th.

REMINDER! We do not have a PTA meeting at the beginning of January, our next PTA meeting is on January 31^st and we cannot wait to see all your smiling faces!

membership application (1)-1nwholn

Dad drive-1kpw9je

Mother Son 2019-1fgsua0

Title I Workshop

Please see the open invitation below for another parent informational evening on Jan 15

Title I Parent Writing Workshop _ January 15 2019 (1)-15n20li

Atlas Rubicon

https://authenticate.rubicon.com/#/login

Assessment time

It went by quick, but it’s time for round 2.  Assessment time windows are below, as well as the schedule for your BAS dates.  This will then lead up to the next round of data days, as well as an MTSS data dive by that committee as well.

NWEA 

Jan 8 – Feb .1

Dibels 

Jan 8-Feb 1

BAS

Window Jan 8-Feb 1- Schedule:

Time to pack for Kalahari

Please see the attached brochure for another Arno fundraiser at Kalahari Resort. Thanks to Rachel for setting this up again!

Arno Elementary 1.2.19-1ivypfq

Take a peek at Santa’s Reindeer

https://reindeercam.com/

 Track Santa with NORAD help

https://www.noradsanta.org/

Oh, you shouldn’t have…

Coming soon to Arno…

Dec. 10

Ad council 9:00

Board Meeting 7:00

Dec. 11

Pizza Lunch

Restaurant fundraiser

Dec. 12

PBIS meeting 7:45

XMAS Smalley 11:30

XMAS Pushman 1:15

Dec. 13

Safety Committee 9:30

Dec. 14

Early Dismissal 11:30

Dec. 17

Christmas sing-along 2:30

XMAS Schultz 12:20

XMAS Warneck 1:15

Dec. 18

Metro Parks Amonette

Choir Concert 6:30 APAC

Dec. 19

SIP Meeting 7:45

K to Marquis theater 9:00

XMAS Wesley 2:00

Dec. 20

XMAS Kalis 3:00

Dec. 21

1st to Henry Ford

PBIS Reward

Break begins end of day

Christmas Break Dec. 22-Jan 6

School Resumes Jan 7, 2019

Arno Vision

Arno Elementary will provide a system of support to empower

and inspire students to become collaborative learners

that strive for academic excellence-

(and clean the lounge)

The Best Staff Santa Has Ever Seen

Congrats Alex! Outstanding Educator

Congrats Heather! Support Personnel

From the PTA

This year we are holding a brand-new fundraiser at Five Below and just in time for the Christmas Holiday! This fundraiser will be held from December 14-16th from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. at the Allen Park location. 10% of your total purchase will be donated BACK to Arno Elementary PTA! The flyer for this event will be sent home next week. Remember to bring the flyer that is being sent home to the event, so we can get credit for your purchase! Go grab your stocking stuffers and gifts folks!

Congratulations to our Founder’s Day Winners!

Business Partner: Awesome Audio Video Solutions

Support Personnel: Heather Manson

Outstanding Program: Fun Run

Distinguished Service Award: Julie Hegedus

Outstanding Educator: Alexandra Cervantes

Spirit wear orders will be arriving around December 17th just in time for Christmas. They will be sent home with your littles so keep a look out!

Calling all Dads!!! We are looking to add as many “dad” memberships to the PTA! Dads, stepdads, uncles, grandfather etc. ALL count! To join the ARNO PTA please visit https://arnopta.memberhub.store/shopping/categories/2860 OR submit a completed membership form along with the $7 membership fee to the ARNO office.

**When you join the PTA before December 28th 2018 each new “dad” membership will be entered to win a free couples entry to the Mother/Son night or Daddy/Daughter Dance.**

Congratulations to all our Reflections Winners! We had an amazing group of students this year! An invitation to the District wide celebration will be sent home in January.

