September/October 2024

Moving All Students with Stretch Growth

The first month of school focuses on setting expectations for behavior, collaborating with others, and functioning as a learning community. Yet, when setting expectations, how good is good enough? When setting goals as educators and with students around i-Ready performance this year, let’s not settle for “Typical Growth” as good enough; rather, how might we assist all students in attaining “Stretch Growth” by demonstrating true Academic Excellence by Design with rigorous instruction and intentional student supports?

Achieving “Stretch Growth” will not occur, however, without the following elements from the St. Vrain Instructional Framework actively coming to life in classrooms:

Plan & Prepare: Collaborate with colleagues and use Colorado Academic Standards, district curricular resources, student performance data, and advanced technologies to develop dynamic instruction that meets student’s needs.

Engage & Instruct: Facilitate meaningful learning experiences using inquiry, language-rich, explicit instruction, retrieval, and guided practice, and robust academic discourse where students apply knowledge and skills across academic disciplines and in real-world situations. 

Reflect & Adjust: Gather, analyze, interpret, and visualize data to glean meaningful information which can be used to make informed instructional decisions.

Assess & Analyze: Foster student self-direction through purposeful goal setting, progress monitoring, and the evaluation of their own learning.

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Math Updates

Now that the school year is underway and routines have been established, how are you regularly incorporating opportunities for reasoning in math? Beyond the Solve & Share, there are reasoning exercises available in each lesson where students must state justifications or identify someone’s incorrect thinking. How often are we giving students the opportunity to engage in these exercises?

If you’d like to see examples of the Solve & Share in action as a tool for promoting reasoning and mathematical discourse, check out the videos linked in the enVisionmath2.0 Expectations of Practice on page 2.

Assessments communicate expectations. And it’s important we establish the proper expectations for student learning and performance through the assessments we use. All enVisionmath2.0 Topics have a revised Topic Assessment linked for use in the corresponding Unit Plan. These assessments define the minimum level of performance for all students with flexibility for teachers to add additional items.

We strongly encourage teachers to use these assessments instead of the published assessments with enVisionmath2.0. Digital forms of these assessments also exist for Grades 3-5 only. Check out how to use Performance Matters for administering these digital assessments.

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ELA Updates

Building background knowledge is key for students to grow their comprehension skills. 

• Check out the new ELA Website Unit landing pages (which were previously blank) to see the science and social studies unit alignment to support your ReadyGEN texts 
• DLMS has curated text lists in Sora and Insignia that align to the ReadyGEN themes
  • Please avoid reserving texts marked “M” or “H” as they are reserved for middle and high school curriculums & check age ranges to ensure appropriate content.

The Structured Morphology (Levels 4 & 5) drop downs on the main grade level pages for 4th and 5th grade received a glow up:

• All Teacher Guides, morph decks, and assessment companions are available digitally
  • Editable assessment companion activities are also available 
• Level 4 & Level 5 End of Unit Assessments, new mid-unit quick checks, and new assessment trackers are available under Assessments & Quick Checks
• Editable lesson plan templates as well as slide deck templates are available under Lesson Planning Resources

Thinking Maps training for teachers new to St. Vrain is coming! Keep an eye out for an opportunity to register for a training coming in October or November.

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Social Studies Updates

September is packed full of wonderful celebrations in social studies! We have Hispanic Heritage month from September 15 – October 15, and September 17 is Constitution Day.  

Constitution Day commemorates the signing of the Constitution in 1787. This day of tribute asks teachers across the country to engage their students in discussions and lessons on the Constitution. Below are some resources you might find helpful.

1. The Center for Civic Education: Lessons plans for all grade levels
2. The First Amendment: What’s Fair in a Free Country? This lesson is written for grades 3-5.
3. A Lesson on the Preamble: From the National Archive for grades 3-5
4. Development of the Constitution: Lesson for grades 3-5 from the Bill of Rights Institute
5. What does citizenship mean? Lesson for elementary

Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the histories, cultures, languages, and contributions of people whose ancestors come from Spain, Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. The theme for 2024 is “Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together.” Click here for curated classroom resources to use during Hispanic Heritage Month.

Free Webinar from the National Council for the Social Studies: Making Time for Elementary Social Studies

Thursday, September 26, 2024 at 2:30 

Even if you are not able to join, please sign up and NCSS will send you the recording and resources they shared during the webinar! Click here to sign up!

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Science Updates

Help bring your literacy standards to life and improve reading comprehension. Teach More Science!

Think of your science resources as an enhancement to your ReadyGen Literacy Materials. They can help your students build critical background knowledge, which is essential for reading comprehension and will also help bring your literacy standards to life. Learn more and explore the NEW science unit plans.

Hands-On, Minds-On Connections: A reminder, each elementary science unit plan has a collection of Hands-On, Minds-On connections to assist with creating active learners in your classrooms. Learners who are engaged and experiencing relevant phenomena to light that spark of wonder about science in their community. These connections are enhancements to your Mystery Science materials and include Science to Go Kits, Nearpod lessons for each science concept as well as STEM and environmental education activities. 

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Contact Us!

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Previous Updates

August 2024