Having spent the first 11 years of my career teaching first and second grade, I definitely believe K-2 can too. The youngest learners are capable of deep academic discourse, higher levels of thinking, sharing their voice through writing and podcasts, creating multimedia presentations, and collaboratively working to solve problems.

As a first grade teacher I enjoyed seeing my students discover themselves as readers. I have to mention this first because it was the reason I became a teacher, the reason I love first grade, and the reason I will always be a first grade teacher at my core. It's truly incredible to witness students enter first grade experimenting with letters, words, and sentences, followed by determination, struggle, and perseverance, and then celebrating the success of becoming a reader. What a gift! As a first grade teacher I've had the pleasure of watching my students analyze different texts, evaluate math problems, solve problems with flexibility and a variety of strategies, and become "makers." My students loved making and designing their own science experiments. They loved story boarding and writing their original pieces of writing. They loved creating iMovie projects and sharing their expressive voices on GarageBand enhanced podcasts.

K-2 can too.

Now as an instructional coach I am always advocating for our youngest learners. This includes Math Talks (or Number Talks), Open-Ended Problem Stems, deep academic discourse during interactive read alouds, and integrating Educational Technology in their work through apps like iMovie, Google Apps, SeeSaw, Swivl, and more. I love sharing design challenges and going through the design thinking process with students in grades K-2.

​Recently, I learned of a few Breakout EDU games for students in kindergarten, first and second grades and was excited to try them. Ann Kozma, a TOSA for #fsdlearns, shared a Thanksgiving-themed Breakout EDU game back in November that I can't wait to try with the classes, teachers, and students I support. [It's incredible how your professional learning network, PLN, shares! The #TOSAchat community is indeed an amazing tribe!] Susan Stewart, an Ed Tech consultant, from Fresno, CA, shared a Dr. Seuss-themed Breakout EDU game that I was able to facilitate with three classes (a kindergarten and two first grade classes) at Escondido Elementary School this past week. It was definitely such a great experience for everyone involved. The teachers were all initially nervous about how it would be considering their students hadn't experienced a whole-class collaborative game like Breakout EDU games before. I could tell that a couple of teachers nervously watched their students work out the clues and puzzles. At the end of each game, the student cheered excitedly as they opened the box, the teacher felt an incredible sense of pride at how the students worked out the problems, and everyone wanted to have another Breakout EDU game. At the end of each game I closed the activity by asking the Kindergarten and first grade students what they learned about Dr. Seuss and what they learned about themselves. The answers to the second question was definitely examples of how #K2CanToo.
"I learned that I'm good at solving puzzles."
"I learners that we can break into the box when we all work together."
"I learned that we can keep trying if we don't get it open the first time."
​"I learned that it's better to work as a team than by yourself."

I have long been talking about the amazing benefits of BreakoutEDU games. It is wonderful for students, teachers, professional development, and more.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I've had the pleasure of playing and facilitating games with so many wonderful teachers and coaches.

• One of the first experiences was Jody Green's original Disney themed game she led for a TikiTOSA gathering during the runDisney Star Wars Half Marathon weekend on January 16, 2016. Ann Kozma's tweet captured the excitement we all had, meeting each other face to face after a lot of tweets and connections on #TOSAchat, an evening chatting and getting to know each other, and playing the BreakoutEDU game.
• Another wonderful BreakoutEDU experience was playing a game led by Lindsey Blass and Amanda Haughes at the first #ConnectedTL Meet Up, Tweet Up gathering, in Campbell.
• Of course, I always have to mention Valerie Sabbag's fifth grade class' integrated project involving BreakoutEDU - learning math through the study of measurement, area, volume, and angles as they build their own boxes, and writing their own games tied to their Reader's and Writer Workshops.
• Partnering with Sabba Quidwai during one of EdTechTeacher's summer workshop on design thinking during the summer of 2016, I got to facilitate a game in a professional development setting with teachers from all over the state and beyond.

