2, 4, 6, 8....Who do we APPRECIATE?

One of the first things I was told during my student teaching was to befriend the office staff and the custodial staff, as these are the people who keep the school operating behind the scenes.  After all, who is going to help when you need emergency copies made or help cleaning up a spill in your classroom?  That's right the amazing office & custodial staff!  

Because of my love of arts and crafts, we are constantly cutting and pasting, which in turn means a lot of paper on the floor.  Despite having trashcans around the room, we can always find remnants of our creations on the floor, along with highlighters, glue sticks and markers!  Many days I'm found working in our classroom, with a group of students way past the 3:50 dismissal bell. As the kids are working, I usually am sweeping up our mess from the day.  After all, it's not Ms. Brenda's job to clean up after us!  I also know how hard it is to get around the groups of desks, so I try to sweep it all to the area by the trashcans.  

A sweet note from Ms. Brenda

Over time, kids have begun to help sweep our room, without being asked.  It's this ownership of behavior that makes my heart happy!  They know how much it helps others, as well as how happy it makes everyone.  Why not make somebody's day just a little bit brighter?  

During the third six weeks' our Falcon Way group, Courage House, focused on appreciation!  We chose to show our appreciation for our custodial staff.  Students collaborated and shared ideas about how they could help and one was to start a trend of cleaning up after each lunch.  

Students quickly signed up for a time to help and encouraged their classmates to also join in helping. The timing of this effort couldn't have been better planned as our head custodian was out on medical leave and Ms. Brenda was having to man the cafeteria by herself.  It was all hands-on deck from my 4th period as we always pick up trash on our way back to class!  In fact this is part of what "the dream team does," according to a few of my girls :)  

I'm proud that so many of our kids don't even question picking up somebody else's trash or mind helping clean up in the cafeteria.  Again it's the small actions of one that brighten the lives of so many others!  

After Winter Break, all Courage House members helped create a video of appreciation!  It took a few recordings, but the kids were amazing.  In fact they did such a great job, that Ms. Brenda was brought to tears!  

How do you show appreciation for those you work with at school?

Kicking off 2017

On Tuesday, January 3, the faculty and staff headed back to work at NRMS.  It was hard to believe our winter break had come to an end and it was ready to hit the road running, as second semester is always filled with test prep, end of year activities and this year, we add in completing our 100 hours of professional learning for our STEM certification, as well as packing up our classrooms to move into our new building.  Needless to say, it's going to be jammed packed with activity!

We were broken up into our Falcon Way houses.  It was a nice change to sit with those we don't usually interact with during the day.  Our first focus of our time together was to reflect on the past semester of Falcon Way and Reboot our Mindset as we begin the second semester.

Individually we filled out a quick questionnaire about ourselves.

• What did you do or enjoy the most over Christmas break?
• What are your favorite hobbies?
• What are your pet peeves?
• What is one goal you'd like to accomplish during your lifetime?
• Describe yourself using three words.

Papers were mixed together and shared amongst the group members.  We then had to guess who are paper belonged to!  Great way to get us adults talking to each other, but even a better model of what we can do with our learners to build community within our classrooms :)

As members of Courage house, we came together to focus on the celebrations of Falcon Way and areas of improvement.  I loved how if we had a concern, we had to have a solution!  To share our celebrations with others in the room, we used the web-based program, Mentimeter.  Given a code, we we were able to list 3 words or phrases that summarized our celebrations.  Below is the wordle that was created by our staff.

Each group was given 2 pieces of chart paper:  Concerns --> Suggestions & Brilliant Ideas.  I of course encourage our group to focus on the Brilliant Ideas, as this would continue the positive energy.  As a house, we loved the PJ fundraiser hosted by Mrs. Cherry's (@feliciacherry) Falcon Way members and the #wheelchairchallenge, hosted by Mrs. Peltier's (@mrspeltierNRMS) Falcon Way members.

