Last night, Scarlett Lewis, Jesse Lewis’ mom, spoke to an audience at NKHS. Her message is really a movement. The night was not about blame or even tears it was about educating the people in the room. Jesse Lewis was six years old when he was murdered, along with his first grade classmates, at Sandy Hook Elementary. He left messages and clues for the FBI, his older brother and his mom. She made a conscious decision to not be a victim but to work with educators on how to change an angry thought to a loving thought. In the NKHS audience were our students, your colleagues and community members. It is safe to say the science behind the information is real. There are only positives to integrating this work. Right now in our building and throughout the country we have an anxiety crisis. We need our social emotional service providers more than ever but we can also help build capacity by helping ourselves and our students to change one angry thought this week into a loving thought. Try it.
Community in Action
Choose Love Community
If you would like to find out more information on Scarlett Lewis’ story and the social/emotional enrichment program, you may speak to Cindy Zito who was the catalyst in bringing her and her program to NK. One of the five outcomes is courage. Some of the benefits of this program under courage are:
• Less anxiety and stress
• Less fearful (in the present and future)
• Enhanced self-esteem
• Improved ability to express oneself and one’s feelings
• Increased self-awareness
• Willingness to try difficult tasks
Team Maya
Today outside the cafeteria, Maya Hanrahan and friends (pictured) sold bracelets to support the prevention of suicide. If you gave money towards the dress down today you participated in this wonderful student-led activity to honor her friend, Daniel Coates.
From AM Finlay
This past week the RI legislation pass a bill called the, High School Recovery Bill. It will go into effect on Jan. 1st, 2018. Basically, the law states that any use of vapes is illegal on school property, even if an adult is using the vape.
2017 Graduate, Adam Matusck, here in his Marine uniform came back for a visit to speak to any student during lunch interested finding out more about this branch of the armed forces. Adam joins, Michael Auclair, and Robert Pierce who completed basic training and are doing well in their choice of post high school plans.
Health & Wellness
From Jonathan Quinn--PE
October 13, 2017
Health & Wellness.
This week, members of the staff including PE, Special Educators, School Nurse Teacher, and others from the district attended the Breakfast for School Wellness Leaders hosted by the RI Healthy
Dr. Ken Wagner, shown here, addresses the audience on how the state continues to promote school breakfast for all students in our state.
Upcoming Events/Important Dates
Busy week next week. Of course each day is a theme day for spirit week culminating in the Pep Rally outside followed by the big game and then the dance. Before that happens, though we will have a Skipper Block on Monday due to the Dynamic Influence assembly during the day for freshmen and juniors on Monday, and that evening for parents, Tuesday evening, National Honor Society inductees, Wednesday evening, Powder Puff Games, and Thursday evening, Chorus and Orchestra Performances...wow
October--Empathy
16 Maya Hanrahan Continuing to sell suicide prevention bracelets to honor the one-year anniversary of Dan Coates (class of 2018) Money will be donated to the foundation
16 Faculty Meeting 2 pm, Auditorium, 2:30 pm Department Meetings
16-20 Spirit Week
Monday--Country Fest vs. Country Club
Tuesday--Hawaiian
Wednesday--Skippah Pride (All gear goes!)
Thursday--Throw back Thursday--Dress like you did when you were high school.
Friday--Class colors
16-Skipper Block
17 National Honor Society Induction, 6 pm in the Auditorium
18 Powder Puff, 7 pm in the Stadium
19 Chorus and Orchestra Performance, 7 pm in the Auditorium
20 Pep Rally 4th hour, Football Game, 7 pm in the Stadium
21 Homecoming Dance, 7-10 pm, High School Gymnasium
Teaching and Learning
From Toni Silveira--Fine Art's Department Chair:
I wanted to share a video of a student's performance.
Alisa Smith (2018) is a talented musician who has been preparing since grade 5 to be a professional flutist. She has performed in local, regional and national Honors Ensembles and often wins solo competitions. Her resume includes:
- Interlochen “Fine Arts Award for Outstanding Performance in Flute” (2017)
- Winner: Interlochen Summer Arts Festival Chamber Music Competition (2017)
- Rhode Island Annual Honors Recital via Solo & Ensemble (2015, 2016)
- Co-Winner: Rhode Island Philharmonic Concerto/Aria Competition (2015)
- Ranked No.1 in state: Rhode Island All-State Music Festival (2013, 2014, 2015, 2017)
- Invited to compete in the Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition (January 2017)
This summer she was chosen to attend Interlochen's intensive 6 week summer camp and she was assigned to the top ensemble and earned principal chair and solos.
I wanted to share a video of her performance in hopes that you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
(Scheherazade starts around 23:22 where she has a solo)
Tech Tip
From Mark DeLucia
Week Ending October 12
Major Updates to Google Slides
Google has made some major updates to its Slides app, many of which, I feel, are extremely beneficial for the classroom. In addition to minor aesthetic updates, such as the ability to use more than one theme in a presentation or view sides in grid or flimstrip view, Google has added the following features:
- Hide Slides
- You now have the ability to hide a slide so that it is not visible to other users or in the presentation. Why is this useful? Let’s say you’re looking to make one presentation for a class, but wish to omit some information for your CP class vs your Honors. This feature will allow you to do this without having to create two presentations.
- Link Slides
- This feature will allow you to link a slide (or slides) within the same presentation or multiple presentations. Anything you update on a linked slide will be automatically updated on another slide. Update it once and it’s done!
- Diagrams
- For those of you who often create graphic organizers, this is for you. Under the insert menu you will now see diagram under chart. Click diagram and you will see multiple design options, and the ability to change the steps / hierarchy in your graphic organizer.
- Videos and Playback
- When inserting a video into a slide, you can now choose a start and end time for the video- useful if you only want students to watch, say, the middle ten minutes of a thirty minute video. You also now have the option for autoplay.
- Add-ons
- Pear Deck
- Pear Deck is an education-specific add-on that allows teachers to add formative assessment questions to slides right from the slide editor. There are many ways to use this to create truly engaging slides. There’s even a flashcard creator function. See the video here.
- Balsamiq Wireframes
- For my colleagues teaching web design, Balsamiq makes it easy to sketch out the schematic of your web page. See it in action here.
- Icons by the Noun Project
- If you really want to dress up your presentations, this is a great add-on. If you’re not familiar with the Noun Project, it is a site that collects symbols, icons, logos, etc uploaded by graphic designers around the world for your use. This add-on will allow you to search this database and insert them into your presentation.
- Adobe Stock
- In that same vein, this add-on will enable you to search Adobe’s stock images.
Did you know?
Your students can ask questions discretely via Slides. You can also review all of your student questions in one place. Go to presentation view. On the bottom toolbar select “Q&A” and “Start Session”. When students view the presentation, a link will appear that says “Ask a question” at the top of each slide. Students will be able to ask questions or make a comment there. You can either review after on your own or hold a class Q&A by using their comments there.
Articles Worth Reading
From the Providence Journal
Videos Worth Watching
Jesse Lewis
If you want to meet Scarlett and Jesse Lewis
Food for Thought
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy practice compassion.” Dalai Lama
Until next time, Think, Create, Innovate...Denise
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