Throughout this process of playing Breakout games and facilitating games, I really enjoyed writing my own games. It was definitely one of those things I spent my 20% time focusing on. To date, I've completed four games, with many games I've started brainstorming clues for the various locks. My first game, a TV Show themed game, was a fun first try and writing a game. I definitely learned how to make the game better after playing it at another TikiTOSA meet up in Southern California (during the runDisney Disneyland Half Marathon weekend - September 2016) where the group broke out in just seven minutes. The second game I wrote was a Math themed game geared towards fifth graders. Valerie Sabbag's fifth graders helped beta test the game on the last day before winter break. The third game I wrote was a Disney themed game (inspired by Jody Green's game).

The most recent game I completed started with a tweet by Kristi Van over winter break asking if there was an existing BreakoutEDU game focused on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for third graders. Over winter break, Kristi, Valerie, and I collaboratively wrote the MLK BreakoutEDU game. With the experience of writing my previous games, I was able to write clues that were appropriate for third graders to solve. It was definitely a collaborative approach with Valerie's idea, as I always find it most difficult to write clues for the directional lock.

This week I had the pleasure of facilitating the game to four third grade classes in PAUSD - Kristi Van's, John Brubaker's, Helena Holmes', and Penelope Sanders-Jones' classes. It was wonderful to see the third graders work together, use their research skills, collaborate, and exercise a lot of persistence to open the box! After each game I asked for feedback from the kids and got some creative and thoughtful suggestions to improve the game and also for future games. In all four classes, the students shared how much they enjoyed the game and thanked me for sharing it with them. To me, I was the lucky one - to have four colleagues that are open to me trying a BreakoutEDU game with their students.

This most recent BreakoutEDU game I wrote focused on MLK is linked here. Please share your thoughts, feedback, and suggestions so I can continue to make it and my future games better. Please do keep in mind that this game is geared for third graders (with one labeled clue that is adapted for advanced players).

"Curriculums come and go. Standards are here to stay."

This was the phrase that prompted my work with grade level teams on examining the CCSS-Math standards. Elementary school teachers in the Palo Alto Unified School District are in the middle of a pilot year to select new math curriculum that scheduled to be implemented during the 2017-2018 school year. PAUSD has been using Everyday Math for eight years with a lot of conflicting opinions of the curriculum between the staff and parents. There are many schools that have used it with fidelity while some schools have moved onto using other math curricula to meet the needs of their students and align with the Common Core State Standards, including EngageNY. No matter what curriculum teachers use, quality pedagogy that focuses on the success of all students, aligned to the Common Core State Standards and the 8 Mathematical Practices is the key.

I share the belief (and fact) of many that there is no perfect curriculum. My view is that any curriculum acts more like a GPS navigator. Throughout the school year, teachers make professional and purposeful decisions to use supplemental materials to meet the needs of their students. As a result, the progression of lessons in any curriculum is paused or altered. These professional and purposeful decisions is the science of teaching and no curriculum can replace the science of teaching. Instead, the curriculum as a GPS navigator to guide the teacher back on a predetermined path when necessary decisions to change the path are made. Like any road trip, the driver (the teacher) can make purposeful decisions to alter the suggested path (of the curriculum guide).

The biggest part of this analogy is the focus on the destination - meeting the grade level standards. An effective curriculum is designed to bring all students to meet CCSS at the end of the school year. Focusing on the destination of CCSS is the key aspect of the standards mapping activity.

Working with grade level teams, I've lead teachers to read and better understand the CCSS Math standards for their grade levels. It's been a powerful exercise, evidenced by teachers commenting that they "didn't know that was the actual language in the standards," that they didn't have to "teach concepts they've taught before" which saves them time to focus more on the concepts that have been problematic for their students, and that they see how to address "standards at each trimester of the school year." The exercise provided teachers the chance to identify which concepts/standards was important to address at each trimester in order to build understanding that leads to practice and mastery by the end of the school year. Of course, each of the above standards cards is meant to be mastered by the end of the school year, AND having an understanding of the progression of concepts throughout the school year helps gain a bigger picture of the professional and purposeful instructional decisions.

Having a deeper understanding of the Common Core State Standards is definitely an important piece of instruction.
- to know the destination of the school year,
- to know what's important to address at each point of the year and how concepts build,
- to be able to teach to those standards no matter which math curriculum is used (or selected in PAUSD),
- to see curriculum maps as guides to meeting CCSS and professional instructional decisions are far more important,
- to be able to see how "concepts build from grade to grade."

