Welcome back!

Welcome back to a new school year!  We have an exciting year ahead of us in Grade 5/6, and I am looking forward to getting to know all of you better and working on some of the exciting projects we have ahead of us.  The beginning of the school year is always a big time of change and renewal, and a time to create and maintain good learning habits that will set everyone up for their senior years at HPS.

The first day of school is always very busy, and we covered a lot of expectations and handed out a lot of sheets.  First, we reviewed our classroom and school expectations, none of which should come as any real surprise to the students.  We settled into our new desks and talked a little about the year to come. Just a reminder that all students will need outdoor running shoes that have closed toes and can be laced up, as we will be starting soccer and cross country right away.  For our soccer unit and intramurals, cleats are certainly allowed, but not at all required.  I have a small selection of cleats here at the school as well, that can be borrowed by students.  There were also a large number of sheets handed out.  The Emergency Contact Form needs to be filled out for every student, and must be returned to the school this week.  A classroom newsletter went home, as well as a permission form to sign the students up for Google accounts for use in the classroom.  We also received our school planners, which are partly funded by the school council.  The remainder of the fee is $5, which can be sent into the schol this week.  Homework is reviewed daily, is always posted on the side board in the classroom, and will be written in agendas at the end of every day.

Over the last couple of years, this classroom has been working on expanding our learning on to the computers and to the internet, using a variety of different tools like Prezi, Glogster and Google docs.  We are also working on more of an online presence with our blog, wiki and twitter feeds.  Basically, the wiki (you can see the link to your right at the top of the blog) has more permanent information like what is expected in a certain style of writing, or samples of work we have done here in class, or mark sheets that you can rely on when completing your work.  The blog (where you are right now), will have periodic posts  updating students and parents about events in the classroom, or new units we are starting, or advice about places to go for extra help, and so on.  You can poke around at some of last year's posts to get an idea of what to expect.  Finally, we have the twitter feed on your right, which is more likely to echo items that were on the homework board.  I am hoping that this will all work together to keep parents more in the loop about what is happening in class and around the school.  It should also allow students to be more independent with their learning this year.  It also follows the board and school goals of becoming increasingly paperless and reducing our school's environmental impact.

Finally, not all students have regular access to the computer, or their internet is slow, or other problems arise.  If that is the case, I can absolutely give these students paper copies of what is posted on the blog and wiki, as long as they don't wait until 3:15 to tell me they need it!

This is going to be a busy week, with a lot of information and sheets of paper to get organized and processed.  I am looking forward to getting to now all of the students and their families even better in the weeks and months ahead.

Let's have a great year!

Technical Difficulties Part 2

After talking to one of the helpful tech people who help keep all wikis, blogs, etc. on track, the first recommendation is not to use Internet Explorer to view our pages.  Sometimes there is a glitch that happens that doesn't seem to happen with Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.  So try one of those two browsers to see if that helps.  If not, keep me updated and I will continue to follow up on the situation.

To sum up:

1. Make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Reader by checking at http://get.adobe.com/reader/.  See if this works.
2. If not, then try downloading Mozilla Firefox as your browser at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html, and then using that to look at the .pdf files.
3. If it still doesn't work, the last option is to download Google Chrome as your browser at http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/landing_chrome.html?hl=en, and then use that to look at the .pdf files.

Technical difficulties

Some people have been having trouble seeing some of the content we keep posted here and on the wiki.  Some possible things to try to get around it might be downloading the latest version of Adobe Reader at http://get.adobe.com/reader/.  You could also try using different browsers.  Most people use either Internet Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/canada/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx), Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html), Google Chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/landing_chrome.html?hl=en) or Apple's Safari (http://www.apple.com/safari/download/).  If you can't see the work on one browser, try using another one as an experiment.  Finally, check to see if there are messages about blocking the website, etc.  You might need to adjust your security settings for our wiki. Good luck!

Classroom updates

Here are some quick classroom updates:

*   Our QSP magazine sales wrap up next Wednesday, so get the orders in.  This fundraising helps pay for a lot of great equipment around the school, from SmartBoards to soccer nets, as well as contributing to class trips, so make sure you ask friends and family this long weekend to see if they are interesting in something new to read!

*   Tomorrow is Laps for Lungs.  It is expected that students will bring in a loonie or twonie as a contribution to this worthy cause.

*   Next week, we have District Cross Country on Tuesday for those students that qualified.  Tuesday after school, the Sr Boys will be playing an exhibition soccer match against Clinton PS.  Finally, on Thursday we have  the Regional Soccer tournament in Goderich.  The Juniors will be playing at GPS, and the Seniors will play on the 2 fields at GDCI.

*   For Gr 6, the Classifying Tree Leaves project is due on Wednesday Oct 13.  Also, we need some students to bring in pond water next Tuesday, as we will be using microscopes to look for protists in class next week.

*   Students can now access the class calendar, which will be updated on a regular basis.  They should click on the link to the right of this post, then log in to Google apps, using their full email address (i.e. holstudent20@ed.amdsb.ca) and then their password.  When they get to the Calendar page, they can add a coworker's calendar (about halfway down on the left) by typing in my email, the same way they do when they are sharing.

