McKinley Elementary Staff Blog! : October 23 Update

Good morning!
Ready or not, winter arrived this week!

This quote is a great reminder for us all. We often get bogged down on the negatives - our ever-growing to-do list, the lack of engagement from some students, COVID, etc. We let those ideas drain our energy. Over the next 24 hours, take some self-reflection time and focus on everything you've tackled - accomplished- and succeeded with over the last 3 months. Your celebrations may range from huge things to much smaller self accomplishments. Take the time to acknowledge all of these. We have taken a situation that was impossible and made it work - and done well in the process. Take some time to celebrate your strength and celebrations - and reflect back on how far you've come in only a month and a half of school!

Reading Records

Have you found a time in your day to start reading records with students? Reading records provide powerful information to help you be responsive to your guided groups. It will help you to add goals (and also feel confident that other goals have been reached) and will guide your coaching, introduction and discussion questions for the following lesson. Fountas and Pinnell suggest one reading record per day so that you have time to analyze and respond.

If you are having difficulty finding time to complete a record each day, or would like to collaborate around administering or responding to the reading record, please reach out to Libby.

Fundraiser Update:
Happy Friday McKinley Huskies, We met as a McKinleyStrong team this past Tuesday and discussed the idea of doing the same fundraiser we did last year. Due to the overwhelming success with it and the items we were able to secure with the fundraising, we plan to do it again this year. Our packets will be here November 9th. Plan on seeing more from us soon!

Schoolstore will be the program we will use again this year. Schoolstore runs a two-faceted fundraising approach. One facet allows families to provide “gift cards” to us which we use through a partner website. Last year, we raised over $7500 in gift cards. We still have money leftover from those. The second facet of this fundraiser is the ability to ask families who shop online, to go through schoolstore.com and support our school. This is similar to Amazon Smile (don’t forget to support our wonderful PTO in Amazon Smile) where the shopper will select our school and depending on the company, we receive a kickback. Kohls, Sam’s Club, Disney, Verizon, Scholastic, DoorDash, are a few of the over 300 companies. Last year, this brought in $663! We will get either a percentage of the purchase or a flat rate. Either way we win!

The gift cards we receive from families have helped purchase all of our playground equipment, prizes for drawings and other items. I have included some of these items below. This year we wanted to offer the option for you to request items for your classroom. These might include supplies you need, games or materials for indoor recess, ect. Here is the link to the website where you can look at what your options are for your room. Please use this form to request items. Note, some items are not always available, as they may be in high demand. The team will review the requests and purchase items as we are able to!

Thank you for supporting our fundraising efforts-we are able to make a big difference!
McKinleyStrong Team

Jokesgiving - SAVE THE DATE!

Back by popular demand - our second annual "Jokesgiving 2020!" On Tuesday, November 24, you and your assigned team create fun jokes and pranks (work appropriate!). Please let me know by Tuesday if you are not interested. I promise it's a good time - nothing to stress about! Staff had a great time last year - we were silly and had fun all day long!

Click this link to read about Jokesgiving 2020!