It's definitely important to remember that We don't teach curriculum; we teach students. Be mindful of the standards - the end destination, however, remember we teach students.

What an incredible experience serving as the principal for PAUSD's elementary summer school program! It was such a pleasure and privilege serving the students, teachers, and school staff.

After writing a reflection after the fifth day, which was a very vulnerable piece for me, many colleagues encouraged me to write a final reflection. It's hard to capture all the excitement and creativity from the students and teachers in a blog post. Hopefully the sampling of pictures below will help show the wonder of this year's summer school.

1) The Students.
This structure of summer school really had an affect on the students. Through the work of the district's Minority Achievement and Talent Development committee (MATD) one of the recommendations was to shift the focus of summer school from the traditional efforts of intervention and remediation to enrichment. Their research, studies, and analysis of data revealed that the majority of students in traditional summer intervention programs don't make significant improvements in math and literacy. Students who attend summer school have also not been in favor of attending summer school. Why go to school during the summer to work on things you struggle with and feel the effects of having this knowledge, the social aspect of others knowing this, and also missing out on experiencing things often associated with the summer months? In addition, many students who attend summer school have parents who are working full-time and may not have the opportunity or the means to provide those summer activities. As a result, summer school focused on enrichment was created. Make the program so exciting with enrichment opportunities that students will want to attend summer school. Provide students enrichment opportunities that they otherwise may miss due to the challenges of time and resources. Engage the students in design thinking and design challenges, genius hour, passion project, MysterySkype, science and engineering projects, discussions about growth mindset and neuroplasticity, field trips to The Computer History Museum and Hiller Aviation Museum, creative art projects, number talks, and interactive read alouds.

This was definitely achieved throughout the summer as I saw students come off the buses smiling, greeting me and their teachers, asking what they'll do that day, and many running to class. Students wanting to come to school. This was evident on the last day by the tears on many faces as they walked towards the bus at dismissal. "I'm going to miss you, Ms. ----." "I don't want summer school to end."

2) The Staff.
It was an absolute pressure serving and partnering with the teachers, aides, custodians, librarian, secretary, campus supervisor, and coach during summer school. The teachers were all committed, dedicated, and passionate educators who were creative, curious, flexible, and purposeful with their lessons with the students. It was such a powerful summer experience for all. Partnering with Jenna Segall, a fifth grade teacher at Palo Verde who served as the principal for the first session of summer school, was such an incredible experience. Jenna truly made the transition from the first session to my second session smooth.

As mentioned in my Fives for Five post, I really worked on communicating my appreciation and acknowledgement of the teachers' hard work. Often, a teacher's efforts goes unnoticed and it's important to show recognition of those efforts. I feel it's equally important during summer school, if not more. Those teachers could've spent their summers doing a variety of things but they chose to share their summer with the students. What a wonderful gift to the students.

Before I began this position as summer school principal I made a plan to recognize and acknowledge the teachers' efforts.
Week 1: write personalized thank you cards appreciating teachers sharing their summer with the students.
Week 2: send an email message to teachers' principal during the school year sharing the awesome ideas and projects their teachers are sharing during summer school (copying the teacher on the message as well).
Week 3: make personalized etched glasses for the teachers along with the staff appreciation brunch on the second to the last day of summer school.

3) The Curriculum.
Having a summer school program focused on enrichment and 21st century skills providing the teachers the freedom and flexibility to create their own lessons and curriculum. It was great to see the teachers try out lessons and activities they were passionate about, interested in exploring, and took risks in trying. It was an honor and pleasure to observe and support teachers with all their wonderful activities and lessons. Some were:

• Designing model cars
• Designing bird feeders
• Egg drops
• Lessons around growth mindset and neuroplasticity
• Amazing art projects
• Exploring items that sink or float in regular water and salt water
• Creating parachutes
• Engineering Is Elementary kits
• Explorations with soil, dirt, and bridges

​My experience with summer school definitely wasn't all smooth and easy. With any position in any profession, there are successes and challenges. As mentioned in my Fives for Five blog post, I faced many challenges during that first 5 days, which continued throughout the summer. However, ...

