November 2016

Hello NW Families,
It was wonderful to see so many of you at Parent-Teacher Conferences. Thank you to the PTO for providing such a nice dinner for the NW teachers, all you do is truly appreciated. 
As we head toward my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, I want to take a moment and tell each of you how thankful I am to work at Northwest and be a part of your child's life. It is one of the greatest blessings in my life, and I never take it for granted.
Here are some the things your child is learning in our Chrome Lab this month:

BK/Kindergarten: Wow! These students have mastered how to use a mouse, click and drag, and navigate ABC Mouse and Starfall. This month when students come to Tech the educational website will not be opened for them, they will be learning how to open a browser "Chrome", locate our Homepage (this site), find the website they would like to explore and navigate the sites independently. They will also learn to close the tab at the top of the webpage and go onto the next activity. We are also working on keeping our headphones at an appropriate volume level. Please remind your students to take good care of their ears and turn the headphones down :-)

First Grade: Students have a great grasp on how to open Chrome and find our educational websites, we are now getting more focused. I am directing students toward specific websites and activities. We are going to be doing many activities at first grade reading and math levels. These are fun learning games like "Sight Word Bingo" and "Fuzz Bugs" at ABCya.com.

Second Grade: These classes have learned how to log into their individual HPS Google accounts and bookmark websites we visit often. Sumdog.com continues to be a weekly favorite and students have the chance to practice 2nd grade math skills, strategies and concepts.

Third Grade: A major goal this year is proper keyboarding skills and techniques. Third grade students have learned to log into their HPS Google accounts, and now have joined a Google Classroom where they can see all the Tech lessons, websites, assignments and announcements from me on any device. We continue to work our way through Dance Mat Typing stages :-)

Fourth/Fifth Grade: The big goal this year is giving these students as many opportunities to use technology to learn, create, collaborate, explore and investigate as possible. I want each child to have the tech skills to succeed throughout Middle School, High School and beyond. With our NW Tech lab resources the world is truly at their fingertips :-)
Each NW student is using their HPS Google account, Google Classroom app and this week they will be learning how to create and share an animated short video with a positive message about Technology and Education.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Ms. Kelly Ryan