 Field Day T-shirt Deadline EXTENDED
Field Day T- shirt deadline has been extended to Tuesday, April 10th!
Do you need a form? The form can be found online for downloading at the PTA website www.oakgrovepta.org. Forms may be turned into to your child's teacher or at the front office. |
Mark Your Calendars for the OG Food Garden Fair The Food Garden Fair is for families, students, teachers and staff.
FREE Seeds, Plants, Info; Door Prizes; Kids' Activities
Info and tools to get started growing food at home.
When? FRIDAY, APRIL 13th, Time? 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Where? Oak Grove Elementary Courtyard
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School District Launches New Alert System
Have you signed up for the new communication system from Dekalb County School System - K12 Alerts? No? Then click here to find out how to enroll in this service that can provide you with timely school related alerts such as early dismissal, weather related alerts and more via email, text message or telephone. A copy of the information letter was also sent home in your student's Communicator folder. |
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Advertising Opportunities
Advertise your small business in our newsletter!
E-mail Amy Busch by clicking here
for more information. |
Car Safety Reminder
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Avoid a ticket. Obey all parking signs and traffic laws when visiting Oak Grove Elementary.
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Oak Grove's Multicultural Fair Saturday, April 21, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Oak Grove Elementary families represent many cultures from all around the world. Twenty (20) countries will be showcased on Saturday, April 21st: Argentina, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Venezuela.
INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES will include:
- Booths, Food and International Crafts
- Dance/Theatre Lessons (sponsored by the Cultural Arts Committee)
- Student Art Display and Framed, individual student artwork (available for purchase)
- Musical performance from our third graders
For this special event, we need YOUR help. The Multicultural Fair Committee is looking for parents to assist with various roles throughout the day including set-up, student art show support, clean-up, etc. Also, if you would like to represent a country not already on the list, please let us know by next Wednesday, March 28.
If you are available to fill any role for any amount of time, please contact Shari Rao at sharmilarao@bellsouth.net
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Field Day is Friday, May 4th!
Be a "Super Hero!" and volunteer for this year's Field Day on Friday, May 4th! We need over 200 volunteers to make the day happen.
 | | Click on logo to sign up! |
Did you know that over 1000 water balloons, 400 tattoos, popsicles, bags of popcorn, 300 clementines and 1,300 cups of water are consumed at field day?
Deadline to have all volunteers secured is Friday, April 27th.
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Literary Guild Update:
*Attention 3rd, 4th and 5th Graders*
We are fast approaching the last Literary Review of the the school year. The Literary Review includes lunch, ice cream cake and great discussion on books read.
To qualify, you must have completed a level of Literary Guild by May 9th. May 9th will be the last day you may take a test for qualification. The Literary Review will take place the next week. All students who have completed a level by May 9th will receive an invitation to the Literary Review.
Third and Fourth graders: don't worry if you have not completed your level yet. You can keep reading over the summer and qualify next year. |
Instructional Technology Coach Update March Summary by Katy Miller
There has been a steady increase in technology use in the building. I
continue to encourage the use of the existing technology equipment like
laptop carts, voters, and the library computers. I have noticed the
laptop carts are signed out more, the voters are staying in some grade
levels, and more teachers are attempting technology rich lessons without my help. I have enjoyed seeing a handful of teachers take off with their technology integration. While I did spend time in the Pre K through 3rd grade classrooms this month, I also had time to work on our school wiki page. I add new resources every week and post updates for teachers about what is happening in the classrooms.
Ms. Everett was interested in using the voters with her Pre K students.
Since they were learning about patterns, I created a flipchart lesson with many different patterns and questions. Once I discussed using the voters with the students, we attempted some questions. I really enjoyed seeing Pre K students using the voters. They loved seeing the numbers light up showing they voted and the results. After I modeled the voting for Ms. Everett, she took over and continued to ask her students pattern questions. It was a learning experience for everyone. She especially liked seeing individual results following the vote. We completed the lesson the following day and she is looking forward to using the voters again. Ms. Everett does not have an ActivBoard in her classroom but it was still a successful lesson.
Kindergarten and first grades were interested in using the voters in
different ways. After researching various resources for kindergarten, we decided to do a St. Patrick's Day lesson that included history, patterns, math, songs, and a quiz. I did the lesson for Ms. Vannoy, Ms. Dukes, and Ms. Walker. It was a collaborative lesson where I usually started and had them jump in for different parts. The most exciting aspect of the lesson were the voters. After the lesson we discussed how the voters can be used for different assessments and with BrainPop. In keeping with the voting theme, Ms. Spears requested a lesson using the express poll feature in the ActivInspire program. She appreciated learning about this feature because she will be able to ask questions on the fly or create quizzes in other programs. Ms. Hinton's class did a fish review using the voters and questions written in Microsoft Word. Her class used the voters the following week with BrainPop. The express poll has been appealing for teachers who may not be familiar with creating quizzes in the ActivInspire program.
The second and third grade teachers have different projects in the works. Ms. Shafer's class has been using the voters for BrainPop and spelling review. She is also working with her class on typing autobiographies with the library computers. Ms. Albright's class used the voters for the first time last week and she is planning to explore ActivInspire more. Ms. Kaufman's class is working on digital stories. There was a great deal of success in second grade with Storybird.com. Ms. Kaufman and I planned for her class to publish their writing as digital stories with PowerPoint. We are hoping to record the student's voices and publish the stories after Spring Break. Ms. Lee's class just started their digital stories with PowerPoint this week. Ms. Clausen's class finished their PowerPoint project following my lesson and we plan to work on digital stories after CRCT. Ms. McClintock and Ms. Plucker's classes are completing an animal project integrating multimedia. They also used the voters for test review.
In addition to researching for the teachers, I have been looking at
managing iPad's should we have a cart in the future. One of my goals is
to not only increase technology integration with our existing equipment
but also be prepared for what we acquire in the future. I imagine my time in April will be structured creatively with the CRCT. I will continue to work with second and third grades following Spring Break and then move to fourth and fifth as we prepare for the CRCT. I would like to conduct a mini workshop on Google docs for the teachers soon. It will be a great free and accessible collaborative tool. My main concern at this point is strategy for maximizing technology and program integration. |
Walking Wednesdays!
Safe Routes to School
We had 204 walkers this Walking Wednesday!!! Way to go Oak Grove!!! The weather has been so nice lately (other than the pollen) so please continue to walk and/or bike to school so our number of walkers will keep increasing and we can cut down on traffic. It's a great way to start the day!
Our Classroom Challenge will be held on April 18th. Parents at the entrance, exit and backdoor of the school will tally how many kids from each class are walking or biking and each student in the class with the most students walking or biking that day will receive a prize! If you are interested in volunteering to help with the tallying that morning (or any morning), please go to the sign-up genius link and sign-up. It's www.signupgenius.com/go/walking26. We are still in need of a couple of volunteers.
Remember to be safe and be seen! |
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Sincerely,
Amy Busch
Oak Grove Elementary PTA |
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