Mondays: Teen issues. GREAT VIDEOS and resources   If you haven't created an iTunes account on your laptop and you need help, let me know. If you already have an iTunes account, make sure you check out the George Lucas Educational Foundation videos. They are FREE, there are tons, and they are high quality. They directly address issues related to character education. And speaking of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, pease see their website. It's FANTASTIC because it has tons of interesting, helpful, useful videos, lesson plans, and articles. http://www.edutopia.org/ 

Tuesday and Wednesday: character education: Schoolwide Expectations Posters   If you have not yet begun or completed the schoolwide expectations posters that Ms Ross has requested, please complete those in Advisory this week.

More character education: Canned food drive Thanksgiving will be upon us right away. Advisory is THE place to address a can food drive as part of a service learning project. Ideas: make decorated collection boxes to place throughout the school; make posters to inform and motivate the students; check out a video from the library and have the students write the script and act in and direct a short movie about poverty, hunger, need, or homelessness or just about Thanksgiving!  More to come, as I do not yet know who normally runs the canned food drive, and need to coordinate with them.

Character ed in content classes: See  "Using Character Ed in the classroom" to combine content with character .

Thursdays: Academics Use one of the games in your binder (sparkle, chain reaction) to have fun with science vocabulary; allow students to catch up with homework they may have missed (progress reports are going out and I know my kids missed a few assignments they need to make up)  

Fridays: free choice introduce the possibilities of the computer lab as options!! See your binder for some ideas. If you need help with any of the computer issues let me know!!!!!

Materials you may need beforehand: butcher paper, markers, and things  to make posters.

For Brainpop episode on graphic design: the username is burnetms, password is 8401

Tuesday: Discussion topic: why do we have advisory? Ask if students can articulate the purpose of advisory. Talk about shared values, common culture, and a positive campus. Talk about what prevents those things. Introduce the PBS advisory assignment Ms Ross already forwarded to the campus. Inspire them with a Brainpop episode about art and culture such as "Graphic Design, a Language of Visual Communication."   

Wednesday and Thursday : work on posters. The topic for October is courage. Discuss ways that it takes courage to go against peer pressure  and how it takes courage to be a leader and to  refuse to be pressured into doing things you know are wrong, such as tagging, skipping.    

Friday: trusted students can go put up posters in small groups; those that need supervsion could be led around campus to pick up trash.
 
In case you misplaced Jane's email about PBS posters:

Dear Burnet Sailors, The PBS team met this morning, and one of the topics that we discussed was signage for common areas. (We will email minutes of the meeting to everyone.) Last year, departments created and posted signs. This year, the team decided that advisories will create and post signs. The expectations for you to use when creating and posting signs is: S:\shared\staff\2008-2009 folders\Sailor Manual -  Behavior Management Plan     Cut and paste this link on the address line of your browser. Signs are most effective when students create them. :)

Which Advisories are responsible for creating/posting which signs? Arrival = 6.1 Dismissal = 6.2 Cafeteria = 7.1 Hallways = 8.1 Restrooms = ESL Assemblies = 7.2 SAIL = 8.2
Please create and post the signs by October 31st.

We thank you very much for being such a terrific group of teachers! With good thoughts, Jane

This blog is the heart of our advisory website. This is where we'll be posting weekly lesson ideas and asking you to comment on them. Stay tuned for our first post.