Mrs. Pennington's 6th and Mr. Lafferty's 5th HMS News Issue 3

Mrs. Boese's 3rd Grade Class Instagram

Mrs. Boese uses Instagram to connect with her parents and share what she is doing in class!  

My favorite thing on her account?  

Her quote: "Love it when students become teachers-they do such a great job coaching each other".  So true!

Check out mrsboese3 and request to follow what she is doing in her room!

Mrs. Yoder's MS Edmodo Book Reviews

Mrs. Yoder has created a group on Edmodo for the Middle School called HMS Reads!  It will be a place for students to leave book reviews for other students.  When a student asks "What should I read?", they could get online an read some of their peer reviews of books to get ideas.  She has set up small groups including adventure, biography, science/fiction, etc. so students can search by an area they are interested in.  Almost 75% of our students at the middle school are already on Edmodo from their other classes so this was a great place to create a digital discussion board for books!

Middle School's Online Parent Teacher Conference SignUp

The Middle School went digital this year with their parent-teacher conference signups.  Mrs. Young used sign-up genius  to set up accounts for each teacher/team and had parents sign-up online for their conferences.  I reflected upon this process with several teachers and parents to see if they like the new method.  Both teachers and parents commented they loved how they could go on and see what time slots were filled (as the signup is live).  This eliminated the need for several emails back and forth between teacher and parent.  The parents also said it helped if you had multiple children to schedule.  You could use this tool for many things in your class including treat/party signups, I have used it for volleyball signup stuff, and I know football club has used it also.  It is easy to set up a free account to monitor and create your signups. You can even schedule it where it sends out an automatic reminder to parents the day before to remind them of their signup time.   You can choose what time frames you need as well as block out times for lunch/breaks, etc.  If you are interested and need help, let me know!

Mrs. Pennington's 6th and Mr. Lafferty's 5th HMS News Issue 2

HES News: KAKE Reading Caravan Grant

HES News

Exciting day at the Elementary School this week!  Thursday KAKE's Susan Peters traveled to Hesston to read a story to the students and deliver a $500 grant to the ES library!  In anticipation of her coming, Mrs. Litton, Mrs. Funk, Mrs. Coker and I created a video of our own little news report from some HES students!  Susan mentioned her visit to HES last night (Thursday at 5) on the news and will be talking more about it Friday at 5 and Saturday at 6:00 p.m.  We have quite the little actors on our hands...especially our own "Susan Peters" a.k.a Brynn, Mr. and Mrs. Johnston's daughter! (If the movie does not play directly above, click on the link "HES News" at the top.)

Mrs. Pennington's 6th and Mr. Lafferty's 5th HMS Newspaper

Mrs. Pennington's and Mr. Lafferty's classes have completed their first Swather Newspaper for their exploratory class with 5th and 6th graders.  Students are working together to complete the newspaper each having a different job, including a digital layout team.  Featured articles included interviewing teachers, sports articles, and programs in our school such as Swather Pride.

5th Grade Skypes with Miami Class

Exciting day for 5th grade...for Digital Learning Day we wanted to expand our classroom walls.  We Skyped with Jenny Levinson, a librarian for Miami-Dade Schools.  She was so entertaining while reading us a "modern day version of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears".  Mrs. Ortman, Miss Wiebe, and Mr. Lafferty did a pre and post lesson with their classes including discussion of stories from different points of view.  The best part of the Skype was our students talking to her students about the local weather...it was 82 there that day for them and they were hot.  You should have seen their faces when we told them it was 1 degree here.  After explaining we had just returned from "Snow Days", they compared them to their "Hurricane Days".  So neat to get our students collaborating with other students so far away...all through the power of tech!  Here is a glimpse of the visit: 5th Grade Miami Skype

The Power of Technology

The Power of Technology Video

Some of you may have seen this while viewing the oh-so-intense Super Bowl this year.  

I LOVE this commercial.  

It reminded me that we are creating students to do BIG things in this world.  

By beginning to teach them the small, sometimes seemingly simple aspects of technology, 

we are giving them the tools to change lives in the future.  (If the video doesn't play from this screen use the link above "The Power of Technology Video". This is a must watch.

Popplet

"Popplet is a tool for the web and iPad to capture and organize your ideas"

I have seen this at several tech conferences and were reminded of what a great tool it is again when Miss Wiebe and I traveled to the "TEEN" conference.  Within minutes several hundred people were all connected at our conference, able to collaborate with ideas and pictures.  

By signing up for a free account, you and your students can create an image board.  You can add images, text, color, videos, etc.  

Ideas:

1. Create one during a lesson and have all students collaborate (it gives you a specific link address)...Pose a question and have the students share their ideas or use it for review.

2. Have each student create their own account and have them use it to create a project for a unit instead of a Keynote or PowerPoint.