12/22/17

Happy Holidays Doolittle Families!

Have a wonderful winter vacation!

I wish all Doolittle families many opportunities for laughter and good humor next week!

Our December Town Meeting was wonderful today. Students sang a number of seasonal songs. Classrooms received generous gifts from our awesome PTA. The Town Meeting ended on a high note with all teachers singing Holly Jolly Christmas.

12/15/17

Hello Doolittle Families

Our Winter Concerts this week have been amazing! Many thanks to our music teachers; Mrs. Weed, Mr. Szulczewski and Mrs. O’Dell for their hard work.

On Monday all three musical groups performed for students at school. Students were great audience members. They were attentive, listened to the performances and clapped appropriately afterwards. Being a good audience member is something that we discuss frequently at Doolittle School. We talk about showing respect to those who are presenting especially if they are other students. Performing or speaking in front of a large audience can be nerve wracking but gets easier with practice. Through concerts, town meetings and class presentations, we provide students with opportunities to practice performing and speaking in front of others.

The Concerts this week were excellent!

Strings

Chorus

Band

12/8/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

How did it get to be December? Is there really a forecast for snow tomorrow?

Report Cards will be sent home on Monday, December 11. Elementary School grades in Cheshire are based on a rubric score of 1-4 and are not a numeric average of test scores, work scores, etc. Our Report Cards are intended to communicate with parents about how their child is progressing toward our end of year common standards.  

The following information comes from the Parent Report Card Handbook.

Teachers use number and letter codes to answer three evaluation questions for each student:

1. To what extent has this student achieved grade level expectations and standards?

2. To what degree does this student demonstrate effort during learning, especially when tackling challenging, new content and skills?

3. To what extent is this child developing the characteristics of successful learners?

Grading Keys:

The report card uses two different grading keys to communicate the answers to these three questions:

One for the academic areas (Question 1) and one to describe learning behaviors and effort (Questions 2-3).

Within the academic areas there are four numerical codes that will be used to tell parents and students how student work compares to grade level expectations and standards:

4: Exceeds the Grade Level Standards/Expectations: The student consistently and independently applies the grade level standards/expectations in this category to advanced content.

3: Meets the Grade Level Standards/Expectations: The student independently demonstrates the grade level standards/expectations in this category.

2: Approaches the Grade Level Standards/Expectations: The student requires some teacher assistance to demonstrate the grade level standards/expectations in this category.

1: Not Meeting the Grade Level Standards/Expectations: The student does not yet demonstrate the grade level standards/expectations in this category.

The full Parent Report Card Handbook can be found at the link below:

CPS Parent Handbook for Report Cards

**Students in 6th grade will receive a special progress report for Social Studies and Science to update parents on their work in the Summit Platform.

As always if you ever have questions about your child’s performance in class, give us a call or send an email and we can set up a meeting with the teacher.

Picture of the Week:

Last week administrators from around the district came to visit Doolittle School.

All administrators will visit classrooms at all schools during the year.

Here an assistant principal from CHS observes students in 3rd grade who are hard at work!

11/22/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

This Thanksgiving I wish you time with family and time to relax. Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to pause and reflect on all the good things in our lives. Taking time to talk about things you, and your family are grateful for, is good for kids. Helping them focus on the positive and be mindful of the good in their lives builds on kids’ natural resilience and perseverance.

Superintendent Solan shared the video below. If you haven’t had a moment to watch it yet it is worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3XwTZGE4mI

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

11/17/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

Happy American Education Week! This week has been busy at Doolittle School. The Book Fair has been a huge success thanks to our many volunteers. On Monday night at Dodd School the district recognized students who had earned the Superintendent’s Award. From Doolittle School we honored Ava Wilson and Katie Bizzaro. Tuesday through Thursday we were happy to host a number of parents who came to visit their children’s classrooms.  I truly enjoyed our Ice Cream Social on Tuesday. Many families turned out for this event.  I’m always amazed at the number of toppings available! On Thursday night, Mrs. Granahan was awarded the Doolittle School Partnership award for all her work on our excellent “Trunk or Treat” the last few years. All in all I believe our American Education week was a big success.

How did American Education Week Start?

Distressed that 25 percent of the country's World War I draftees were illiterate and 9 percent were physically unfit, representatives of the NEA and the American Legion met in 1919 to seek ways to generate public support for education.

The conventions of both organizations subsequently adopted resolutions of support for a national effort to raise public awareness of the importance of education. In 1921, the NEA Representative Assembly in Des Moines, Iowa, called  for designation of one week each year to spotlight education. In its resolution, the NEA called for: "An educational week ... observed in all communities annually for the purpose of informing the public of the accomplishments and needs of the public schools and to secure the cooperation and support of the public in meeting those needs."

