Since it is the end of the second quarter, we have been doing a lot of testing in the computer lab. Most students are tested in reading and math and the older students are also tested on their keyboarding speeds.

We have started the documentary film project in 5th grade where the students get to be on teams to make a documentary about how to fulfill Paul Bethke's dream to always be looking for "A better way." Stay tuned...

In 4th Grade we have started the U.S. Constitution Podcast project. We will spend a few weeks doing research then we will write the scripts and finally we will record and publish the podcasts.

Recently, I have been looking into the idea of starting an iPod/iPad Club at school to learn how to use these devices beyond just playing games. I will have more information on this soon.

This past Saturday I took my FLL LEGO Robotics team to visit a local bee keeper to learn about honey bees and how we can better protect the honey bee from this thing called Colony Collapse Disorder.

Fourth graders have started to learn video game design using the Scratch. They are very excited to become video game designers. They are making a video game where a shark has to eat little fish.

This week the fourth grade classes were shown how to get their district email. Which is a very exciting thing to a fourth grader!  This week they learned how to send an email and how to reply to an email with their classmates.

Every student in grades 3 through 5 will pass a Microsoft Word review over the next two weeks. In the review student show that they can do the following in MS Word.
Change the alignment of words (Left, Center and Right)
Change the text size.
Make text Bold, Italic and Underlined.
Change the font style.
Change the font color.
Highlight text.

Although it is not the favorite of the students, we have had to do a lot of online testing of the students this week. We have started to use a new math testing website that we are very happy with. The reports that come out of this website are awesome and should really help teachers work with the students.

At the beginning of each school year I like to review the different areas of Internet Safety. One of the best resources that I have found is Professor Garfield, he does a great job with age-appropriate content that helps our students understand the points of Internet safety. Please talk to your child about what they are learning about Internet safety.

Link to Professor Garfield