Read For Our School

DES is participating in a wonderful opportunity for students to earn books for our school library.  The Pearson Foundation is currently sponsoring a reading initiative called “Read For My School” where participating schools are eligible to earn up to 500 free books for their libraries, just by reading.  The program runs from February 14th through March 14th and is open to all students.

Registration is necessary in order to participate in the program. The online form can be found at http://www.wegivebooks.org/pf/rfms/register.php  In order to register, students will need to create a username and a password, and provide an email address, his or her birthday, state, and our official school name. Please assist your child with this registration. Once the registration is completed, students can begin reading the online books.  There are over 150 books to choose from at various reading levels. After the book is read, click “Give a Book” for it to be counted towards our school’s total.

In order for DES to be eligible for the free books, we must cumulatively read 50 or more books.  We hope that you will consider registering your child for this program. Please feel free to call or email with any questions you may have. Have fun reading!

Northern Lights

Image from NASA

Late in January, there were many reports of Northern Lights in Europe, especially over the Scandinavian countries. As fourth graders were coming into the room for ICT on Friday, parts of this video were playing so they could see the phenomenon. The kids showed more interest than I had anticipated, particularly when they learned that, in the past, Northern Lights have been visible over our area of New Hampshire. Mrs. Bruning shared a wonderful story about seeing them when she and her family were camping.

Students asked that I post the video here so they could access it again. If your child shows continued  interest, you might want to sign up for email alerts with a website called Spaceweather.com. When solar activity takes place that makes the liklihood of seeing the Northern Lights good, I get an email - so I know when to keep my eye on the night sky. I know some day I'll see them again!

Kindergarten Paints

Kindergartners are beginning to learn about their computer usernames, a tricky concept to grasp since this name is not much like the name they're learning to print in their classroom. Once they are logged in, they are practicing drawing and painting using TuxPaint, a free program that children really enjoy. Shown is a drawing done using the symmetry tool. TuxPaint is available for Window, Mac, and Linux platforms and can be downloaded here. And don't forget to get the stamps, too!

Happy Anniversary, Mulberry Street!

On my drive to school this morning, I heard on the radio that it's the 75th anniversary of the first book ever written by Dr. Seuss. He named the book And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street because there was a street by that name in the town he grew up in. He liked the way the word Mulberry sounded! Do you have words like that, words that just sound good to you? I do - serendipity!

After Dr. Seuss wrote the story, he tried and tried but couldn't find any company that liked his book well enough to publish it. At times, Dr. Seuss became so frustrated, he almost destroyed his story and the illustrations! He was turned down 27 different times before he finally found a publisher! Twenty-seven times!

Dr. Seuss sure was persistent! What would his life have been like if he hadn't been? Would your life be different if he hadn't been so persistent?

Brain Quest!

You know Brain Quest ®, right? Check out the new Brain Quest widget posted on our blog! Look - scroll down a bit, over on the right under the link for Tumblebooks. See? There's a new Brain Quest challenge question every day for grades 3 & 4. Can you try it if you're not in grades 3 or 4? Sure you can! Click below the question to see if your answer is correct!

Learning to Type

This month, third grade joins fourth in working with Type To Learn 4 during portions of their ICT times. To practice at home, try the links posted here, or try one of these games -

Keyboarding games from the Learning Games for Kids website:
http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games.html

Alpha Munchies
http://www.abcya.com/kids_typing_game.htm
Type the letters above the critters as they fall from the sky - to protect your character's lunch! Letters appear on screen as upper case but do not need to be typed that way. That's good!

Typer Shark

http://kids.aol.com/games/typer-shark/

Type the words and letters on the sharks before they can attack the diver. There are several levels to this fast-paced game. 

Typer Spider

http://funschool.kaboose.com/gamesFiles/flash/kaboose/spidertyper/spidertyper.swf

Type to help the spider escape the hungry chameleons. 

Remember to sit up straight and keep your fingers on the home row keys!

Private Information

Fourth graders learned this week about private information, details that are private and personal and not given out to strangers in real life or to people or websites on the internet. Students practiced looking for requests for private information on various webpages. The rule to follow is this: never give out private information online without first asking a parent at home or a teacher at school. Here's a list of what students feel is personal information:

full (first and last) name
street address
name of school
school address
e-mail address
phone numbers
passwords
calling card number
mother’s maiden name
parent’s place of work
photos in which you can be recognized
your zip code

Discussions about subjects like this one can and should be ongoing. As your child grows and uses computers and the internet more, there will be more opportunities to practice these important skill.