​On the last day of summer school, I faced the biggest challenge of all. The night before the last day I received an email from one of the teachers asking if we could talk the next day. When we met, she shared with me her suspicion of physical child abuse with one of her students by the child's father. A call to CPS. In my over ten years of being an educator I never made a call to CPS (fortunately). On this last day of summer school I was making my first CPS call. What makes this situation extra unique was the teacher who shared her suspicion was entering her first year of teaching. What a way to start a career.

In short, after contacting my supervisors for advice and guidance, I assisted the teacher in calling CPS, filled out and faxed the report, recorded the entire experience, and circled back with my supervisors to share what happened. A call to CPS - on the last day of summer school. What a way to end the summer.

Summer school principal. What an incredible experience - seeing the students' excitement and engagement, supporting the teachers, seeing the fantastic activities and lessons, and, of course, all the challenges as well. I didn't really consider applying for this principal position; my boss suggested that I apply. Now, as summer school is over, I am definitely glad I did. What an incredible experience!

Today is Day 5 of the second session of PAUSD's elementary summer school program. It has been truly an amazing experience serving as the principal for this second session. As the days progressed after writing my post about the first day, I started gathering my thoughts about the successes and challenges of each day. Today, being the fifth day of summer school, I wanted to list five successes, five challenges, and five tips for new principals - not that I am at all a school principal myself since I am just serving as summer school principal. The list of tips/reminders is just a way to help those who are stepping into the role of principal.

1. The Students' Engagement and Excitement. The absolute best part of this week and my experience as summer school principal is being able to see the excitement and engagement from the students with the STEM, engineering, design thinking, ..., projects. It's truly amazing to see how the students connect with the lessons, activities, and projects. The students smile, laugh, work together, try again with failures, and want to continue the learning as they head home each day.
2. The Teachers' Dedication and Commitment. None of the excitement and engagement can be possible without the dedication and commitment from the summer school teachers. Today, I personally thanked each one of them (the teachers, aides, custodial staff, librarian, secretary, and coach) for sharing their summer with the students. Instead of enjoying their summer with trips, sports, ... they chose to share their time with the students. That has to be recognized. Their dedication, commitment, and hard work has to be recognized.
3. ​Communication. A great success for me was being prompt and proactive with my communication. Prior to starting this week's service as principal, there were so many email messages being sent about a change in the schedule of students taking a different bus at the end of the day to attend an after school camp at another campus. After I sent a reply asking for clarification, I received feedback from the program director that it was great that I engaged in the process of ensuring the safety of the students after each day at summer school. Another example of the success in communication was sending email messages on the second day of my service to the location of our field trips during week 2, the transportation department at the district office, and also food services to confirm all the details of our trip. Being proactive in checking the details of our field trip schedule, times that the bus picks up and drops off, and the delivery schedule of snacks/lunch for the students on our field trip days was very important to ensure the success of our field trips.
4. Personal Greetings. Beginning each morning and ending each day greeting and talking with staff members, students, and parents was a very successful part of these first five days. It sets the tone for the day. It fosters connection and community. It communicates trust, kindness, and a message that I'm happy to see them.
5. Partnering with and Supporting the Teachers. I started this role with a few guideposts in mind. I knew my position as the administrator of summer school was one of support. Supporting teachers deliver their enriching lessons was an honor that I had. My position was one of partnership. I knew I was a partner with the teachers in their brainstorming, their celebration of the students (I shared in their celebration through many tweets), and their management of behaviors. My view of my leadership position was one that led by walking alongside the teachers.

