What a week!

I'm confident in saying that the last seven days have been the most intense of my

19 years in CPS. It was about at this time last week when the iPads stopped communicating and my weekend took a turn for the worst. Looking back now, it was a great opportunity to see that our Cedar Ridge staff is the most patient and hardworking group of people around! You all were truly impressive in handling the week. All the preparation and collaboration paid off big time. But I'm glad it's over (knocking on wood right now)...

Wondering how things are going across the school? Check out these stats from SeeSaw (this hasn't been updated with Friday's activity, so it's just three school days!):

For those of you who are new here, I try to send out a weekly blog with highlights and updates. My goal is to only send emails for time sensitive issues and keep the main info here. This blog is linked on the Media Center website for anytime access. Here we go...

Circulation Plan
We will begin circulating books next week. The plan is to start with kindergarten and 5th grade. I'll be connecting with 5th graders on Monday to show them how to place holds in Destiny. We will check those out to them and have them ready for pickup. The little people will drive up and will pick from a mobile library. We have 127 book bundles ready (thanks Stormi, Stephanie, and Emily). Colleen is creating something really special to display the books. Seriously, it's going to be incredible!! Here are the current times for pickup:

Thursday 11-1
Friday 11-3

If you teach kindergarten or 5th grade, I'm going to attempt to send out an announcement to them via SeeSaw admin with directions. I'll let you know how it goes! Once I get a look at the process next week, I'll start bringing other grades online. 

Overdues
The Locust/Cedar Ridge library currently has over 400 overdue books. That's a

roughly $5000 expense. Starting Monday, I will place a book return on the front porch. Please message your families and ask them to return their books. I will be sending out a video next week on how to login to Destiny and see what is overdue. I will also start messaging families through SeeSaw directly at some point.

Specialist Zoom Info
In the spirit of continuity, please make sure you are posting the document I sent you for specials on Wednesday. Each specialist will also be posting an activity in SeeSaw for all their classes to access the link. Participation was great this week and we're excited to see them again on Wednesday.

Matt Time For Your Class
I would like to make contact with your students next week. I have a scope and sequence to follow each week. I didn't bring that up initially because you are totally booked. I also looked at what they wanted me to do and pretty much all of it is being handled by you right now anyway. So please contact me to schedule a time to join in and a topic to cover. I am planning on just 10-15 minutes of a focused skill. I'll do the same thing for each grade. For 5th grade for example, I'm getting them set up with Destiny and Sora.

STEAM Home Integration
Next week I'll be formulating a plan for home based STEAM activities. One piece will be the ability for students to check out materials we have at school (Spheros, Dash and Dot, Ozobots, Cubelets, etc). Each device will come with directions and challenges to complete. I'm hoping to get that up and running the following week. 

That's it for now. You all did an amazing job this week. Rest up this weekend!