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. 

Pre-K Model Classroom Visit (9/10/14)

See the attached images from Ms. Harper's Pre-K classroom at Carver Elementary. These components should be present in a balanced literacy Pre-K classroom.

What's Happening Around Lyon Academy? September 5th, 2014

It may have been only a four day week, but there is still a lot of great work happening around our school! Take a look at some of the great postings in classrooms throughout the building that were spotted this week! Be sure to give these teachers a "high five" when you see them! If you know someone who has a great item  in their class or you have something you would like to share, please e-mail a picture to me at Tyler.Archer@slps.org! 

Mr. Bartlett's sixth grade students created an anchor chart to help illustrate how the eye perceives light and is able to see. 

Another of Mr. Bartlett's anchor charts is a student-friendly depiction of the states of matter and includes an explanation of the drawings. 

Ms. Colacino created an anchor chart of "Power Reading" strategies to help that students can refer to in order to become stronger readers throughout the year. 

Ms. McCord has created two posters that give students a visual reminder of thinking stems to use when speaking and writing testable questions and arguments. 

Ms. Cleland created an anchor chart for her students identifying characteristics of realism and fantasy, then had them participate by doing an extension activity with Post-It notes. 

Mr. Swanston has posted new student work with a rubric and SLPS Project Description sheet. Students completed projects about careers they wanted to pursue when they grow up. 

Finally, Mrs. DeLeon gave her students a framework for comparing two pieces of art by designing a Venn Diagram with higher level questions.