1. Starting Day 1. Nothing can ever prepare you for day 1 as an administrator. When someone works at becoming a teacher, there's internships, the teacher prep program, student teaching, and more. When someone works at becoming an administrator, there's the administrative credential program, the masters program, but there's no "student administrator" position. Even if you have the opportunity to start as an assistant principal, there was no true prior experience. Day 1 was intense. All the nerves, anxiety, fear, ... that you'd been feeling days and weeks leading up to day 1 bubbles up and manifests itself as you start working on the countless tasks before you: checking class lists, placing high school volunteers, issuing classroom keys to new staff members, checking bus tags and bus schedules, ensuring snacks from food services are ready, preparing to introduce yourself as principal, ...
2. Volunteers. As mentioned above, placing the high school volunteers was quite a challenge (this could be volunteer adults and parent volunteers). On day 1, I had four high school volunteers who were starting their volunteer hours with this second session of summer school. I had to ask them which grade level(s) they're interested in helping, ask staff members who could use the help of volunteers, and try to find a match that would hopefully ensure each person found the partnership helpful and productive.
3. Working Relationships. Prior to starting this role of principal, I was a colleague to the summer school teachers. This week I took on a different role. With it there seemed to be an apprehension from the teachers to speak to me, a seriousness in our conversations, ... As much as I worked on partnering and supporting teachers (which is definitely a success as listed above), I kept hearing phrases in my head: "You're not fit to be principal. They're watching you. Why are you doing that? Are they judging me?" The working relationships was definitely a challenge I faced that may have been self-inflicted but nevertheless a challenge of beginning this position of principal.
4. Dealing with Behavior Issues. As a classroom teacher, you have the opportunity to build connections with your students that can help you with combatting and preventing behavior issues. Knowing your students helps a great deal. As an administrator, especially a summer school principal, you don't always have the luxury of knowing the student that gets sent to the office. You don't necessarily know which path to take with the child, which method would be most effective. As a new principal with students who are new to you, it feels like your attempts are like shooting in the dark.
5. Changes in Schedules. A specific challenge I faced this week was with changes in the students' busing schedule. Some students needed to take a different bus for after school programs they needed to go to and got on the wrong bus. After several phone calls with transportation, the bus drivers, and the parents, we reach solutions to ensure the safety of the child, but it sure wasn't an easy process.

Again, in no way do I consider myself an administrator. I don't believe serving as a principal for the summer school program qualifies me to speak on this topic much. I question whether this section is of any value to others. However, all of that may just be that self-deprecating voice in my head, and this current feeling of newness and reflection of the position I started five days ago will never be back. This is a unique feeling, unique time in my career. With that notion and with my reflection, the following list of five tips/reminders/things to think about is just to offer my perspective of this administrative position.
1. Always be in your Teachers' Corner. As mentioned on point five of the five successes, partnering and supporting your teachers is paramount to the success of you as an administrator. Guide your staff. Empower them to grow themselves. Always believe in them. This is true of the "star teachers" and those who need support.
2. Get to know Everyone. Greet everyone, get to know your staff and students, learn about each person's strengths, areas of growth, passions, joys, concerns, ... This will help with building positive school culture, staff morale, connections with students, and a sense of community. As commonly mentioned in teaching credential programs, the two most important people on a school campus are the secretary and custodian. Get to know them.
3. Schedule your time. Create time limits for being in the office, checking your email inbox, ... and get into classrooms. The classrooms are where the magic is happening. The classrooms are where the joy is found. Scheduling timeframes to do administrative things and sticking to those time limits will help free your time / prioritize your time to get in the classrooms.
4. Look Ahead. In any position, having a sense of the big picture is important. Knowing what's coming down the line is important to plan, prepare, and to be proactive. Sometimes, you can get caught up on the details of the task or the day. Keep an eye on the big picture. Think about what's scheduled next week, next month. Think about potential issues that may arise. Think about ramifications of each action you take.
5. Reflect and Celebrate. With all things, at [the end of] all times, remember to stop, breathe, reflect, and celebrate. You are doing great work. You are working collaboratively with professionals to help children learn, grow, think, question, comprehend, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, discover, design, construct, fail, recover, revise, ... and live.

Today, Monday, July 11th was my first day of summer school in PAUSD's elementary summer school program. What a fantastic start to my service as summer school principal. The summer school program had been in session for three weeks already with students engaged in design challenges, engineering activities, math talks, interactive read alouds, and more, and I had the pleasure of joining the program today.

It was great to be able to have this job-share opportunity for the principal position. Jenna Segall (@MrsSegall) served as the principal for the first three weeks (and the ESY week during the week of July 4th for students whose IEP required four consecutive weeks of summer school). As noted in previous blog posts, Jenna and I, along with the summer school administrative team, worked together to prepare for the program that included meetings, professional development sessions on design challenges, and plenty of emails. Having this job-share opportunity allowed me to have time during the first part of summer to travel, run, be creative, write breakoutedu games, facilitate workshops with Sabba Quidwai (@askmsq) reflect, read, and relax.

