January 6, 2017
Just a few reminders for the next week. We will have a video during advisory on Monday. Next week we also have semester tests. Periods 1, 2, 5, and 6 are on Wednesday and periods 3, 4, 7, and 8 are on Thursday. Friday is a make up day for those students who are absent on Wednesday or Thursday. Students will need to take their test during their assigned period. Please do not move students to other periods. Also, the students will need to stay in the room the entire testing period unless they have made arrangements through Neal or myself. Grades will be due on 1/16 at 8:30 am, so Beth and Amy may run report cards. As second semester gets started, remember students have 5 days to add a class and 10 to drop. Students must be enrolled in 6 classes in addition to PE.
We have our extra hour meeting Wednesday next week also. Please continue working on your curriculum.
On January 17, the DE is having a session here in Le Mars at 5:00 pm to discuss the Every Student Succeeds Draft plan. The meeting is in the board room at Central Office. It may be good to attend if possible to give input and to hear what the state is thinking. It would be good to show the DE that we want to be informed.
Have a great weekend!
Staff News
Congrats to Kurt Van Kley and family for the upcoming birth of their 3rd child!Congrats also to Cassie Jacobsen and family for her upcoming birth of her first child!
Students as Leaders
Brett Oetken is taking a group of FFA students to meet with the National FFA officers Monday at Dordt College.
Assistant Principal's Corner
Congratulations to all who helped with the LCHS Student Council collection for the Christian Needs Center. A BIG thank you to our thespians and to our culinary arts classes who helped support our fundraising efforts. In all we are able to donate a check for $2,400.00 to this local organization. Student Council members will be presenting the check to them next week. Here are the totals that were collected from each group:Children's Theater - $516.44
Christmas Cookies - $500.00
Christmas Coins - $1,383.56
The Student Council wants to provide Hope for those in the LCS community that are currently being affected by cancer. Student Council will be selling Bulldog Hope shirts, a white shirt featuring a cancer ribbon of teal, pink and blue. They will be worn at the January 31, 2017, basketball game vs. Storm Lake, as part of the school’s white out cancer/Hope theme. A table will be set up near the admission gate for free-will donations as well as provide additional T-shirt order forms. T-shirts will be on sale at our home sporting events January 12th, 14th, 24th, and the 31st. All funds generated by the sales of T-shirts and donations will be directed to families in the Le Mars Community School District that are fighting cancer. This includes the Alex Stamer-Fuentes family.
Alex, a freshman at LCHS, is on the volleyball team and in choir. Alex was diagnosed with thyroid cancer shortly before Thanksgiving. She will be having a thyroidectomy in January and will receive follow-up care.
Librarian's News
The Makerspace in the library will be available to students with a C average or higher during study hall. What is a Makerspace? A place for students to experiment with learning and making new things - whether on a computer, with Legos, cardboard or more. The options can be endless. However, this will not be a place for students just to "play." Students will have to fill out a plan of action which includes what they want to learn/experiment with, and need to do some type of presentation of what they learned when they are done. This "presentation" may be a video, slide show, paper, physical project, or teaching others on what he or she did.Instructional Coaches Tid Bits
Happy 2017! I hope everyone had a refreshing break and are ready to take on the remainder of the year. I have a few tid bits to get your year started right!Here is a place to find photos that are properly attributed for creative commons use in school projects. It's called "Photos for Class." All images are appropriate for the school setting and downloaded images automatically cite the author and the image license terms. The photos are all licensed by Create Commons for public use (as far as Photos For Class knows).
Are you interested in a nice way to add text to photos using your PC? Look no further than picfont.com. They have a nice palette of fonts, colors, and effects to choose from. It is easy to use and simple to download the finished products.
If you are a teacher that uses Google Classroom, Kasey Bell has shared her list of 35 apps that integrate with Google Classroom.
There are times that you have students working in groups and the students don't realize how loud they are becoming. Here are 2 ways to visually show noise. One is called Bouncy Balls. It is a free online noise meter that shows students the volume of the noise in your classroom by displaying a set of colorful bouncing balls on your screen. Another is called Calmness Counter. While it is similar to Bouncy Balls it differs in that it displays a dial meter to display the decibel level in your classroom.
