What's Happening Around Lyon Academy? December 11th, 2014

Take a look at several highlights from around our school this week as we prepare for next Wednesday's District Learning Walk. Please take time before the end of the week to ensure that all non-negotiables are present in your classroom.Don't forget to look at previous blog posts to find ideas and examples of non-negotiables in classrooms.
 If you see an anchor chart, student work, or something else in the building you would like showcased for the staff, please send it to Tyler.Archer@slps.org.

Ms. Nertilus has a large, easy to read BBC posted at the front of her classroom. 

Ms. Mosby uses students' interest in Instagram to promote positive relationships with her students. 

Ms. Mosby posts her lesson plans at the door, along with other important information for students. 

Ms. Jones' Word Wall is easy to read, clearly labeled, and sorted by letter of the alphabet. 

Ms. Weininger's anchor chart helps students to determine the next step in a mathematical problem or equation by identifying the required function. 

Ms. McPherson's detailed BBC includes her objective, agenda, do-now and differentiated homework for each grade level (3rd-5th). 

Ms. Cleland's snowman connects student work with the change of the seasons. 

This anchor chart from Ms. Cleland's room can be used throughout the year as students explore themes of different stories they read. 

Ms. Salmo's students completed a visualization activity that also includes a scoring guide. 

Ms. Allen's students recently read the book Bronx Masquerade and wrote poetry inspired by their reading! 

What's Happening Around Lyon Academy? October 30th, 2014

Take a look at several highlights from around our school this week as we prepare for next Wednesday's District Learning Walk. Please take time before the end of the week to ensure that all non-negotiables are present in your classroom.Don't forget to look at previous blog posts to find ideas and examples of non-negotiables in classrooms.
 If you see an anchor chart, student work, or something else in the building you would like showcased for the staff, please send it to Tyler.Archer@slps.org.

Ms. Latta has clearly posted expectations for what students should be doing during IDR time. 

Ms. McCord created an easy visual and written reminder for students about how matter changes states. 

Ms. Richards used a double entry journal format with her students to help them explain their visualizations from the text they read together in class. 

Ms. McPherson's student work bulletin board was a unique twist on the "Arrays" students are learning about in her classroom. 

Ms. Weininger's colorful anchor chart helps remind students how to plot points on a coordinate plane. 

Ms. Jones uses an acronym to review order of operations with students. 

Ms. Allen's BBC board is user friendly and easy for students to read. It goes beyond the requirements and gives students even more information about the day's learning. 

What's Happening Around Lyon Academy? October 23rd, 2014

Take a look at several highlights from around our school this week. Please take time before the end of the week to ensure that all non-negotiables are present in your classroom. If you see an anchor chart, student work, or something else in the building you would like showcased for the staff, please send it to Tyler.Archer@slps.org.

Ms. McCord is helping her students to learn about the 50 States by getting postcards from schools around the country! North Dakota was first! 

Ms. Tuthill posts her agenda and tasks for Guided Reading groups behind her Guided Reading table. 

Ms. Cleland's first grade students learned about -sh and -th words through a creative project. 

To help students understand Author's Purpose, Ms. Cleland created a Pie Chart to introduce Persuade, Inform and Entertain! 

Mrs. Williams-Alberty introduced Fact and Opinion to her students by creating two anchor charts. 

Mrs. Mosby's Instagram board in her classroom helps to get her students excited about learning. 

Finally, Ms. Andrews' anchor chart of "9 Thinking Strategies" helps students to break down and solve a complex problem. 

What's Happening Around Lyon Academy? October 17th, 2014

There have been a lot of great anchor charts, student work and classroom activities happening the past several weeks. Here is a sampling that I noticed this week. If you see an anchor chart, student work, or something else in the building that you would like to share with the staff and have featured in the blog, please send it to Tyler.Archer@slps.org.

Mr. Clark's classes created instruments that are prominently displayed outside the office. 

Ms. Colacino uses library book pockets to keep track of books signed out from her classroom library. 

Ms. Colacino's word bubbles promote thinking stems for appropriate conversation in a Responsible Reading Community. 

Mr. Phoenix has created an anchor chart to support students with aligning text in a Microsoft Word document. 

Ms. DeLeon updates her Elements of Art anchor charts throughout the quarter to support student learning of new strategies. 

Mr. Wolfenden incorporates the Weekly Formative Assessment strategies in his classroom to gather knowledge about his students and their mastery. 

Ms. Jones helps her students break down finding the Main Idea in a text. 

Mr. Swanston's anchor chart uses student created Post-It notes to make predictions about what they will be learning in an ongoing unit. 

Ms. Nertilus uses anchor charts to demonstrate to students how to solve problems using both words and numbers. 

Mr. Murphy's students demonstrated knowledge of elements by creating a description of an element of his choice. 

Ms. Brendel teaches color to students by making an anchor chart of red objects. 

Ms. Cleland models text-to-text connections with students by using an anchor chart from a recent read aloud. 

Ms. Richards' students are beginning centers in her classroom and use this anchor chart to refer to classroom expectations. 

Ms. Colacino uses an anchor chart to demonstrate the shorthand she uses to refer to the important aspects of student writing.

If you have read all the way to the end of this blog post and reviewed all the AWESOME things happening in our classrooms be one of the first 4 people to shoot me an e-mail and I will bring you a complimentary Kaldi's Coffee next Friday, October 25th! 

What's Happening Around Lyon Academy? September 25th, 2014

Take a look at some of the great things happening in our classrooms that were spotted this week. If you see an anchor chart, student work or something else in the building you would like to share with the staff and have featured in the blog, please send it to Tyler.Archer@slps.org.

Ms. Salmo's anchor chart, "Turn to Your Partner" demonstrates for students expectations for using an engagement strategy during read alouds. 

Ms. Cleland's anchor chart, "Respectful Words" helps students to engage in conversation with each other in a positive, respectful manner. 

Although not a traditional anchor chart, Ms. McCord has used sentence strips to help students with citing their evidence when making a claim or argument. 

Along with the sentence strips (above), this anchor chart helps students to write compelling, complete and effective arguments. 

Ms. Williams-Alberty modeled for her students how to create a Main Idea and Details chart/table from a read aloud. 

Ms. McPherson created an excellent rubric and aligned her student work to the objectives being taught in her classroom. 

Ms. Colacino's hallway display features her students pictures and their reading goals for the year. 

Finally, Mr. Schwerdt's Volleyball anchor chart proves that even in Gym, anchor charts are useful! 

What's Happening Around Lyon Academy? September 11th, 2014

As we prepare for our first district Learning Walk next week, take a look at some great anchor charts in our classrooms. This week I have chosen to focus on anchor charts that outline expectations for student behavior and responses. As always, if you see something in the building or have something in your room that you would like to have featured on the blog, please send it to Tyler.Archer@slps.org.

Ms. Colacino's anchor chart, "Scholarly Conversations Sound Like..." helps students to think in full thoughts and respectfully agree and disagree with one another. 

Ms. McPherson has clearly posted the expectations for how students show their work in her classroom. 

Ms. Tuthill has a series of anchor charts around her room that she created with students to review expectations for parts of the lesson. 

Ms. Tuthill, posing with her award winning "Poetry Characteristics" anchor chart. 

Mrs. DeLeon tracks class mastery of learning objectives using a data wall in Art.