This first day of summer school was a solid day overall. After a somewhat chaotic morning with placing high school volunteers with teachers, working on students' bus tags, and ensuring there was enough supplies for teachers' needs, it was a smooth day. It was great to visit each class, introduce myself, play soccer and basketball during recess, and get to see the great projects the students were engaged in. Classes had wonderful morning messages for the students, design challenges, interactive read alouds, and engineering activities. Some of the highlights included designing parachutes for their gummy penguins and plastic ninja toys, building towers with their choice of materials, and discussions about tools engineers use.

Below are some pictures from today's first day of the second session. One picture in particular is an amazing one. While some may see a pile of mess, the teacher, Laura Wright, and I see a pile of possibilities. I can't wait to continue to see the fantastic projects the students design, plan, prototype, revise, and create.

I've always enjoyed the STEAM, Designing Thinking activity of building paper bridges. I've had the pleasure of sharing this activity with many classes throughout PAUSD from Kindergarten students to teacher workshops. The experiences were always the same - excitement with the hands-on activity, frustration with the paper bridge falling, determination to keep trying, celebration with more and more pennies/nickels being set on the bridge, and requests to keep going.

This activity is quite simple. The challenge is to create a bridge with a single sheet of 8.5 x 11 piece of paper across a 10 inch gap. Paperclips are available but may not be used to attach to the boxes or containers that form the gap.

Recently, I had the chance to share it with Jenna Segall's fifth graders at Palo Verde Elementary School. It was great to see the fifth graders brainstorm ways to construct a strong paper bridge, keep working on their bridges, celebrate their success, and recognize the strength of triangles. This activity definitely helps learners of all ages understand the iterative process of design thinking. One attempt that I haven't seen to that point was tearing the piece of paper in half and trying to make it a longer piece of paper with the paperclips. Such a simple step and yet no one had tried it before when I did the activity with so many people.

Jenna will soon lead this activity with the summer school staff members as our second design thinking professional development activity.

As a child, I never wanted to attend summer school. I wanted my summers to be filled with fun, camps, and playing at the playground. As an adult, I still enjoy my summer breaks. It's definitely a time for me to unwind from the school year, take and attend professional development workshops and conferences, and prepare for the coming year. I've only taught two years of summer school out of my 10+ years as a teacher - one year at math-focused summer program and the other year for a middle school digital arts program I designed.

This summer I have the honor and privilege of being a principal for the summer school program. It's not any ordinary program either. This summer's program, designed by a fellow Elementary TOSA, Arcia Dorsti, is an enrichment program that focuses on student choice and STEAM! Students have the opportunity to engage in Genius Hour, Passion Projects, MysterySkype and MysteryHangout, designing thinking projects, coding, and more. Each day will include aspects of Responsive Classroom, Number Talk and an Interactive Read Aloud.

The summer program is not only a chance for students to take on projects they're interested in, there are opportunities for teachers too. One message in our first professional development meeting for summer school is that the program allows teachers to do projects and units they've wanted to explore and teach but may not have the time and flexibility during the school year. This year's summer school is also for the educators to learn and grow.

I can't wait to support the learning from the students and the teachers this summer! Below is the Padlet we used during our first professional development meeting of ideas and topics summer school teachers are interested in.

​Everyone should know how to program a computer, because it teaches you to think! - Steve Jobs

I had the pleasure of partnering with the first grade classes at Escondido Elementary School in PAUSD on learning coding and computer science. It was fun to begin the time together talking about how the first graders have interacted with technology and computer science before. They shared many wonderful ideas including playing video games, watching Netflix, playing Minecraft, using the microwave, using the SmartBoard in the classroom, using the telephone, and also as simply as turning on the lights. As we continued, our time together, I shared a process of determining the "codes" the students need to use to navigate the "fuzzball" to get the prize. It was definitely an engageing intro activity as the first graders used the directions of up, down, left, and right to program the path of the fuzzball. Starting with a whole-class activity on the easel pad helped established a shared learning experience before the students worked in partners to solve the coding puzzles on the iPad app - Kodable.

