Week Ending April 13, 2017

Enjoy Yourself

For those of you who have the next week and a day off...Enjoy!

Health and Wellness

From Karen D’Abrosca

April 13, 2017

I wrote about this last year and thought it appropriate to revisit:

HAPPY SPRING BREAK WEEK!!    January to April without a week off for Winter Break – the long stretch is over!    Notice how you feel.  Are you tired, irritable, scattered?   ….. or energetic, happy and clear?    Many of us will answer yes to the first descriptors and no to the second!!!   

As we move into this precious time – a “free week” compared to the school day schedule -  find some real free time, schedule it in if you must, to just “BE”   …  be a human being instead of a human doing!!  

ENJOY!  Then we can answer yes to “energetic, happy and clear”!!

If you have plenty of extra time and are looking for ideas, peruse the list of over 350 celebrations sent on email from Ms. Rowland titled “April is ….”  (4/3/17)  We will discuss one of these next time!

Upcoming Events/Important Dates

April - Community

14 No school - Good Friday

17-21 Spring Recess

25 “Purple Up! For Military Kids” day

27 Jazz Concert

28 Blood Drive

Good News!

Fine Arts/Music Department

From Norma Caiazza:

NYC National Festival--I am happy to let you all know that the Concert Choir took home the Gold

Medal and 1st place! There were 30 choral groups there from 11 different states from all over the country and as far away as California!

Along with that, Maisey Carvalho and Cooper Cardone each received the "Maestro Award" for the demonstration of extraordinary musical ability and Delaney Schwarzer won the only "Ovation Award" of the festival which included other bands and orchestras. This is an award in which directors are expected to nominate at student whose contribution to the music program transcends making music and is based on determination, inspiration and service.

What makes me the proudest though is the outstanding way our students have represented themselves and our school throughout this entire trip.

Photo--Rob Silveira

The Symphonic band at the same time was  having their own successes in Philadelphia. Winning a first place award for the band and also the Adjudicator Award for Excellence. Erica Smith received one of the “Outstanding Soloist” awards.

Bravo to both Norma and Toni and all of their students for their hard earned awards this year.

The Skipper Pride winner is Richard Garland, who was chosen from the last winner, Jean Leich.

From Jean to Rich :

​Rich,

I am so happy to choose you for the Pride Skipper Award. Knowing you for the past few years I realized how many lives you have positively impacted. You're sincere compassion and genuine kindness has touch the lives of many people. I can't thank you enough for all your unconditional support and how you're always willing to help others. You always go above and beyond for everyone and words cannot express how important that is to me and others. I am so lucky you were my son's teacher. I am grateful for the experiences we share working together, you always bring laughter and joy.

Teaching and Learning

Scheduling Update:

The MOA passed. On to 8 period scheduling. Thank you to everyone thus far. Scheduling will begin in earnest after the break. Thank you for your patience thus far.

Student Services

From Donna Sweet

Last week's Challenge:  Write a Haiku:  You decide the winner~

From Mrs. Hammersley's Advisory:

One-Oh-Seven's Lit

Food and Ping Pong Everyday

We should win this quest

Mr. Albernaz's advisory:

North Kingstown High School

We all love and cherish thee

Check that Skipper Pride!

Ms. Eriksen's advisory:

This is the haiku my student came up with

If students are late

We will get a detention

We will not be late!

This is mine.

New students here now

Friends, class, teachers imagine

What four years will bring

Reminder:

Don’t forget the first day back to wear your purple. (Second posting)

Excerpt from an April 1 letter from Rosemarie Kraeger
(Middletown Superintendent and MIC3 Commission -- RI)

April is the Month of the Military Child. During April, the MIlitary Interstate Children’s Compact Commission (MIC3) will underscore the important role children play in the Armed Forces Community. Our military children and families help sustain our fighting force on whom we depend for the security and safety of our nation's families and communities. It is important to emphasize and recognize the role that military children play while their service member parents are serving the nation. The MIC3 is committed to resolving the educational transition issues that are faced by these children and their families.

April 25th is “Purple Up! For Military Kids” day. Across the nation, people are being encouraged to show support for our military and veteran children and to thank them for their strength and sacrifices. Let's show our support for our military population in the school by wearing purple. Email Donna with contest ideas to get their student peers involved.

Tech Tip

From Mark DeLucia:

Week Ending April 13, 2017

3 Extensions to try for a rainy vacation day

• Quick Create Extension
• This handy add-on allows you to quickly create a Doc, Slide, Sheet, etc.  right from the toolbar.  Get it here.
• Slideshot
• Do you grade students on participation or “time-on-task”?  Assigning a group project and want to make sure everyone in the group was working?  Slideshot lets you do just that. Installed on a student Chromebook, SlideShot will take a screenshot of their screen every minute. When done, it will place each image on its own slide in a new Slides presentation.  Students can share it with you as proof of their efforts, or just use it as a reflection, to see if they spent their time wisely!  Get it here.
• Extensity
• And because by now you likely have far too many extensions in the upper right corner of your browser, there’s Extensity- an extension for your extensions.  Extensity will combine all of those tiny little icons and only display the ones you want.  Get it here.

Cool Fact:

You can search Google using your voice!  To enable this feature, in your Chrome browser, click the Chrome menu (three dots in the top right corner and click settings).  In the search section, click "enable OK Google to start a voice search".  If you're doing this from your Chromebook, you may be asked to turn on the Voice and Audio Activity setting.  Now, as long as you have Google.com open on any Chrome browser or the launcher (magnifying glass) open on the Chromebook, you can search or navigate to websites using your voice.  I find this especially helpful when doing a station rotation.  I can simply say, “OK, Google-- set a timer for 15 minutes”, and the timer will start.  **NOTE: while your Chromebook and many laptops have a built-in microphone, not every computer will.  You must have a microphone to do this.

Food for Thought

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” ~Margaret Atwood

Until next time, Think, Create, Innovate...Denise