Primary pre-K to 2nd

Literature:
Gabriel Minton     Mrs. Watson
Brady Proctor      Mrs. Watson
Visual Arts:
Nina Hegedus.     Mrs. Martinchick
Landon Yuhaz      Mrs. Martinchick
Music Composition:
Leyla Franklin        Mrs. Schultz

Intermediate: Grades 3-5
Literature:
Ava Proctor        Mrs. Smalley
Alle Bailey        Mrs. Smalley

Five Below PTA Fundraiser

Arno 5 Below-1oojbba

Safeties of the Month

Congratulations to November’s Shining Stars!

Christmas Sing-Along

We will gather everyone in the gym on Dec. 17th at 2:30 for the Christmas sing-along as Jeff and Todd lead us in Christmas cheer.

Helping Students Own Language

This is a great resource from Oakland Schools detailing helping students through word study, vocab, and grammar instruction

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0iwooWNmHgReUNJOE5VRnFCMVk/view?ts=583a422a

Time to pack for Kalahari

Please see the attached brochure for another Arno fundraiser at Kalahari Resort. Thanks to Rachel for setting this up again!

Arno Elementary 1.2.19-1ivypfq

Resources to help with differentiation…

http://www.fortheteachers.org/Graphics/Differentiation_Planning-31.png

Instructional Strategies...

Strategy Ideas:

Determine if Students are Ready to Move On

Alternative Assessments Anchor Activities Exit Tickets Grade as You Go Homework Options KWL Charts Learning Contracts Menus/Agendas

Mini White Boards Question Choices Reflection/Response Think-Pair-Share Tiered Activities Tiered Rubrics Varied Products

Discuss & Examine Events, People, Concepts and Ideas

Cubing Sticky Note Graph

Think-Tac-Toe Think-Pair-Share

Put Students in Groups

Appointment Clocks Choice Boards Cubing Curriculum Compacting Exit Tickets Four Sides

Jigsaw Learning Contracts Mini White Boards Question Choices Think-Tac-Toe Varied Texts

Physical Activity Increases Engagement and Memory Retention

Appointment Clocks Choice Boards Four Sides Heads Together Jigsaw

Literature Circles Reading Buddies Sticky Note Graph

Opportunities for Students to Learn from Each Other

Anchor Activities Appointment Clocks Centers/Stations Choice Boards Cubing Four Sides Grade as You Go Heads Together Jigsaw

Literature Circles Menus/Agendas Mini White Boards Reading Buddies Sticky Note Graph Think-Tac-Toe Think-Pair-Share Tiered Activities

Make Activities and Materials More Simple or More Challenging

Alternative Assessments Centers/Stations Cubing Curriculum Compacting Grade as You Go Homework Options Jigsaw Learning Contracts Literature Circles Menus/Agendas

Orbitals Question Choices Reading Buddies Scaffolding Think-Tac-Toe Tiered Activities Varied Organizers Varied Products Varied Texts

Students Discuss What They Think Based on What They’ve Learned

Anchor Activities Centers/Stations Cubing Exit Tickets Four Sides Heads Together KWL Charts Literature Circles

Mini White Boards Reflection/Response Sticky Note Graph Think-Tac-Toe Think-Pair-Share Tiered Rubrics

Record Info to Increase Understanding and for Later Reference

Anchor Activities Jigsaw KWL Ch

Health Corner

Winter time brings some additional challenges to school aside from the cold weather.  Below are a few reminders for helping our students to stay safe and healthy at school:

• Wash hands frequently — especially after using the restroom, coughing, or sneezing.
• Cover your cough — cough or sneeze into your elbow or a tissue.
• Encourage children to put hats and gloves into coat sleeves when hanging among others’ items.

Please report all cases of communicable illnesses or circumstances to our office when reporting your child’s absence.

** Students should be fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication before returning to school.

** Students who have been treated for head lice must have a head check in the office before returning to class, even if the head lice was discovered over the weekend.

By reporting these things to our staff, we can limit the spread of germs and other things.  The two attachments contain additional information that may be helpful to you.  Please know that information related to illnesses is kept confidential.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

 LL_May_101_Parents (2)-2128vgf

flu-guide-for-parents-2018-vd5ks3

Tech Time

18 Holiday Websites and 14 Projects For Your Students

The Shortest Day of the Year

Good morning from chilly Paris Hill, Maine where my thermometer reads 11F, but it feels more like 0F. Not only is it going to be cold all day, it’s also going to be the day that we have the least sunlight all year. That is because today is the winter solstice.

