Gearing up for 2013 – 2014 School Year!

Welcome back to School!  This summer went by – hyper speed.  Lots of changes have taken place over the summer at Crozet.  We have new school furniture in the cafeteria and media center.  Our computer lab has been converted to a Wonder Lounge – part of our Design 2015 school project.

Teachers are opening spaces in their classrooms for student learning.  Outside the school building, Dawn Laine has completed her 2012 Shannon Grant project of painting a map of USA for PE activities – connecting physical fitness with geography.  Our staff did a Geography Twister activity on it – quite fun!

The Shannon Foundation awarded Crozet the second largest grant of $2,590.00 for our Rain Garden Habitat project.  The bio-fill near the parent drop off area will be converted to a Rain Garden Habitat – an outdoor science classroom. All students and staff will be participating in this grant opportunity as we tie our grade level science curriculum to the Rain Garden.  Our second grade team spearheaded this project – thanks to Barbara Huneycutt, Gay Baker and Mara Kuznar.  Our second graders that are now going to be in fourth grade began this journey with their second grade teachers to decide on creating a schoolyard habitat for Crozet. We will keep the community posted as the project begins in the Fall.

Our music teacher also received a shared grant for $750.00 for ukulele instruction for our fourth and fifth graders – to develop and understand basic harmonic function(chords) and provide historic/cultural connection to folk music from a variety of cultures.

In the center of our gym floor, we have a Crozet Eagle!  Students shared how much they wanted an eagle in our gym.

As you can tell, we have many exciting changes.  The critical change for Crozet is our dedication and vision with our Design 2015 project.  Crozet was awarded an innovative Design 2015 grant. We purchased tech tools – 40 Chromebooks and 18 iPad minis and our computer lab is converted into a Wonder Lounge – a contemporary collaborative learning space for our students to create and construct their own learning to model a general collaborative learning space and set up a space for tinkering, making, and engineering to grow out design thinking and creativity..

Our grant’s vision and theme is Building Community with Contagious Curiosity and Creativity through Wonder.  We will develop community partnerships to foster curiosity and creativity as we investigate and discover who we are. Exploring community, students construct their own questions, grow in understanding of their own and others’ perspectives and find and share their own answers. Through social and community connections with our new Crozet Library, Meadows and Morningside, students build empathy and understanding of others, which impacts how they interact with the world.  Each grade level has used their grade level SOL to set a focus for students to explore “Who We Are” while expanding their ability to pursue interests and curious questions meaningfully and share their work locally ­and globally.

Our school improvement goals are in its developing stage to support this vision for the school and county.  Here are our (work in progress) student-centered school improvement goals;

Goal 1 – Student Learning Goal – Life-long Learner Standard #3 – we feel this will be the glue that connects everything together with state content objectives and 21st century skills – community, creativity, collaboration, critical-thinking.

All Crozet students will think analytically, critically and creatively to pursue new ideas, acquire new knowledge and make decisions.

Goal 2 – School Climate/Culture – we will create a school climate committee of teachers and students

Crozet Elementary School will create a collaborative school climate that respects individual differences and builds a sense of community.

Goal 3 – Digital Integration – Professional Development

Crozet teachers will learn and implement two ACPS design strand principles – (1)Choice/Comfort=The 4 C’s and (2) Connectivity – essential in every learning space to increase student engagement.

Yes, what a long winded blog – I hope you can feel the energy rising from this school and where it is headed.  Our teachers and I  will keep you posted through this blog, electronic classroom newsletters and tweets!

One more important item – check out our new PTO web site and our wonderful eagle logo – www.crozetpto.org

Partner up with our PTO to provide us support to our student body as we take this journey of expanding our horizons with innovation!

IMAGES OF CHANGE

 

2 thoughts on “Gearing up for 2013 – 2014 School Year!

  1. I love Crozet Elementary. I love my friends counceler prinable and i love to be kind to people who are mean or nice. Thank You For This Wonderful School!

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