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Upcoming Events:
MON. (10/22) Red Ribbon Week, Click here for Agenda
Fall Plan Conferences are happening
regularly for the next few weeks. Plan
accordingly
TUES. (10/23) GRIFFIN LAB IS OPEN, Send Students!!!
WED. (10/24) EDMODO SYMPOSIUM --- P.A.C @ 3pm
THUR (10/25) DRAMA SHOW: "The Room" Begins!
FRI. (10/26) TEACHING & LEARNING ABOUNDS!
Support Los Al Athletics All Week Long:
Girls Volleyball, Boys Water Polo, Football,
Girls Golf, X-Country, and Girls Tennis all
compete this week.
Oct. 31 Halloween
Nov. 2 Faculty vs. Girls Basketball Fundraiser
Nov. 9 Superintendent Kropp's 4th Walkthrough
Nov. 15 Deadline for Fall Plan Meeting w/ Admin
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Edmodo Is Coming!
See you Wednesday from 3:00pm - 4:30pm in the P.A.C.
Bring a friend and head over to Los Al's Edmodo Symposium this Wednesday from 3pm - 4:30pm in the Performing Arts Center at Los Alamitos High School.
More than 150 teachers from across the district have already registered for the event, and we'll be hosting 3 interactive sessions on Edmodo during which users will learn how to manage and organize content for their classes, communicate easily with students and parents, connect with other professionals, and grade and assess student work online directly through the website.
It's truly an amazing tool.
So, come by if you can! The presentations will go from 3pm-4pm, and there'll be a 30 minute question and answer session afterwards as teachers discuss the applicability of Edmodo for their content and grade level.
Free gifts for all those in attendance :)
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Think Pink Game & Fundraiser:
Pictures and more from Friday's football game.
What a fun night! Last Friday, Los Alamitos High School and Fountain Valley High School played in the First Annual THINK PINK, BE THE CHANGE Football Game & Fundraiser at Westminster High School.
Not only did Los Al win the game 28-21, both school's raised $3,000 each to support the Susan G. Komen Foundation in their breast cancer research efforts.
In ad dition to raising awareness for breast cancer, both schools issued a challenge that the school who had the most people wearing pink in the stands would watch the other Principal kiss a pig. Needless to say, Los Al had a Pupil Free Staff Development Day last Friday, and was slightly under-represented in the stands. It was all good, though, as Mr. Arnold seemed somewhat excited to pucker up with Gertrude Swine, the name of Debbie Brosius' pig who was used to culminate the night's festivities.
Organized by Melissa Miller from Los Al and Joe Fraser from FV, perhaps the most moving moment of the night was when Survivors from both schools came out on the field during halftime to be recognized. Teachers Barbara Rockwell, a 13-year Survivor from Los Al, and Rachel Woods, a 1-year Survivor from FV, presented their school's check to representatives from The Susan G. Komen Foundation alongside Assistant Superintendents Mark Johnson from Los Alamitos and Carrie Delgado from Huntington Beach Union High School District.
It was a great night for both communities. And we look forward to doing it again next year.
This time, at our house! |
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Griffin Lab:
Now open and ready for business!
In the photo below, Ms. Weis and Mr. Marquez cruise around Griffin Lab offering specific help and assistance for students doing homework and completing projects.
Griffin Lab is up and running, and couldn't be getting of to a better start! Open every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday after school until 4:15pm, the Lab is a place where students can go to get specific homework help from Credentialed Teachers, as well as CSF and other student volunteer tutors.
 What students love about The Lab is the fact that they can get specific one-on-one help from teachers. (Some students are shy, or have schedule conflicts with their everyday teacher.) For them, The Lab is becoming a place where kids can seek extra help in an easy, free, and meaningful way. And best of all, they're greeted by Ms. Davenport, Griffin Lab Coordinator, as soon as they walk in :) She's been recruiting students and teachers to be a part of The Lab with great success, and has been fielding phone calls from parents asking questions about how they can send their child there to complete homework assignments. So use Griffin Lab as a resource, and send students who need help to The Lab after school some day next week!!! As the program continues, and The Lab becomes more successful, we look forward to servicing more and more students, and maximizing student learning outcomes across grade levels and content areas for all! |
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My First Choir Show:
A Memoir
This is not the article you think it is...
This is not an onslaught of words praising the magic and pride on full display at Los Al's first Choir Show of the year, "A New York State Of Mind."
This is far more personal than that.
This is an explanation for why I cried at the show's opening last Thursday night. Here goes...
Has this ever happened to you? You're walking down a hallway at school that you don't normally walk down. You're paying attention to everything because it's all kind of foreign to you, and you don't usually find yourself in this neck of the woods. As you walk by a class you notice some great teaching and some phenomenal learning. Students are excited, engaged, and bursting to do work and demonstrate their knowledge. You stop to see more of the amazing things going on in that class, when you realize that the most engaged student --- the leader, the one with other students and the teacher wrapped around their finger --- is the same student struggling to get a C in your class!
How can that be? How come students can be so successful in one setting, and struggle mightily in others?
After 12 years of working in schools, I'm still not sure. But what I saw at Thursday's Choir Show reminded me of how important The Arts, and multiple settings for learning, are for students.
More specifically, as I watched each student on that stage smile as big as they could, sing as beautifully as they ever had, and dance like their bodies were in control of their minds, I was reminded of the sheer diversity on that stage. And how different all of those student's stories are from one another.
I cried, then, because of the magic that occurs when people who might otherwise not have connected become the best of friends because of a shared interest, unified outcome, and great leader.