Moving onto our Concerns --> Suggestions provided a consistent theme of time and knowing our students amongst our House.  Collaboration began and solutions are ready to be implemented when we meet on Monday!  I must say I was quite proud of my fellow housemates as they came up with an idea to mix up their classes, allowing for groups to work together on a common goal.  As a staff we participated in a gallery walk, looking at each other's ideas.  The ideas shared on the posters will be taken into consideration as we move forward with the implementation of Falcon Way!

What I hope that others will take away from this part of our time together are the various instructional strategies we participated in as students, rather than teachers.  All provided awesome ways to model being solution seekers, rather than problem finders!

We then moved into how to reconnect with our learners after a 2 week break.  Greeting students at the door, asking how break went and most of all making them feel apart of the learning community.  This activity reiterated to me the post I wrote about my goals for 2017 and being a positive teacher for ALL of the NRMS stakeholders.

Our ELA teachers shared with us the best reading strategies for all content areas.  Led by Kylie Norrel (@knorrell7) & Katherine Harvell (@mrs_harvell), we were given an article Model Behavior: The Mathematics of Juggling  We were guided through the processes of reading and analyzing text, as our learners do in their ELA classes.

The one comment that resonated with me, as a math teacher, was when other ELA teachers mentioned that the only reading that happens in math classes is with word problems.  This made me cringe knowing there are so many articles out there that pertain to math in the real world (just like the article we worked with today!).  I couldn't help but smile towards my teaching partner because of the learning that was about to happen in Room 27 over the next 3 days.  It was time to bust the myth of only reading word problems in math!

Our time together culminated with a focus on STEM.  All of the math and science teachers were recognized for the time and energy they have put forth in working towards our certification.  Our challenge was to build the tallest tower given 60" of tape and a file folder.  The energy sparked during this activity was phenomenal.

What did you take away from your first day back?

Pancakes & PJs Brunch

7th & 8th Grade Teachers enjoying Santa & Mrs. Claus at our holiday brunch

On Wednesday, December 14th, the members of Honesty House, hosted brunch for the faculty and staff of NRMS!  The theme was perfect since it was also pajama day, thanks to our December Fun calendar.  

The benefits of learning about Canva during PLC!

Small details that made our time together special

Mr. V getting into the holiday spirit with Mr. & Mrs. Claus

Even our Digital Campus Specialist came by NRMS
for a visit

Happy Holidays!

#ThankfulThursday: Building Community at NRMS

We, the students and faculty, at North Richland Middle School are  focusing the 2016-2017 school year on building the culture and climate in our school community.  A committee of students, parents and staff met this past spring and during the summer to create the foundation of the Falcon Way.  The Falcon Way Mission supports students, faculty, staff and community members in living “The Falcon Way” by:  providing the tools and skills to incorporate the BISD CORE values into all of our work and creating opportunities for our Falcons to soar.

Each Monday, students meet with their Falcon Way advisory group. Every six weeks, both students and teachers, focus on building  courage, kindness, responsibility, empathy, honesty and acceptance.  Throughout the six weeks, students brainstorm ideas on how, we as North Richland Middle Falcons, can create events within our school community to instill these core values. 

During this six weeks our Falcon Way advisory group, Courage House, came together and focused on building community within our own school.  By brainstorming ideas, students came up with the idea to celebrate our faculty and staff.  Once we decided on how we would build community, students began to plan a #ThankfulThursday celebration for our staff!

 

Classes voted on which tasks they wanted to complete.  These tasks included:  creating invitations, advertising our breakfast, creating videos celebrating our community of learners, decorating our building with a Tree of Thanksgiving and serving as hosts and hostesses for our celebration.

Conversation Starters for our Teachers 

We're Thankful for You!

Watching our students, faculty & staff come together as one community was an incredible experience for all of the NRMS community.

What are You Grateful For?

We're Thankful for You!

As a culminating Thank You to our teachers, students worked during Falcon Way time, as well as before and after school, working on a video to show what community means at NRMS.  Students took pictures & videos of the happenings within our building, as well as creating a Google form to gather thoughts from others within our school community.