On President's Day, DES's first graders gave campaign speeches, photographed each other, and created a slide show, outlining their various Presidential platforms.
DES fourth graders have been adding research, original NH legends, and beautiful illustrations to the Riverday wiki (see below). Check them out!
After Mrs. Hunt's first graders at BES researched animals in winter, each student wrote about one. Children took pictures of their artwork, and combined it with text on a Powerpoint slide. Here's an example.
Thanks to former BES parent Steve Gunn for his time and talent in helping BES set up a weather station. Now when BES fourth graders report the daily weather as part of their science curriculum, they'll be doing it with readings from their own equipment. An added bonus: the BES Weather Station continually uploads data to the Weather Underground website. Click above to see!
First graders in Mrs. Carter's room at BES hatched a monarch butterfly! They read about and studied monarchs, then put together a slide show featuring paintings and writing about what they learned.
Each year, all district fourth graders attend "Riverday", a day of outdoor activities at Profile Falls that kicks off a year of NH studies in the classroom. In an effort to extend the collaborative spirit that Riverday fosters, fourth graders are invited to post reflections, writings, drawings, or questions to our Riverday wiki. Teachers and workshop experts are also encouraged to post. Take a look!
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Click here if you need Quicktime Player.
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All three fifth grades at BES studied the American Revolution. Students did internet research on a famous event, battle, or person from that time. They then wrote reports paying close attention to the voice of the piece. Finally, dressed in period costume, they were filmed presenting their research. Here's a sample of this work.
Two classes created and published podcasts in the month of December. Click to listen to The BES Room 109 podcast, written and produced by the kids in Mrs. Tripp's Multiage Class at Bristol Elementary. Ms. Blessing's fourth graders at Danbury Elementary produced their first podcast, too - you can hear it here.
DES 4th Grade also produced a separate podcast telling about their Giving Project, a holiday effort where the students help in their school community. Be sure to listen to that one, too!
Stay tuned for more podcasts!
All Newfound third graders study the Regions of the United States. In November Danbury Elementary students in Mrs. Landry's class researched the Southeast region. Using pictures they had gathered online (or in this case, drawn with a paint program), they scripted and narrated a multimedia show highlighting the important features of this part of the country. Click here for a small section on landforms in the Southeast:
Mrs. Robert's BHVS third grade worked on the Great Lakes Region. Here's a clip explaining one aspect of the climate in that area.
In October, students in Mrs. Kessler's class at Bristol Elementary did the same research for our northeast region. They too worked on a multimedia show telling about the landforms, natural resources, economy, agriculture, and culture of our area of the United States. Click here for a sample of this work.
Click below to subscribe to all the
Newfound Elementary Podcasts
You can also subscribe to these podcasts through the iTunes Music Store.
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 The NH Department of Justice and Attorney General Kelly Ayotte have launched a new website to help parents keep their children safe online. Connect with Your Kids at http://www.connectwithyourkids.org/ includes information for parents about internet culture and the potential dangers associated with it. It emphasizes the importance of parent awareness of children's online activity at home. It outlines tools and strategies that parents can use to monitor their children's internet use in the home and stresses the importance of communication between parent and child with regard to social networking, chat, email, and other online activities.
This is important information for any parent who has a computer in his or her home. I urge you to take a few minutes to visit this website. Download the brochure and read it. The fact that your child has not yet had a bad experience online does not make the threat of that happening any less real.
Are you aware that the Newfound Area School District has an online tutorial site for parent and student use? Atomic Learning at is an extensive website full of short movie clips that demonstrate how to work with common and not-so-common applications. MS Word, Dreamweaver, Excel, Photoshop, Flash, Palm OS - they're all there as well as many, many more. Windows and Mac platforms both are supported. Just call your child's school for the username and the password and get started at home with this terrific learning tool!
GOOD NEWS! Teaching teams in the Newfound Area Elementary Schools have applied for and been awarded two $5000 technology grants from the state. At New Hampton Community School, fifth graders will be turning their existing greenhouse project into a real business with the addition of computers and a cash register. At Bridgewater-Hebron Village School, fifth graders will be producing an online newspaper using new wireless laptops and publishing software. Congratulations to all involved! You'll be reading more about these impressive projects soon!
Ensuring the online safety of your children is a ongoing process that needs to be a topic of thought-provoking discussion in the home. Here are some things you can do to help your child be safe online:
Make certain your children know the kinds of private identity information that are never to be revealed online without your permission
Rehearse safe responses for your children to use if asked for private identity information online
Establish age-appropriate ground rules for family Internet access (where, when, and which Internet resources can be accessed)
Supervise the online experiences of younger children and encourage older children to discuss their online experiences - both the enriching aspects and the uncomfortable ones
Ask your children to share with you what they learned as they use computers and the internet in school.
source: CybersmartCurriculum.org
Here's a site I made many years ago that I have fun keeping updated. I called it The Good Morning Site  because, when I was in the classroom, it was a part of our Morning Meeting. It's online now so that others may use it. The page directs kids to internet sites with puzzles, games, facts, information - all that change on a daily basis. Try it - it's fun and informative!
There's timely information for parents on last year's Newfound Elementary Tech Page 2005-2006, too. Click here to read it.
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