Mr. Funke's Blog

1st graders are putting the finishing touches on their family webs. Look for them to be posted online soon.

2nd graders are working on their word processing skills again and are beginning to publish some of their work on paper.

3rd graders are publishing their past work to their class wikis this week. Go to our wiki pages to see their Charlotte’s Web puzzles and their prairie food chains.

4th grade continues its road trip with the Tandys in Google Earth.

First graders are getting close to finishing their family web projects. This week, some of our classes used Photobooth to take pictures of themselves for the center of their family web.

Second graders used Kidspiration to do an Urban and Rural Community activity this week.

Third graders finished their final Charlotte’s Web activity this week. Look for their Wordles, word searches and crossword puzzles to be posted to their wikis soon.

Fourth graders began a road trip with the Tandy’s this week. For the next couple of weeks, we’ll be using Google Earth to follow the Tandys on their trip around the Northeast region of the United States.

First graders started learning how to use Kidspiration in preparation for an upcoming family project. This week we did a short A and short I vowel sound sort.  Students saved and printed their work on the color printer to take back to the classroom.

Second graders continue to work in Pages on their word processing skills.  We worked on paragraph formatting and some classes moved on to spell check and editing their work.

Third grade finished up their food chain comics. Next week we begin a 3 week unit on Charlotte’s Web which all the students have been reading in their classroom.

Fourth grade continues to learn how to use MyAccess to work on their writing skills.  Most students are now entering the editing phase of the process and are having to evaluate and rewrite portions of their work to improve their writing scores.

First graders continue to explore our treasures web site. Feel free to go through the activities with your child at home. There is an easy to use link on the front page of our district web site. Just make sure to focus on the stories your child is reading in class that week or has read previously. Please don’t skip ahead.

2nd graders are learning all about word processing this month in Pages. We’re starting with the basics and learning some new vocabulary like cursor and font. Students are learning how to move their cursor around the page and make changes to the font size and style. We’ll be discussing appropriate ways to make capital letters and spaces between words as well as punctuation.

3rd grade is almost done with their prairie food chain project. Look for them to be posted to our class wikis very soon.

4th grade continues to move forward with their writing exercises in MyAccess. We’ve just added a new additional writing block for each fourth grade class in our second computer lab to give them more time to work with the program.

MAP testing is over and classes are back in session!

1st graders caught up on some more math concepts in EMGames. Next week we’ll be learning how to use the Treasures web site which ties in to their reading program in the classroom.

2nd graders played some EMGames as well while I took their pictures for a butterfly project they are working on in the classroom. We also began learning how to use Pages, our word processing software. In our first week of word processing we learned about cursors and fonts and how to change the font size and style.

3rd grade started their first project of the year. Each class is using comic life to create a prairie food chain comic.

4th grade continues to write in MyAccess.

Both labs have been closed for the last 2 weeks while 2-4 graders too their Math and Reading MAP tests for the fall. We’ll retest again in the Spring.

Next week, projects and classes will resume. Check back here on Friday for more details.

As with every year, the first week of school in the lab is spent working out the kinks in our day to day computer routines and introducing or reintroducing students to new procedures and software.

With first and second grades, we reviewed how to log in to the computers and set up their accounts to load the correct system preferences.

All 2nd – 4th grade students are using new passwords this year. We distributed those on the first day of computer class and along with their usernames, they will be expected to remember this information to use not only to log in to the computers, but to a number of online resources like Study Island, Custom Typing, TCI, First Class, and our class wikis.

Third and fourth graders began learning how to use Custom Typing, our online keyboarding instruction tool. Each week, 3rd and 4th grade students will be visiting the second computer lab for 30 minutes to practice their keyboarding skills. Once we are comfortable with how all our students are using and understanding the program, we will allow them to use it at home if they wish to get in some extra practice.

Only 2 days of school left!

Other than tying up a few loose ends on some projects, my classes were rewarded for all their hard work this year with some free time.

We’re in the home stretch. It was the last full week of school this week and I saw some of my classes for the last time this year.

First graders finished up their 2 week seed project. We imported their seed pictures into Keynote and recorded them narrating their slide shows. They had a lot of fun recording them and loved listening to them when they were finished.

Second graders finished up their Geocaching unit from PE with a short reflection piece online. Mr. Tilbury created a questionnaire about the unit in Google Docs which the students filled out in computers. If you’d like to know more about Geocaching, visit our Geocaching web page which I’ll try to leave up year-round. It’s a fun activity that the family can enjoy together.

Third grade finished out the year with a discussion on cyber-bullying. After taking a short Are You a Cyber Bully quiz (completely anonymous) we discussed what to do when we feel like we’re being bullied by someone on line.

Fourth grade continued to work in MYAccess! and wrapped up their animal projects.

1st graders started working on their Seed Slide Show project.  They all drew pictures of the 5 stages a seed goes through as it grows into a flower.  Next week, we’ll put them into a Keynote presentation and record the students narrating their projects.

2nd graders took a break this week with some EM Games while we wait for them to finish up the GPS unit in PE.  Unfortunately, it rained most of the week and they were only able to get outside on Monday.  Those classes did a great job though, and had a lot of fun.   We’re hoping to get back out again next week but the forecast isn’t looking good.

Third graders continued to study the solar system through a series of online videos and games.  We should be ready for a one week unit on cyber-bullying next week.

Fourth graders continue to write in MYAccess and work on their animal reports.