Arbury Park Camp

Reminder that all camp consent forms, health forms and specific dietary needs must be returned tomorrow Friday 11 March 2016.

I am aware you have had a lot of expense at the beginning of this year due to Chromebooks.  Payment arrangements can be made with Michelle Kraniac in finance.  You will need to contact her by 3pm tomorrow (Friday 11 March 2016) to either pay or make arrangements to pay.   (There are 35 weeks left this year.  Therefore $5 per week would have camp paid for by the middle of Term 4, $10 per week would have the camp paid for by the end of Term 2).

Unfortunately I must confirm definite numbers on Friday so I can not accept late payments/arrangements.

Questions answered (hopefully)

I am so proud of how all students have taken to working between books and their Chromebooks.  As we all learn more, I am sure we will all see amazing things happening with our learning and teaching.

I have been asked about the microphone I wear in the classroom.  I use a microphone/speaker for two reasons:

1. I lost my voice for nearly 9 weeks in 2015 and following over 6 months of speech therapy was advised to use a microphone/speaker system both in and out of the classroom to reduce voice strain.
2. Room 31 has two students with hearing difficulties. The microphone/speaker provides the amplification needed to help them hear instructions.

Students are asked not to speak or make background noise whilst either I or another student is talking to enable these students to hear instructions and answers. The school behaviour procedure will start occurring for repeat offenders who have been constantly reminded not to talk while another person is speaking.

A couple of students have started forgetting to charge/bring in their Chromebooks.  I ask that Chromebooks have at least 6 hours of charge on them at the beginning of the day.  Students must also bring their Chromebook to school each day.  If forgotton/left at home, it will be the students responsibility to catch up any work completed in class on the Chromebook by the next lesson.  Students will make hand written notes during the lesson to use at home.

Unfortunately, I have had to remind a couple of students of email etiquette and will make this a focus of future Chromebook lessons.

Don't forget, you, as parents, can log on to your child's Chromebook using your ardps.com account to see what work they are doing.  Homework/classwork is shown on Google Classroom and also on the class blog.

Have a look at the typing app they are using - it is free to sign up!  Practice your touch typing skills too and challenge your child to be better than you!

 I will notify you via the class blog as more and more apps are introduced.

Please let me know if you need any help with Chromebooks, etc.

Why Reading Matters

Khan Academy

Hello everyone,
Today your child joined our Khan Academy class Room 31 2016.
I will be using this wonderful educational resource for many math topics and digital technologies focus lessons. It is a wonderful tool to enhance  a student's exposure to subjects and gives real life scenarios to work with/in.
A great example of the exposure the students can get from Khan Academy is in the Pixar in a Box Unit of work. The renowned animation company Pixar has teamed up with Khan Academy to create a step by step structured lesson unit for kids to learn about the whole process of animation. We will also continue this in class in practical hands on projects.
Khan Academy requires parent authorisation for any person under the age of 13. The reason for this is that all videos from Khan Academy are stored by YouTube.

It would be prefered that the student's do not start the units of work yet but wait for me to begin together. Signing up is all that is required.

Term 1 Week 5

It was good to see so many at the parent Chromebook session last night.  Please remember to check the homework page to see what work your child has to complete.  You can also sign in (using your ardps.com account) to your child's Chromebook and check out Google Classroom to see their work too.

Please email me if you have any questions.