December 14, 2018

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Happy Friday! As we grow closer to the holiday season we are also growing closer to the end of the semester. When we come back from break, we will have 4 days of class and then the semester tests days. Please remind students that during break would be a good time to get caught up if they are behind. 

 The counselors have been busy getting students registered for next school year. Hopefully we will have everyone registered by the end of the semester. I will try to start department meeting then sometime towards the end of January to go over numbers and assignments for next year. I will also take anything you would like me to consider when creating the schedule. Please keep in mind though the priority is to get students into the classes they want. Sometimes it is not possible to grant every request. Scheduling has to be the biggest puzzle ever. 

 We are also in the process of coming up with a schedule for the ISASP (Iowa Assessments). When I have better idea on what it will look like I will get it out for more input. 

 This past Wednesday we recognized our HS students who are helping tutor other at the middle school or here. If you see any of these students please thank them for giving up their free time to help others. They are: Johanna Theeler, Mackenzie Kunkel, Abby Foster, Kelsey Feuerhelm, Madison Dreckman, Abby Van Otterloo, Joan Meis, Landon Parmelee, Valucci Joseph, Hailey Kellen, Dacia Buss, Faith Laskie, Dalton Glawe, Maddie Hurt, Curran Wells, Haley Majeres, Arlinna Bowen, Ellie Beitelspacher, Brooke Alesch, Jessica Hinds, Kia Nelson, Brooke Berkenpas, Emily Koonce, Cody Ott, Kristen Heimgartner, Katelyn Hartman, Brayan Velazco, Arianna Grant, Eric Isebrand, Matthew Ahlers, Luke Skov, Eric Spieler, Zach Wingert, Sidney Schoenfelder, Shaunna Scheitler, Maddie Pippett, and Madison Dreckman. A big thanks to Mr. Collins and Mrs. Brown for helping set this up. 

Looking ahead, we have our second extra hour meeting on December 19. On December 21, we have the Children's Theater. We will be dismissing sometime around 1:35 to check students in. Please remind students they must pay a dollar to watch the play. School will be dismissed that day after the performance. We come back to school on January 3.

Have a great weekend!
Mark

Students at Leaders


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Assistant Principal's Happenings


Book Nook - notes from the Librarian

First, a note as a student council advisor - thank you to the English department for supplying treats on Wednesday as part of our 12 days of Christmas. Monday, there will be hot chocolate in the lounge, and we are hoping many of you will participate by bringing in treats on Wednesday. If everyone brings 6-12 treats, there will be enough for everyone! The dress up days for this last week are as follows: 
Dec 17: Candy Cane - wear red and/or white - enjoy hot chocolate & candy canes in lounge (thank you to the library)
Dec 18: Pay It Forward - wear Santa hat & do random acts of kindness. 
Dec 19: Christmas Spirit - wear Christmas outfit and bring a Christmas treat to share in the lounge. 
Dec 20: Flannel day 
Dec 21: Twas the night before Christmas break -- wear jammies

 Now, notes from the librarian. Jenny Hauser and I came up with a solution the other day for those who may have difficulty typing whether due to an accident or the part of the brain that just doesn't convey thoughts to the correct letters. Our computers do not allow the speech to text option to work, but our iPads do. If the student checks out an iPad, he or she can log into Google docs and then click on the microphone and speak the text. This may help some of your students. They can then go into Google docs and edit later, but they now have their first draft done! 

 Students may also benefit by listening to the text. Google has an add-on READER that will allow content in a Google doc to be read aloud. Various voices, accents, and languages are available.  When doing research, students can benefit from using the databases provided by at IowaAEAOnline.org. All of the research databases have a translate option built right into their toolsMackinVia has numerous audio books that students can listen to (and read along with a physical copy). MackinVia also supplies a number of books in Spanish. 

 And if your are wanting more information on ELL, try this interesting article: Bilingualism  

Instructional Coach's Technology Tid Bits

Do you use a Rocketbook? Did you know that Rocketbook's Handwriting Recognition OCR (Optical Character Recognition) allows you to transcribe and search your handwritten text?

 Have you seen the Kickstarter campaign for the Rocketboard? Click here to learn more.

 JeopardyLabs allows you to create a customized jeopardy template without PowerPoint. The games you make can be played online from anywhere in the world. Not interested in building your own jeopardy templates? Well that's cool too. You can browse other jeopardy templates created by other people. The creator of JeopardyLabs also makes  Testmoz, CrosswordLabs, Bingo Baker, and WordSearchLabs

 How to Create Easy To Remember Strong Passwords  This will take a few minutes to read but you might just learn something that helps you make better passwords that you can actually remember.

 How to Create Rules In Gmail For (Almost) Anything   If you have ever wondered how your friends can have their gmail accounts automatically sort their mail for them read this article to learn how they did it.

Success Center

Research has shown that encouraging ELL students to make connections between their home language and English often results in clearer and more complete understanding of new knowledge and concepts in the classroom.  In addition, understanding the structure of the text they are reading is critical for ELL students to build comprehension in a second language.  Graphic organizers become very useful tools for building comprehension.  Here is a chart of both signal words to watch for and the types of graphic organizers that can be used for specific classroom activities.  This has relevance not only for our students who are English language learners, but also for other students in the classroom who struggle with comprehension.

Article Worth Reading

Upcoming Activities

Friday, December 14
4:45 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ Storm Lake
6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Storm Lake
7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ Storm Lake

Saturday, December 15
TBD - JV/Varsity Wrestling @ Spencer Tournament
8:00 am Robotics League Tournament @ Le Mars
10:00 am Freshmen Girl Basketball @ Heelan
11:30 am Freshmen Boy Basketball @ Heelan
1:00 pm Boy JV Basketball @ Heelan

Monday, December 17
3:30 pm Boy/Girl Bowling vs. Sioux Central
7:30 pm High School Holiday Concert

Tuesday, December 18
4:45 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ Spirit Lake
6:00 pm Spanish Club Christmas Party
6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Spirit Lake
7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ Spirit Lake

Wednesday, December 19
7:00 pm Athletic Booster Club Meeting

Thursday, December 20
5:00 pm JV/Varsity Wrestling @ Sioux City West
5:30 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Heelan
7:00 pm Boy Varsity Basektball @ Heelan

Thursday, January 3
3:30 pm Bowling @ Remsen
4:45 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball vs. SBL
6:00 pm JV/Varsity Wrestling @ Sibley-Ocheyedan
6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. SBL
7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs. SBL

Friday, January 4
3:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs. Sioux City East @ Tyson Events Center

Saturday, January 5
TBA - Northwest Iowa Honor Band @ Morningside
10:30 am JV/Varsity Wrestling @ West Sioux

Monday, January 7
6:00 pm Girl Freshmen Basketball vs. Gehlen
7:15 pm Boy Freshmen Basketball vs. Gehlen

Tuesday, January 8
4:45 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ Sioux Center
6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Sioux Center
7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ Sioux Center

Thursday, January 10
4:00 pm Bowling vs. Sioux Central @ Spencer Bowl
4:45 pm Girl Freshmen Basketball vs. MOC
6:00 pm Girl JV Basketball vs. MOC
7:30 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. MOC

Friday, January 11
4:45 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball vs. Western
6:15 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. Western
7:45 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs. Western

Saturday, January 12
Robotics League Tournament @ WITCC Sioux City
9:00 am Girl Freshmen Basketball @ Sioux City East
10:00 am JV/Varsity Wrestling Home Tournament
10:15 am Boy Freshmen Basketball vs. Sioux City East (A and B games)



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