Margaret & Deb's miscellaneous musings...

Items of importance or just Friday Fun!

 

Congratulations...

Christina Magnuson, a fifth grade student in Carlie Mastey's class entered the "Looking for Your Lincoln Hero contest" to celebrate the Lincoln bicentennial.   She wrote a heartfelt essay comparing her Grandfather to Abraham Lincoln.  In April, it was announced that she was one of 8 finalists of 600 entries across the United States.   She was notified last night that she is a Grand Prize Winner!  (There were 4 grand prize winners).  She has won a trip to Springfield and Chicago to tour various Lincoln historical sites! You may read her winning essay at My Hero.com.  Her essay is entitled, Grandpa Jalil Salman. 

Hats off to our recent graduates:

• Chris Helmin received a Master of Arts Education degree

• Cathy Kruszynski received a Master of Arts Education degree

• Ann Marie Fox received a Master of Arts degree

 

Some people are still wondering what is a SmartBoard???  This a brief 3 minute video from You Tube that provides an accurate overview.

Remember, you do not have to create a new lesson.  It can...

• Be a lesson that you would like to "makeover" by incorporating technology.

• Be a lesson that you have always wanted to add an additional component to make it more interactive.

• Be a idea that you have not had time to develop into a lesson.

• Be an activity to introduce a particular unit or concept.

Please bring any necessary materials for your lesson to the first day of training.  Teachers will not be allowed to enter some of the areas in the buildings due to the work be done over the summer.   There will be a document camera available to use during the training.  Please contact Deb Balayti, Gail Curran, Lee Harwig, Cori Molinets, Kim Phelan, Gina Shem or Angela Turner if you have ANY questions about the training. 

Suggestions for Summer...

 

• Reading Rocket's summer reading section has great ideas for parents to build into their everyday schedule.

• District 118 is offering an exciting one week half-day summer technology camp for students entering grades 5-8.  This camp is designed for all levels of technology skills.   The cost of this camp is $55.00.  Parents can register online for camp at http://www.palos118.org.  You may print and distribute the flyer to anyone that you feel would be interested in the camp.

Useful Online Resources

• Learning Essentials for Teachers  has been designed for teachers to help create lessons, rubric, tests, quizzes and much, much more.   It contains more than 117 templates and 38 tutorials to help you get the most out of  Office 2007applications. The best part is that it is FREE!!

• Microsoft Math Add-in for Word 2007 allows you to create graphs, perform calculations, and solve for variables with equations.
   

Click on the Lady Bug to see our smiles.

Check the ARCHIVES for links from previous Friday FYI pages!

Quotations of the week...

Cluster map of our visitors: