Keep your child's learning soaring through the summer

Parents check out some of these fun summer things to help your child keep learning. Many of them have some great freebies.

Scholastic has a fun reading challenge. Students read to break the record reading minutes of last summer. They can read and log their minutes, take weekly challenges, earn virtual rewards, and enter a sweepstakes every time they reach the weekly milestones.

Barnes and Noble Bookstore always gives away a free book to children who read 8 books. You can go to the link and download the summer fun packet  which includes the sheet below to fill out and take to your local Barnes and Noble by September 2, 2014.

Camp Wonderopolis was tons of fun for my family last summer. I can't wait to participate again. Check it out and register at this link.

Campers will explore different tracks of science and build their vocabulary, background knowledge, and literacy skills along the way.

• Select your own avatar
• Follow your own path through six tracks of scientific exploration
• Engage in Wonder lessons and test your learning to earn Wonder Cards® (42 in all!)
• Check out what other Campers are doing and share your own experiences on the Wonder Wall
• Keep track of your Camp activities on your personal dashboard (Counselor dashboards will track individual and groups of Campers—perfect for parents, libraries, and summer learning programs)
• Try out fun, hands-on activities with everyday items
• Compete in photo and video contests for a chance to win Camp prizes

Be sure to pre-register now, and stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks!

Readworks has some summer reading passages to print off for 2nd- 4th graders. There is also a video that talks about the importance of summer reading and how to use the passages. 

If you live in Indiana your student will have access to 3,000 digital books again this summer with myon. If you goto this  link there are instructions about how to download the app and have access. If you do not live in Indiana you may want to check and see if your state sponsors some type of summer reading for your students.

 Chuck E. Cheese even has some rewards coupons for kids. You can download, print, fill out, and take to Chuck E. Cheese and get 10 free tokens. I like that they offer it for reading too!

 I hope you can check some of these out and have your kids have some fun summer learning.

Shutterfly Books... finally completed

We have been working hard in small groups to make some books about the year. They are finally completed. We had lots of trouble with internet and iPad issues making them but they turned out great. Check them out.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a variety of layouts and cover options to choose from.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Create your own personalized photo books at Shutterfly.com.

Click here to view this photo book larger

The new way to make a photo album: photo books by Shutterfly.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Create your own personalized photo books at Shutterfly.com.

Skype call to Australia

We had the pleasure of Skyping with a Epsom Primary School in Australia last Friday. Asher a fifth grade student was the host of our call and she did an excellent job. They asked us a few questions about our school and we also asked them some things about their school. Asher was so excited to tell us all about many things happening in her school and sing to us a Chinese Song. They learn Chinese at their school and will be sending some of their students to China.

The thing our class liked most about our Skype call was learning that they used to have Gold in a creek by their school in the 1800's. That is how many people originally settled in the area near their school. We learned they have Sharks in the Great Barrier Reef and lots of other interesting animals like snakes, kangaroos, koala, etc. Thanks you Asher for teaching us more about Australia and your school.

During the 20 minute call we could hear and see them fine but our video never did work for them to see us. I made a little video of a few minutes from the call so they could actually see what the students in our class look like. We are looking forward to doing another Skype call after Spring Break with a class from Michigan.

President projects

The final count for Read the Most from Coast to Coast was 4,987,949. We beat last years goal but didn't quite make it to the 5 million.

Here are some president projects we have been working on in class the past week. The first one is questions for the president. We watched Kid President visits the President and he asks the President a question at the end of the video. We came up with a question we would ask the President and recorded it and the answer.





The next item we made is a digital book using the app Book Creator. Each student made a page and then shared their page with me and I put it together into one book. You need an iPad to view the link. Once you click it on your iPad hit download and then open in iBooks to see what we have created.

Read to 5 million!

This is what the ticker says we are up to as I am typing this post and it just keeps increasing. I am sure we will make the 5 million books goal because many schools are still in session with the time difference.  

We had a wonderful day of reading and listening to stories being read. We all listened to Mr. Rain our high school helper read a Cars book to us. We had goals set for our classroom today as well. Our goal was to read 200 books and earn 100 points as a class. We counted at the end of the day and we read 151 books and had 108.4 points. It was awesome to achieve one of our goals. The kids worked very hard today at it.

These students worked extra hard and earned lots of points...
Isaac 12.7
Hailey 10.8
Owen 10.5
Zach 9.5
Shea 9.3

I was very proud of everyone and can't wait to share with the students on Monday how many books were actually read.

Box in the mail

We got a box in the mail this morning. Our Christmas present books finally arrived. The students were so excited to read their book for Daily 5 today.  Be sure to ask you child to show you their new book. They made some great choices!

Valentine's bags

Today we decorated Valentine's bags and they are all ready to go for our Valentines and our party on Friday.