Mt. View Kinder Academy

Parents of incoming kindergartners at Mountain View Elementary were treated to a week-long "Kinder Academy" designed to bolster the success of their children. On Thursday, they learned about the district math curriculum, enVisionMATH, from Title I Math Coach Kathy Buttaccio. During this session they talked about the California Math Standards for kindergarten, key vocabulary their students would be learning, what a typical lesson would look like, and fun math games and activities they can enjoy with their children. Because enVisionMATH is so rich in technology, Kathy also showed them how to go online and access the resources there in both English and Spanish. Finally, each parent was given a packet of math manipulatives, with encouragement to help children connect their math education at school with math at home. Thank you, Kathy, for this informative session! Thank you as well to Assistant Principal Donna Dorsey for organizing this week of activities.

Welcome New Math Coaches!

RUSD is fortunate to have three not-so-new faces in three new positions for the 09-10 school year. Brandy Haegg just wrapped up this past year as an EETT coach, and is looking forward to working with teachers at both Hawthorne and Mt. View elementary schools. Prior to working with EETT, Brandy taught at Kennedy Elementary School. Eric Palmer, also a coach for EETT, will split his time between Hyatt and Emerson Elementary Schools. Eric was previously a Staff Development Specialist for mathematics and prior to that, taught at Hyatt Elementary School. Our final EETT coach-turned math coach is Michele Navarro. She will return to Liberty Elementary, where she formerly was an SDC teacher. Brandy, Eric and Michele will join Alicia Chavez from Adams and Kelly Hamilton from Madison. I'm looking forward to working with a talented and enthusiastic group of coaches!

Check out the Top Ten jobs from CareerCast.com. Notice a theme?

http://www.careercast.com/jobs/content/JobsRated_10BestJobs

Talent Abounds!

I'm so excited to share with you some of the awesome talent we have right here in RUSD. Click on the link to hear some math songs recorded by Matt Cash, a K teacher at Rivera. Matt is a talented singer and musician, and is generous with sharing those talents to benefit teachers and students in RUSD. (You may remember one of his other famous hits, "Alpha Friends".) Two of the songs were written by Kathy Buttaccio, our Title I math coach. She has quite a few more up her sleeve as well and I am hoping for more collaboration between her and Matt!

http://k6math.rusd.k12.ca.us/math_songs.htm

Time to Blog again!

It's been the busiest summer ever, in case anyone's thinking we slow down in July and August! Christy Ekman and I have offered sessions for teachers who are "new to grade level"- since there was an unprecedented amount of movement this year. Going from grade 2 to 6? We'll get you caught up and reduce the stress level a bit! I am also offering sessions on how to use bar diagrams, and meeting with new math coaches. Additionally, Anne Marie Montgomery, my 7-12 counterpart, and I have been very busy putting together a proposal for a grant through the California Math and Science Partnership. If we obtain this award, professional development will be provided for the next three years to participating teachers in grades 5 through Algebra I, through a partnership with RCC and UCR. With so little money in the state, EVERYONE is applying for very few awards. It is a significant endeavor and very time consuming, but will be worth it if we are successful. There are many other tasks, and I definitely want to upload all of the things I've been promising to the math website, so stay tuned. It's coming along! Time to get back to work.....