Here’s a small collection of resources for teaching and learning about the winter solstice.

PBS Kids Nature Cat has a cute video that explains the basic concept of winter and summer solstice.

TIME recently published a video featuring “four things you probably didn’t know about the winter solstice.” Spoiler alert! You probably knew them, but the video will remind you about those things.

Mechanism Of The Seasons is a six minute video about why the length of daylight we receive in a location changes throughout the year. This video could be helpful in a flipped classroom environment.

Sixty Symbols offers an eleven minute video about equinoxes and solstices. It’s not a video that most kids will find engaging, but I’m including it because in it you can see a demonstration of how you can use the free Stellarium software in your lessons.

Although it is not about the winter solstice, Why the Full Moon Is Better In Winteris a good companion resource to go with those featured above.

Programming With Santa

If you’re looking for an educational and Christmas-themed activity to do with your kids this weekend, take a look at Google’s Santa Tracker Code Lab. I learned about this neat resource this morning from Brian Aspinall and I spent a bit of time playing with it this afternoon.

Santa Tracker Code Lab has fourteen levels that kids can work through as they apply some basic programming concepts. The Santa Tracker Code Lab starts with simple skills like matching pieces to an outline before moving into programming a full animation with logic blocks similar to those that you might find in Scratch.

Miss Book Fair 2018

Coming soon to Arno…

Nov. 26

Mel-Nap Young 5s visit 8:45

Report Card window open

Nov. 27

Reflections Celebrations 9:00

Nov. 28

No events

Nov. 29

Staff Meeting 7:45

LLI Para training

Nov. 30

PBIS Reward

End of the 1st Trimester

Dec. 3

No events

Dec. 4

Steve @NCI

Dec. 5

No events

Dec. 6

Staff Holiday Luncheon 11:00

PTA Meeting 6:30

Dec. 7

Report Cards go home

Arno Vision

Arno Elementary will provide a system of support to empower

and inspire students to become collaborative learners

that strive for academic excellence

Special visitor to Arno

Lisa Smalley’s nephew, Caleb Foote, starring in ABC’s “The Kids are Alright” paid a special visit to our 4th grade today.  Check out some pics below and you can see his show on ABC every Tuesday at 8:30 p.m.

Please take a moment and read the communication link below for information on our Nov. 26th launch date for the new buzzer security system.

buzzer letter-19kvhyz

From the PTA

Happy Thanksgiving from the ARNO PTA! We hope you all have a happy, safe, and fun Holiday and we will see you back at school on November 26^th!

The Reflections Celebration for the students that have participated in the event will take place on 11/27/18. Invitations have been sent home.

We are in need of a few volunteers to help out during the celebration. If you would like to volunteer please sign up using this link:  https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f4ca4aa2aa4fe3-20184

The Founders day nominations are due 11/30 please take a look at the link and submit and nomination!

 The categories are (last years winners are listed next to each category and can not be nominated again this year):

§  Outstanding educator-Nikkie Stanley

§  Distinguished service award-Shannon Mihalik

§  Outstanding business partner-ATS Tax Service

§  Outstanding program-Fun Run

§  Outstanding support personnel-Tim Tanskley

§  Council member of the year-Paulette Lenart

§  Michigan Life membership-Michelle DesJardins

All nominations are due by Friday, November 30th and will be voted on at the December PTA meeting. Nomination forms can be downloaded by visiting: https://sites.google.com/site/apptacouncil/founders-day.

Please submit your nominations to the ARNO office in a sealed envelope marked “PTA President- Founders’ Day” OR via email to arnopta@gmail.com with the subject: “PTA President- Founders’ Day”

The next PTA meeting is on 12/6/18 at 6:30 PM. The Founders’ Day voting will be held during this meeting so bundle up and come see us and vote! We hope to see you all there!

Conference totals

 Thank you for another successful round of conf.   Arno had 84% of parents attend this fall, up 1% from last year!

