Fuller Elementary and Connolly Middle School

Day 2 in schools! Today we headed off by 6.50am to pick up Kathy and headed to Fuller Elementary where Crissi teaches. We signed in and received our visitor badges, and then headed to the staff room, where the staff had prepared a potluck breakfast as a way of welcoming us to the school, we felt very overwhelmed at everyone's generosity, especially as they had also supplied an Elvis for Kathy and also kiwi fruit. Breakfast included, fruit, blueberry or apple toast, donut holes, chocolate cake, cinnamon rolls etc
We then headed off for our next tv appearance! Crissi, Kathy and I gave the morning notices and introduced ourselves, apparently our accents are cute and we were in demand to talk to classes later!
2 wonderful boys from grade 5 showed us around Fuller. Fuller School ( like all the schools we have been in so far) have an amazing library space. The centre of Fuller is the library, with all classrooms leading off this area. As we wandered through, everyone was very welcoming , and many students had great questions to ask about NZ ( I am sure they just wanted to hear us talk!), we enjoyed looking at the many displays on the walls and seeing classes and teachers in action.  We then meet with Ken W, the principal at Fuller. He was very generous with his time and we were able to discuss the job as educational leaders of our schools, what our different jobs entails and how our days look. There were many similarities and also many differences.
At Fuller the classroom environments were bright and attractive, students were engaged and always polite and well mannered, Ken explained their data walls, we talked to many teachers and students, and it was very obvious to see the collegiality between staff.
After lunch, a turkey and lettuce hoagie, we went back to Crissi's class where I read them a story about a penguin and Kathy showed them a finger rhyme. Crissi then dropped us off to Connolly Middle School.
We were meet by the Principal, Kathy, who was very proud of her school. They have  about 1100 students, over 3 grade levels,
which are equivalent to our years 7,8,9. We were given a whirlwind tour by Mary Kay, who was just delightful. They have 2
different programmes running, one is across the school called AVID, (www.avid.org ) which has been running for about 5 years, about 90% of all staff have been trained, and it is a way of teaching students to learn, to be organised and take responsiblity for their own learning. It was very impressive, and seems to be getting results. they also had aASPIRE, which is a programme for gifted kids. Music is also a very strong feature of the school. One of the high points of the afternoon, was when Kathy meet up with Debbie, her former Tempe sister.
We then did some shopping then headed back to Crissi's for tea. Taylor had it all ready for us. After tea we played the icecream game with Riley, where small tubs of ice cream had their labels hidden and you had to take a taste and write down their ingredients, that's was fun!
We then dropped Kathy back at Janice's. Today was a day that felt a bit funny to be away from NZ and family, it was Tony's birthday ( Happy birthday Tony) and Laura returned from her latest OE ( welcome home Laura).