It was definitely a great time working with the first graders on the introduction to coding and computer science, the essential lifeskill of trying again when mistakes are made, the process of analyzing mistakes in code, and working with another to solve puzzles.

On Friday, October 30th, I had the pleasure of leading the third graders in Charlotte Fang's class at Juana Briones Elementary School in a Number Talk and the students were highly engaged, shared strong mathematical thinking, and engaged in powerful academic discourse. This was my second time leading a Number Talk with Mrs. Fang's students and it was great to hear the student name the strategies we discussed during our first Number Talk, such as decomposing, using place values, and using friendly or landmark numbers.

This this Number Talk, I led the students in two related problems, to check their application of strategies and concepts from the first problem to the second. It was great to hear the students' strategies, mathematical thinking, and the academic discourse we had around the two problems in the first image above. As in all Number Talks, I chose the problems 4 + 6 + 5 and 24 + 16 + 25 purposefully to see if the students would be able to make an connections between the two problems. It was great to see some common strategies used across the two problems.

It was truly amazing to see the students work so hard on the math problems, especially when the day was filled with Halloween-themed activities. What an amazing pleasure it was for me to share that Number Talk with them

My day at Juana Briones Elementary School continued in April McCandless' second grade class. Mrs. McCandless had asked me to demonstrate how to do an Open-Ended Problem Stem with her students from having that activity introduced to her and other math lead teachers in PAUSD earlier the previous week. I had a fun time coming up with the problem so I could demonstrate the format of an Open-Ended Problem Stem while making it engaging with a Halloween-theme.

After beginning with a quick warm-up problem and reviewing the importance of showing our work, including every step so our thinking is clear, and labeling our work, I introduced the problem above. I got scared at a Halloween Party and hid under the table. Eventually I built up my courage and peeked from where I was and saw 19 legs. Who could be at the party?

The students immediately had this confused look on their faces. "How could there be an odd number of legs?" "What?!?!" "Do you get it?" "I don't understand." Those responses were just the reactions I anticipated. After a bit of encouragement to attempt the problem, suggestions to talk with their partners, and to think creatively, the students really into the problem.

It was really great to hear and see the students' increased flexible thinking with the problem. As you can see in the pictures in the above gallery, some ideas included an alien costume with three legs, a pirate's costume with a peg leg, and a costume of an elderly person whose cane was mistaken for a leg.

In my closing, I complimented the students with the lifeskills they showed during the lesson. I twas great to see the students demonstrate perseverance, collaboration  with partners and as a table group on a difficult problem, effort, and a growth mindset. Those second graders definitely showed an incredible sense of accomplishment and pride when they reflected on their work.


For me, it was an incredible day being at Juana Briones Elementary School - participating in the Halloween Parade, sharing a Number Talk with Charlotte Fang's third graders, and demonstrating an Open-Ended Problem Stem to April McCandless' second grade students.

There was such a buzz in the air at the Back to School Nights at the four elementary schools in Palo Alto Unified School District that I got to experience this evening. Teachers were prepared to share their grade level curriculum programs, expectations, and structures; parents were eager to meet their child's teacher; principals and assistant principals were roaming throughout the schools greeting families and supporting the entire school community, and administrators from the district office were able to stop by to support the entire evening. It's always great to see the excitement at this point of the school year!

One thing I really want to highlight was the process a third grade teacher at Fairmeadow used for her classroom families to sign up for parent volunteer opportunities. It was definitely a great way to manage the sign up process in a paperless manner.

Escondido Elementary School in PAUSD had its Back to School Night last night and I had the pleasure of attending to support the staff, meet some of the members of its PTA, and see the community. It was incredible to see the number of families there for the first hour to get a sense of the after school activities from the booths of programs. There was such an excitement in the air at that time.

In my opinion, it was ambitious to have Back to School Night on day 3 of the school year. Mr. Merrit, Escondido's principal, shared with me that the school's tradition has been to hold its Back to School Night early in the year so parents may have the opportunity to immediately get to know their child's teacher, build relationships with others in the school community, and continue to feel a sense of belonging at the school. That is truly a powerful and purposeful vision for Back to School Night.

As we all enter this new school year, let's remember those things:

• Build partnerships with the parents,
  
• Build relationships with everyone, and
  
• Foster a sincere sense of belonging.