District-wide Holiday Toy Box Drive

The annual district-wide toy drive for local families, as in the past we are looking for donations of new or gently used clothing and toys.  The box for drop off is in the main office at our school until December.  Please consider donating something if you are able.

Board Recognition

Last blog we let our families and staff know that our social worker, Sandy Bennett, was awarded a Career Achievement Award at her state conference.  During the November Board meeting, she was recognized for her efforts and her outstanding work she does to service our Allen Park students, parents, and staff.

The Career Achievement Award is a prestigious honor, not annually awarded by MASSW.  In fact, there have been only 5 in the last 70 years and our Sandy is now one of the elite!

This award is reserved for recognizing an individual who has demonstrated exemplary services as a School Social Worker over a significant period of time, has developed creative programs, services, and/or interventions to improve or enhance the lives of children and families in the State of Michigan.

Congratulations Sandy!!

Christmas Story Time

I would like to once again come around to all of your rooms to give you a holiday 30 minute break, and read Christmas stories to your kids.  Please stop by or send me an email when you would like me to come in starting after Thanksgiving.

Christmas Luncheon

Please mark your calendars for Dec. 6th as we will be having our annual Staff Christmas Lunch.  We will do the one hour block again and will have a schedule when we get close.

Updates on the 3rd Grade Reading Law

Expand button below

Read Grade 3 Guide 638247 7 by Stephen Zielinski on Scribd

New!! Safeties of the Month from Ms. Higgins

I just wanted to share the exciting news of Safety of Month!  Each month I have selected 3 safeties to be “Safety of the Month.”  I have chosen an outdoor safety, a kindergarten/young 5’s safety and a door/hallway/bus safety  The safeties were awarded last month and were super excited for the honors!

If you notice a safety going above and beyond, please shoot me an email with their name, so they may be recognized!

Here are our September and October Safeties of the Month:

September:  Bailey Ellis, Ethan Armstrong, and Adrian Gonzalez

October: Katie Watkins, Sammy Unger, and Peter Lenart

Pop Can Tabs

Madeline Every has been collecting pop can tabs at our schools to benefit the Ronald McDonald House in Detroit for a number of years now and she continues this very important effort.  There will be a collection box in the office where you can drop off pop can tabs off to support her favorite charity.

Techie Time

For some additional intervention…

Readtheory.org

https://readtheory.org/

Accompany your students on a journey through our vast library of reading comprehension content. ReadTheory’s adaptive approach fosters improvement by automatically meeting learners at their own, individual ability levels. Signup takes seconds and no time is spent vetting assignments. Progress is shown on an intuitive report, replete with actionable, meaningful insights. Our program is completely free. 7.4 million students have completed 130 million quizzes on ReadTheory to date.

A Good Tool for Writing Reflections on Stories

Scholastic’s Character Scrapbook offers a good template that elementary school students can use to write about and reflect on the characters in their favorite stories. The template is quite simple to use. Students enter the name of a story and the name of their favorite character on the first page. On the next pages students list ten attributes of the character. The Character Scrapbook also allows students to create pictures of their favorite characters.

As you can see in the image above, Scholastic’s Character Scrapbook doesn’t limit students to human characters. Students can write about and create images of animal characters too.

Applications for Education
Scholastic’s Character Scrapbook could be a great tool for getting students to think about their favorite stories. The Character Scrapbook has an easy print option so that you can print and display all of your students’ works in your classroom.

Early Literacy eResources from MeL.org

October 1st marked the launch of the Library of Michigan’s new, updated,Michigan eLibrary!  Here is a look at a couple of the early literacy eResources available for use: World Book’s Early World of Learning is for PreK-3 grades and through their “Read” link you will be connected to Trek’s Travels and the Welcome to Reading area. Trek’s Travels offers a selection of early reader books with a read-along narrator. Welcome to Reading contains books for new readers with the same read-along narrator. Words are highlighted as the narrator reads so it’s easier for auditory learners to follow along.  Britannica offers Learning Zone which is for PreK-2nd grade kids. This resource offers activity-centered learning to explore, play, read and build technology skills. Letters, numbers, geography, shapes and more are included.