- The above information is from the NEA website

Pictures of the Week:

At the Book Fair

11/10/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

Internet Safety is very important to us at Doolittle School.  Teachers speak with students about internet safety and expectations throughout the year.

Here is a list of just a few ways to help students search more safely on the internet:

• SafeYoutube.net (creates a new link of youtube videos and makes them the only thing students see; no links at the end of the video; at the end it simply replays)
• Viewpure is another way to see Youtube videos without ads or other links.
• Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.com) - great resources for teaching in the digital age
• Type “simple” before a wikipedia site for simpler language
• Type any topic in the search bar and then type “for kids”

The Electronic Information Access Agreements for students outlines expectations and requires students to take responsibility for their online behavior.

Responsible Use Policy K-2

Responsible Use Policy 3-12

In addition to our Firewall and AdBlocker software Cheshire Public Schools will begin using GoGuardian for our sixth graders to ensure that students are safe while on line. See the information from Mr. Solan below:

As part of our consistent effort to engage students in personalized learning experiences and to support our inclusion of digital learning, Cheshire Public Schools continually seeks tools that will assist in the learning process. To this end, the District has made GoGuardian software available for our teachers in grades 6-9.  WithGoGuarian, teachers can control and monitor student Chromebook screens during class enabling them to efficiently keep students focused on specific tasks, lock student screens to specific documents or websites for instructional purposes, share screens as needed, and redirect students if necessary.  These capabilities will help our teachers maximize classroom instructional time in our 1‐to­‐1 technology environment.

GoGuardian is being used by more than 2,300 school districts and 4,000,000 students to help teachers better engage with their students, provide educators with more control over how Chromebooks are used in the classroom and keep students safer when they're online.  A demo is available at this link - https://goguardian.wistia.com/medias/fln6ndzp2o

As with any digital service, protecting student privacy is paramount.  GoGuardian features are limited to school hours only and the school issued device must be on the district network in order for the program to work.  This simply means that after school hours and/or outside of our school network, GoGuardian is inoperable.

Please let me know if you have questions about internet safety at Doolittle.

Picture of the week:

Mr. Pierce and Doolittle Students created the banner below last week.

All Doolittle students signed their first name during lunch waves.

The banner has been hanging in the West Haven VA all this week.

10/27/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

We are looking forward to the Trunk or Treat tonight!

Grades 1, 2 & 3 come at 6:30 pm

Grades 4, 5 & 6 come at 7:15 pm

Please remember to bring a bag of treats (candy, stickers, pencils, etc) to share!

Everyone will meet in the all-purpose room at their start time for a costume contest.

Today we held a Fire Drill at Doolittle School.

Students exit the building quickly and go to their designated areas. Teachers then use Walkie-Talkies to communicate with Office Staff to account for everyone in the building.

In addition to Fire Drills, during the year we practice Lockdown Drills, Secure School Drills and others. Whenever we practice an emergency drill, members of the fire department and/or police department are on hand to observe the drill and give us feedback. Working with first responders improves the efficiency and effectiveness of our drills which will help keep us all safe in the event of an actual emergency.

Doolittle has a Safe School Committee that meets monthly to discuss our drill procedures as well as other information to continually address safety needs at our school.

If parents ever have concerns, questions or suggestions to improve the safety of our school we are happy to hear them!

Picture of the Week:

Fire Drill and Foliage!

10/20/17

TRUNK OR TREAT is THIS FRIDAY, October 27th.    

It is a unique Doolittle Tradition and is a lot of fun!

If your family is attending, use the link below to sign up for the event!  

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0f48a5a92fabfb6-trunk1

Please remember to bring a bag of treats (candy, stickers, pencils, etc) to share!

Grades 1, 2 & 3 come at 6:30 pm

Grades 4, 5 & 6 come at 7:15 pm

Everyone will meet at the all-purpose room at their start time for a costume contest.

Then they will go through a haunted hallway out to the upper playground to the Trunk or Treat.

Students should only go around ONCE

• If you are interested in decorating your car and handing out candy, please use the following link to sign up:
• http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0f48a5a92fabfb6-trunk

• If you are interested in volunteering to help with the event, please use the following link to sign up:
• http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0f48a5a92fabfb6-trunk2

I’m looking forward to a fun Trunk or Treat next Friday!

10/13/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

I meet with each grade level of students about 6 times during the year.  At these meetings I discuss a variety of information including school expectations for behavior, how to manage mean behavior or bullying and personal responsibility. I also like to share some of my favorite books and quotes. Today I met with grades 1, 2 and 4. We reviewed our previous lesson about what to do if someone is mean to you and what to do if you see someone being mean to someone else. Students always have appropriate responses and take seriously their role in protecting others from mean behavior.