Los Al's Choir Program brings students together.
And even if it weren't ranked #1 in the country, it would be just as special, just as robust, and just as important to all those students and families who thrive and excel in the inclusive and rewarding environment created by Mr. Moellenkamp and the program's supporters and parents.
Words don't do it justice... I cried because I could tell how many lives were saved and changed by just being on that stage.
Incredible... |
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The California Shakeout:
Safe & Successful
Last Thursday, millions of Californians came together to practice emergency preparedness in the annual Great California Shakeout.
Mr. Bowen led teams of Search & Rescue volunteers at Los Al through various drills in which students sustained mock injuries and casualties so the school could run through its full gamut of emergency protocols.
As a result, we're pleased to announce that our Emergency Response procedures are sound, and everyone did a great job in running the drill with full efficacy.
Thanks Los Al. In the case of a real emergency, we'll be thankful we got to run through our systems at least once with our current personnel.
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I Kissed A Pig... And I Liked It :)
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SHOW... Don't Tell:
A great teaching technique for all
 .So, this is Matt Harmon,,,
At the time this photo was snapped, he was teaching something about Physics to a group of students that were spouting off formulas with enough x's, y's, and other variables to make alphabet soup for days.
As an observer, with about enough physics background to understand why people don't fall of the roller coasters at Magic Mountain, I was pretty much struggling to make sense of the depth and complexity with which the class was operating.
And then Mr. Harmon took out that water bottle...
The class was talking about a concept in Physics called "work," and its relation to force, energy and distance across various situations. The water bottle helped to make sense of everything. As Mr. Harmon held the bottle in different positions, he asked students where the work was coming from, and how it was being applied. By balancing the bottle on his hand, then holding it by the cap, then grasping it like a cup, Mr. Harmon invited a host of questions about "work" as it applied to the water bottle. The class answered each other's questions as they visually took note of the bottle's infinite possibilities for positioning... and by the time it was over, the students knew what "work" was, and had context and meaning for the formula that followed.
Of course, Mr. Harmon could've just written this on the board, and had students copy:
BORING!!!
Showing vs. Telling... It really does make a difference!
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Our School Within A School:
Los Al's pre-school is top-notch!
The next time you visit Ms. Rea's class, you better bring your "jumping shoes." (For those not in the "know," they're the imaginary shoes every 4 and 5 year-old has to put on before they head into the Jumping Shoes Circle just before snack-time.)
Needless to say, educating 4 and 5 year-olds is wonderful work. But what makes Ms. Rea's class even more special Periods 1 thru 3, is that she does it right alongside Los Al students... teaching pre-school and high school at the exact same time!
Talk about differentiated instruction...
While the little kids play and learn, the big kids are learning how to play. Everything in Los Al's pre-school offering for the community is research-based and highly effective, and all new students taking Ms. Rea's Careers With Children course are paired with experienced students in Year Two or Year Three of the program so that they can receive the best training.
 And you should see their faces. Everyone involved in the program seems to be joyful --- smiling ear to ear every second they get to spend with the little ones :) Even better, many of these Los Al students are getting a head start on the exact career path they intend to explore after high school. A quick poll of the students found that almost all of them are interested in becoming a teacher, working in Child Development, or studying human behavior. Our "school within a school" @ Los Al is truly incredible... and if you get a chance to visit, whether through Instructional Networking or otherwise, there's no doubt you'll agree! Plus, the kids are really cute :) |
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Consider "The Task":
It sounds simple, but that's all it takes to maximize student learning
As this student in Ms. Lundblad's Algebra class goes up to the board to complete a problem, tons of things are happening: 1) She's learning whether or not she mastered a skill, 2) the other students are evaluating her answer, and also learning whether or not they have mastered the math skill, 3) comradery is being developed in this cohort of students as the girl doing the problem shows trust in being vulnerable to student responses to a possible wrong answer, and so on and so on...
The task, here, makes all the difference. Just imagine if Ms. Lundblad checked for understanding by having every student do the problem individually on the paper in front of them... much less learning would occur.
Now, what about this student?
 You'll notice that he's got multiple colored pens at his desk ready to take notes. In fact, every student in this Science class is doing the same thing --- it's part of the teacher's note-taking protocol.
Here, the task is to color-code different parts of the notes based on what scientific process they refer to. This is helpful in a number of ways: 1) students have more meaningful notes from which to study from going forward, 2) students make choices about how to color code on their own, these choices are part of mastering the content knowledge. 3) the colors and pens work as organizational tools, sectioning information into smaller "chunks" so that it's more usable at later point in time.
Again, the task changes the amount, and way, students learn.
The same is true with these two...
The task in this class was to get started on the "You Do" portion of the lesson --- homework, or application of skill. The only caveat was that you had to "verify" each answer with another student in class before moving on.
Great idea!
What ended up happening was deep and meaningful collaboration and re-teaching, as students worked closely with different partners on each problem. The best part, though, was when students got different answers. This meant that further reinforcement of the skill needed to be done, and that would occur peer-to-peer, instead of always coming from the teacher.
The task changes everything! It sounds simple, but it's true.
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Queen For A Day
A Los Al Tradition: If it's your birthday... you better get ready to sit in that chair :)
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NEW PICTURE DOWNLOADING SITE
From now on, if you need a picture from any of these Monday Morning Memos,
The pics there are high quality, easy to access, and always downloadable.
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Los Alamitos High School
3591 Cerritos Ave.
Los Alamitos, CA 90720
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