Google accounts

Last but not least for today, we got signed up for our student Google accounts this week.  Everyone finally got logged in, and we have begun the learning process of sharing files and using the word processor.  The immediate advantage of this tool is that students will be able to work on their files here at school and also at home (in fact, anywhere they have an internet connection!) and not have to worry about saving files on USB thumb drives, etc. Of course, this means no can claim they forgot their work at home!  Students will share their work with me, and that will hopefully cut down on the amount of paper we use, as I can read their work online.  They will also be able to work on common documents with partners and groups.  As we move forward, we will be using the Presentation tool, creating blogs, and getting into the mysterious realm of Glogs, Prezis, Animotos and Voice Threads.  It's a whole new world out there, and I look forward to discovering it with the class!

Here's an updated link to log in to the Google accounts.  It will also appear in the links box to your left.
https://www.google.com/a/ed.amdsb.ca/

Communitrees

Once again this year,  Holmesville PS is taking thought of those in our community and around the world that are less fortunate than we are.  What will we do for our Christmas project?  What will we do as our international project?  With this in mind, Holmesville is creating a Wish Tree for the Huron County community art project Communitrees (some photos from around the county can be found here).  Our students will be thinking of issues that kids and families face in difficult situations all around the world, like hunger, dirty drinking water, slavery or malaria.  They will be wishing for a solution to these problems, and possibly suggesting some solutions of their own. These wishes will then be put up in a tree in front of our school for the people of the community to read from Thursday September 23rd (in time for our school BBQ and Open House) until Monday September 27th.

Update:
Our school's Communitree was very well received, and Holmesville PS made the national news, as we were featured on the national cbc.ca photo stream, and also the national Culture Days website in their photo stream.  Take a bow, everyone, you're famous!

The Evolution of the Husky 67 Blog

Well, we are a couple of days into the first week of school, and we continue to experiment with our technology.  One of the focuses at Holmesville this year is to be respectful of the environment and to find ways to conserve energy and natural resources.  This blog is one of those efforts: the more information I can put onto the computer, the fewer pages I have to photocopy for people to take home.  I will continue to keep everything as up-to-date as possible, but I may not always put in full posts.  Therefore, the newest feature on this page is a twitter feed (right-hand side) that will put updates including links for small daily homework assignments and reminders from the class and the school.  This should be checked regularly.

I spoke to the students today about the importance of the blog and the wiki when it comes to staying up-to-date with information from the class, and using it to find information.  Unlike last year, you don't need a password to see it, just to comment on it, so as long as you have the web addresses, you are connected.  Sometimes, however, computer access is not an option for homework pages.  I told everyone that if they need a paper printout of things we have had on the computer at school, I can provide that without a problem, as long as they give me enough warning.

That's all for now!

First day back!

The students are returning for their first day of the new school year.  We went through a lot of items today, so here is a reminder of the highlights.  Some of the pieces of paper that went home in binders today include the updated information we have at Holmesville for each of the students in the school (this needs to be checked over, signed and returned right away), a classroom newsletter and a permission form to get everyone signed up for Google accounts for use in the classroom.  These accounts will be arriving soon, and we need to get the permission forms back before the students can log in, so they should be returned in the next couple of days.  We also reviewed the use of the agenda, and expectations for the Grade 6/7 students as members of the class and the larger school community.  Most of this was included in the newsletter.  If it has somehow (already?) disappeared, there is a copy on our class wiki (the link is to your right on this blog).  A reminder also that students need to have running shoes, as we will be starting cross country and soccer right away, a pair of indoor shoes, and something to read for when class work is completed and Mr. Lobb is working with other students.

Reminders of work to be completed in various subjects will be found in the Labels section of the blog to your left.  This will also include some expectations, and often a reminder of where to look on the wiki for checklists, examples and marking schemes such as rubrics.  The two sites (the blog and the wiki) are designed to work together, with periodic updates on the blog, and more permanent information on the wiki.  The wiki also contains copies of class and school newsletters, as well as milk and pizza forms on the sidebar (right side of the wiki).

Hopefully these tools will help with communication to everyone at home, and give parents a better understanding of what is happening in class and at the school.  It should also allow the students to be more independent with their learning, and avoid the "I lost the papers" problem with work completion.

Whew!  That is a lot of talking.  Hope everyone had a great first day!

Welcome back!

Welcome to all of the students of Grade 6/7.  I am looking forward to another great year at Holmesville, and I am excited at the prospect of all the amazing things we will learn and create over the coming months.  As of last year, we saw some big changes to how things operate in class, and new ways of sharing our learning with each other, with the school and with parents.  We made a lot of use of Google docs and mail, created a class wiki, and used some exciting new software like Prezi and Glogster to communicate what we had learned.  If none of this means anything to you, don`t worry!  It will all be second nature to you soon.


This year, we will be making use of this blog as our main page when we need to know what is going on in the class.  There will be notices that explain upcoming projects, and links to a lot of the tools we will be using in class.  This blog is new to me as well, and I look forward to getting feedback from you as to how to make it work better.  One thing I discovered last year was that I learned as much about the web tools we used from the students as they did from me!

I hope you all had a great summer, and are ready for what awaits us.

Let`s go!