Grade 4 students read and discussed a few scenarios about behavior. Below is one of the scenarios we discussed:

• For years Andrew has made fun of his best friend Dave because Dave is obsessed with peanut butter. “You’d eat my gym socks if they were covered in peanut butter,” He once told Dave. One day in science lab, the students designed mazes to test the intelligence of white mice. When the teacher told the class that the mice would be rewarded with peanut butter for completing the maze, Andrew called out, “Better be careful – Dave might get to the end of the maze before the mice!” All the other students laughed.

• Is this harmless teasing or hurtful language? Why?

• What if after everyone laughed, Dave got upset and left the class?
• What if after everyone laughed, Dave said, “That’s right! I’m getting ALL the peanut butter baby!” and he laughed too?

Students engaged in good discussions about their beliefs of whether it was mean or not. They talked about how their thoughts changed based on the additional information in the bullet points at the end. Students quickly came to realize that the difference between hurtful language and harmless teasing is often how the other person feels.

Pictures of the week:

Still Life Drawing in Art

Buddy Reading

10/6/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

One of the fundamental challenges in education is that kids are all different! They come to us with a variety of skills, knowledge, strengths and needs. In a given classroom there is always a wide range of academic ability, social skills as well as interests. There are a number of good teaching strategies we use to address this variety. One of the strategies we are beginning to use at Doolittle School is Personalized Learning.

Personalized Learning allows students to have some choice of the resources they use to learn about a particular topic and choice in how they demonstrate their knowledge. This year in 6th grade for Science and Social Studies we are using a new tool for Personalized Learning called the Summit Learning Platform.

The Summit Learning Platform has three main components.

1. Personalized Learning Time - Students use a variety of resources including websites, articles, videos, blogs, podcasts, slideshows, etc. to learn about a given topic. Students can also work with their teacher in groups or individually to learn material.

2. Project Time - Students use the knowledge they gained through Personalized Learning Time to complete group projects that demonstrate their knowledge as well as their cognitive skills / work habits.

3. Mentor Time - Teachers meet with each student to set weekly goals and tasks to accomplish as well as review their progress and performance on Content Assessments.

There was a great article in the Cheshire Herald this week about Personalized Learning:

https://www.cheshireherald.com/articles/school-district-takes-learning-personal/

I’m looking forward to Doolittle School’s continued work on Personalized Learning to meet the individual needs of all our students.

Students working during Project Time in 6th Grade:

9/29/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

It’s hard to believe this was our last week of September! With the high temperatures it seemed like we were still in the first few days of school.

Now that we have been in school for a month, students have settled into routines and have had an opportunities to demonstrate some of their academic strengths and needs.

Take a moment to ask your child about his or her favorite activities and academic subjects in school. But also ask about what they think they need to work on. If you have questions be sure to email or contact your child’s teacher.

Parent Conferences are coming up in October. If you have NOT scheduled a conference yet, contact the school and we can set one up for you.

Upcoming Dates:

Wednesday 10/4 - Early Dismissal at 12:40

Monday 10/9 - No School

Tuesday 10/24 - Early Dismissal at 12:40

Thursday 10/26 - Early Dismissal at 12:40

Turkeys at Doolittle School

5th Grade Students sharing information about books they are reading

9/22/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

Today was our first Doolittle Town Meeting of the year. Six times during the year the whole school gets together in the gym. Our Town Meetings are completely run by the students. Two 6th graders serve as Emcees and introduce groups of students who share “spotlights” on different things going on at our school. Some of the Spotlights that were shared today included:

• information about the 6th grade community service project - Recycling Club

• 6th graders telling about the upcoming Geography Bee

• students singing the Doolittle School Song, “Welcome to our World"

• Emcees introduced Quiz-O-Matic, a game show where students answer questions from their current curriculum

• Several students shared about their summer reading and the projects they created

• I spoke about using the Mood Meter. 

Town Meetings are a very important part of the Doolittle School culture. Students learn from one another, model appropriate behavior and practice their public speaking. 

Providing Independent Reading Time EVERYDAY is a must at Doolittle School

9/15/17

Hello Doolittle Families,

Our Open Houses went very well this week! Many thanks to those families who were able to attend. Teachers were excited to share information about class routines and procedures as well as grade level curriculum with you.

It is my hope that our Open House nights will open lines of communication between families and Doolittle School staff. Communication between home and school is a vital component of students’ academic and social success!

Please call or email the school or your child’s teacher if you have questions or concerns.

The Doolittle PTA has some New, Cool Doolittle Spirit wear this year.

Here is the order form: SPIRIT-WEAR LINK

Hard at Work!

Our School Nurse, Mrs. Zimmitti, will be giving eye screenings the next week or two