Have you ever stopped to think about how many different accounts and services you have signed up for using one of your google accounts? Deseat.me has you log into your Google account, finds all of the accounts and services you have linked to that account and then provides a direct link to delete any you would no longer like to be associated with. To give you an idea of how large this list could be, mine was at 99.
If you have a classroom set of laptops and thought that scanning QR codes was only available to teachers with ipads well think again. With QR Code Generator you can hang up QR codes and your students can use their laptops' built in cameras to scan the QR codes to access the link you want them to.
Last but not least, this resource popped up in my readings over break. It is a Google Doc that is full of links to take you to resources to learn about the different GSuite apps. It is leveled for beginners, intermediates, and experts. There is a little something for everyone in here.
Success Center Update
All of us will be spending the next few days preparing our classes for semester exams. One of the challenges we have encountered in the Success Center is that most of our students, especially those who struggle with reading and comprehension, do not know how to take a test. To help address this, we have condensed traditional test-taking strategies into simple expectations that can easily be incorporated into any test prep for any subject area. This is the handout we have put together to help our students as they prepare for semester tests. If you have students you believe would benefit from a little extra guidance, please feel free to share. And, as always, if you have suggestions for strategies you would also like to see included, please let me know!Articles Worth Reading
10 Great Virtual Field TripsDo No Harm: Flexible and Smart Grading Practices
Stuff I was thinking during class... but never told my teacher
Upcoming Events
Friday, January 6
- 4:45 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball vs. Spirit Lake
- 6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. Spirit Lake
- 7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs. Spirit Lake
Saturday, January 7
- NWI HS Honor Band - Sioux City
- 9:00 am Girl Freshmen Basketball @ Sioux Center
- 9:00 am Wrestling @ Sheldon
- 10:30 am Boy Basketball @ Sioux Center
Monday, January 9
- 3:30 pm Bowling vs. Sergeant Bluff Luton
- 6:00 pm Girl Freshmen Basketball vs. Gehlen
- 7:15 pm Boy Freshmen Basketball vs Gehlen
Tuesday, January 10
- 4:00 pm Bowling @ Spencer
- 4:45 pm Girl Freshmen Basketball vs MOC Floyd Valley
- 6:00 pm Girl JV Basketball vs. MOC Floyd Valley
- 6:30 pm Boy Freshmen Basketball @ Cherokee
- 7:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. MOC Floyd Valley
Wednesday, January 11
- 7:00 am HS In-Service
- 4:45 pm Boy JV Basketball @ Emmetsburg
- 4:45 pm Girl JV Basketball @ Emmetsburg
- 6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Emmetsburg
- 7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ Emmetsburg
Saturday, January 14
- 9:00 am Girl Freshmen Basketball @ Sioux City East
- 10:00 am Wrestling - Le Mars Invite
- 10:15 am Boy Freshmen Basketball @ Sioux City East
Monday, January 16
- NWI HS Honor Choir @ Dordt
- 5:00 pm Wrestling @ Storm Lake
- 6:00 pm Girl Freshmen Basketball vs. Western Christian
- 7:00 pm Music Booster Meeting
- 7:30 pm Boy Freshmen Basketball vs. Western Christian
Tuesday, January 17
- 4:45 Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ Western Christian
- 6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Western Christian
- 7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ Western Christian
Wednesday, January 18
- District In-Service
- 7:00 pm Athletic Booster Club Meeting
Thursday, January 19
- 4:00 pm Bowling @ West Sioux
- 4:15 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball vs. ELC
- 6:00 pm Wrestling @ Emmetsburg
- 6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. ELC
- 6:30 pm Girl Freshmen Basketball @ Storm Lake
- 7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs.ELC
- 7:45 pm Boy Freshmen Basketball @ Storm Lake
Friday, January 20
- 4:15 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ Spencer
- 6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Spencer
- 7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ Spencer
Be Extraordinary,
Mark
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