Jefferson-Intermediate – Page 21 – Fairbury Public Schools

Plickers – Combining Old and New Technology

Mrs. Ruhnke’s fifth grade students practiced the meaning of their Social Studies Vocabulary words using the “Plickers” method. Plickers is a powerfully simple tool that lets teachers collect real-time formative assessment data without the need for student devices. The questions are projected on the board and students pick either answer A,B,C,D by holding their cards so that the answer they chose is on the top. The teacher then uses a device to scan the room and capture the students’ answers.

Rock in Prevention

The first PTA sponsored program, Rock In Prevention was held Tuesday. Rock In Prevention, along with mentors from the high school provided the message that drugs are bad for your body and bullying should be stopped immediately. This interactive program included lots of fun songs and actions! Each family will receive a Rock In Prevention cd that reinforces these positive messages. Be sure to ask your child about this fantastic program.

Health Screenings Successful

The State mandatory school health screenings were being completed at Fairbury Public Schools September 12th-14th. FPS nurse Becki Schmidt partnered with SCC Beatrice Nursing Students and Public Health Solutions Dental program to get these done. The State of Nebraska mandates that schools screen student in grades Kindergarten through 4th grade, grades seventh and tenth and any student that has transferred into the district this year. We also screened our Step Ahead Preschool students. The state requires the following screenings to be done: height, weight, BMI, vision, hearing and dental.

This partnership benefited both FPS and SCC students. FPS got their screenings done with very minimal loss of education time. SCC nursing students used the three days as a growth and development clinical rotation. The students had to observe the differences from the high school students vs the early elementary/preschool students, learn how to operate the hearing machine, do some blood pressures, and then fill out their observation paperwork. Many positive comments came from the SCC students as they were able to work one on one with the students. The SCC teachers also voiced how wonderful this rotation was for them and what a wonderful learning experience it was for the students.

Teachers at FPS were also very supportive of this way of screening as the students come by class and do not miss parts of academic time.

Partnering with PHS allowed not only for dental hygienist to screen the dental needs of the students but they also provided sealants and fluoride varnishes to those that had parental consent.

A big THANK YOU goes out to the SCC Students and Teachers, Public Health Solutions, and the FPS teachers and administration, and the staff that helped make the screenings successful!

TeamMates Raffle

The TeamMates Program is raffling off two tickets to the Nebraska/Iowa VB game on November 7. Drawing will be held at halftime at the last home football game on October 14th. The tickets benefit TeamMates -Fairbury Chapter. Tickets are $1.00 each or 6 for $5.00.

Dr. Jerold & Mrs. Sharon Ebke have very generously donated these for us.

Contact Karen Janssen or Patty Swartz for tickets.

Teacher’s Working to Improve Their Craft – Professional Development Fridays!

Ahhhh, the dismissal bell tolls early on this sunny, bright fall Friday. “What will I do on such a beautiful afternoon,” asks a Fairbury Public School teacher? This is a new question being asked these days in Fairbury, as this is the initial year of our “early outs” on Friday afternoons. Starting this year, we dismiss each Friday at 1:35pm to allow us the opportunity for staff development time for our faculty.

What is being accomplished during this time? As a k-12 staff, we are learning and working to improve our craft…the art of teaching! Teaching is not easy, teaching is not exact and teaching is definitely not for the “faint of heart!” We are working through Charlotte Danielson’s A Framework for Teaching. It is important to recognize that great teaching is what we want for all of our students and that great teaching is a very complex endeavor.

We are focusing our learning on the “Essential 8” components of great teaching:

Setting Instructional Outcomes
Designing Coherent Instruction
Establishing a Culture for Learning
Managing Student Behavior
Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques
Engaging Students in Learning
Reflecting on Teaching
Communicating with Families

In addition to learning and working on these components, we are using our Professional Development time to look at our assessment data to improve our focus for instruction and the development of Student Learning Objectives (SLO’s). Too often educators do not use the data that we have available to help inform our instruction. We want change that notion and use the different forms of data (MAP testing, NeSA testing, ACT results, classroom data, etc.) to guide us on where we need to spend our time instructing.

So, as you can see, we are very busy on Friday afternoons!

5th Graders Go Formative

Fifth grade students in Mrs. Ruhnke’s grade class are learning to use “Go Formative”, a website that allows them to write and draw on their touchscreen Chromebooks. Students have been using this website to practice vocabulary words in reading class and to work out various arithmetic problems in math class. This program allows to teacher to see the student’s answers on her computer screen and provide immediate feedback to them.

5th Graders “Looking for Friends”

“The 5th graders this week experienced music from another culture. We learned and performed Zhao Peng You, a Chinese folksong which means “looking for friends”. We learned how to sing the song in Chinese, and learned some simple movements to go with the song. In addition, we discovered Chinese history and culture, and learned about two Chinese instruments, the Pipa and Erhu.”

6th Grade Cave Paintings

Sixth Grade in World History learned about the stories that cave paintings tell us about life during Paleolithic times. We spent some time creating our own cave paintings to show what we learned about life during the Stone Age!

3rd Graders Learn With an OSMO

Third grade students enjoyed learning with an OSMO, a unique accessory for the ipad. OSMO is designed specifically for children from 5 to 12 years of age. Third grade students loved it and were very engaged in all the learning activities they tried. The OSMO encourages learning in many areas; coding, creative thinking, logic, problem solving, confidence, engineering, spelling and math. OSMO brings real world and social play to the iPad, by transforming the space in front of the tablet into an interactive environment.

OSMO games are designed so that they can be played alone, or socially with friends, parents or teachers. OSMO in the classroom brings students together around an iPad and engages them to learn collaboratively. Unlike other tablet apps which can isolate students, OSMO inspires students to seek social interaction.

OSMO was created by a pair of ex-Googlers who, after having kids, decided to create a way of bringing real-world play back into the digital world and encourage social interaction, creative thinking and problem-solving. After 12 months, and several prototypes, they came up with OSMO and our third grade students are very glad they did.