Happy New Year 2012

Welcome back! We're off to a cold start weather-wise but I know Neuse Charter is going to be hustling from now until the end of school.

January will be a busy month. There will be the 2nd EC Continuous Improvement Plan meeting on Tuesday, January 31st at 4:00. Please mark your calendar if you are on this committee. Thank you. We will discuss improvements we have made so far this year and any suggestions for the second semester. Indicators that have been completed will also be on the agenda and indicators that will be completed the second half of the year will be explained and discussed.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is January 16th and it is a school holiday.

For my reading students, I am continuing with the Recipe for Reading program and have ordered more material to use with my students. I will be starting out with short assessments in phonics, fluency, and reading comprehension to keep track of their progress. With the use of our new computers in our classroom, students are able to type sentences and save them to their flash drives. We now have a printer set up in our classroom where students will be able to print out their work.

In math I have discovered a great website call www.mathplayground.com . Please visit this site if you have a chance as it is so organized with the teaching of basic skills and making it fun for our students. I will continue assessing students on their knowledge of multiplication and division facts and having them practice and memorize the facts they still don't know. Also I will be teaching them how to solve word problems.

Have a week of new discoveries!
Nancy Peele

December 5, 2011

Tomorrow night, Tuesday, December 6th, is the Art Show and Christmas Concert at NCS starting at 6:15. We hope you all can come!

My classes have been busy using www.spellingcity.com for spelling and vocabulary practice.
This week the students will focus on the skill of Inference. Students with learning disabilities have difficulty with abstract concepts and with the help of picture clues and demonstrations and sequence, I will teach them the skill of Inferring information from their reading selections.

Math skills are improving with my students and this week we will be applying the skills they are learning in class to word problems that they may encounter on the EOG in the spring. Understanding the vocabulary in the word problem is half the battle. Once they know what is being asked of them they are ready to conquer each problem.

I hope you all have a very good week. Don't forget the Booster Christmas shopping extravaganza coming up!

Mrs. Peele

Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday- November 21st- Neuse Charter's first basketball game of the season!

*5A is having a math test- please study hard!

Students are continually encouraged to use http://www.spellingcity.com/ to study their vocabulary in all subjects including math and science. This is an excellent tool and makes studying fun! Wow!

*Please donate to the library's fund raiser going on now (check Mrs. Souter's Blog)!

Tuesday- November 22nd-

I am continuing to use the " Recipe For Reading" program with some of my students.

This week we will be focusing on syllabication. They have been studying detached syllables and now this week we will begin to put the syllables together to form words with two or more syllables. For reading comprehension we will focus on "the main idea" using short articles that I read aloud and have them choose the correct main idea (from LinguiSystems).

Math vocabulary is so important. Many times, students with learning disabilities, have difficulty connecting from the instructions to solving the problem because of not comprehending the verbage used. For example the term "evaluate" may cause them to not solve a simple problem just because of not understanding what is being asked of them in the directions. Increasing vocabulary is so important in all subjects for all students but with students with learning disabilities it is especially important in order for them to not lose their focus on the problem at hand and move on in their completion of problems.

*On behalf of Mrs. Beaumont and myself, we hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Mrs. Peele
peelencs@gmail.com

Tips for a Successful IEP Meeting

Tips for a Successful IEP Meeting

I wanted to share this very helpful article from the National Center for Learning Disabilities' website.
It gives insight into the law, as well as tips for parents and other team members. I hope it is encouraging to all who read it. It was to me.

It is my hope that all IEP team members feel apart of our team at Neuse Charter School. It takes all of us to work together to learn and discover about our students. They are so unique and have so much to teach us.

As we begin the next nine weeks, I will continue to use the "Recipe for Reading" program with my Language Arts student. This program is supported by the Orton Gillingham program. It is an excellent program because it helps students through different methods of learning-visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
Last week, I had my students perform a listening exercise which I call " Wack-it, Smack-it". As I read a story to my students they were to listen to words ending with "tion" (shun) or "sion"(zhun). If they heard such a word they were to slap the "water"(a blue piece of paper) with a fly swatter. The students that heard the words helped the others who had more difficulty pin-pointing the words by slapping the paper.
Trust me it would get anyone's attention. As we continue to study phonological sounds and their spellings, it is my hope to see our students improve in spelling, reading, and written expression.

Math disabilities can take many forms from what I have observed. One day it seems as if the student understands a concept, and the next day while reviewing the same concept you find a specific area of that concept that is the trouble spot, so to speak. Through continual observation, assessment, and data collection by the teacher and student I hope to see steady improvements with our students.

Feel free to contact me at peelencs@gmail.com
Have a great week!
Mrs. Peele

October 17, 2011 NC State Fair Week

Mr. Peele won 2 blue ribbons at the NC State Fair for his show pigs! Go Pigs! We had a great time. Someone's pig decided to go the wrong way and went under my legs to get wherever he wanted to go! It was fun to see some of Neuse Charter School kids showing animals, as well!

The rest of this month will be an action packed month. Workdays on Friday the 21st and 24th, awards coming up on the 27th and the Booster Bash on the 28th.

The 5th grade has been reading The Secret Garden. It's great to see students so excited about a story. I love the book too! A garden is a wonderful place no matter what is grown there but to have a wall around it and have it be a secret is very special, indeed. Perhaps our students are like plants in a garden that are blossoming each day as they are watered with more and more knowledge and understanding.

A note about schedules- it is a big help to our students to have schedules written down . A suggestion is to have a small card and mark it at the top with the day of the week. A 3x5 card would be excellent. If there is a schedule change for that day, the student can mark it down in homeroom or one of the teachers would be glad to do it for them. They can then check the card throughout the day to see where they are going next. This helps with anxiety about schedules and keeps the students on track. Clear contact paper might be a help to keep it in tact.

Thank you and have an excellent week!

Mrs. Peele

It's NCS Bookfair Week and NC State Fair begins Thursday!

Come to the Fair! The NCS Bookfair and the NC State Fair!!!

Mr. Peele and I will be showing our pigs this Saturday at the Kelly Building at the NC State Fair!

Come and visit us - the shows will be at 8 am, 12:30, and 1:30 pm. Also, this year I have a painting in the art show at the fair .

The fifth grade has been studying weather, as you know. Yesterday some of my students and I found a great song about clouds on www.schooltube.com . It was a great way for them to learn the different types of clouds and remember them, most of all.

I found some beanbags in my closet at the start of school. They are great for so many things.

In Mrs. Vassar's class , I 've been using one as a microphone to pass to each student in my group.Only the student with the microphone gets to talk which cuts down on any interruptions.

In math, the beanbag is a great tool to learn math facts by throwing it back and forth and saying the math facts. In language arts, it is a great sequence tool, phonics tool, as it passes from student to student. I love beanbags.

Have a great week and don't forget to come to the NCS Bookfair and the NC State Fair!

Mrs. Peele

Homework Help!

Welcome to my blog:) I hope you all had a great weekend. I am concerned for students and parents that battle constantly with homework. Here are some suggestions to help you through the year:)

1. A clipboard in the backpack to clip extra papers for mom and dad or notices of any kind.

2. Check you child's agenda each night whether they like it or not.

3. Use color coded folders for each subject.

4. Check to make sure that the homework actually has been completed. Please do not just take your child's word for it, which I know sounds as if you are not trusting them, but you are just making sure it is completed properly in order for them to get a good grade and you both to have peace of mind.

5. Check the teachers' websites consistently as things change quickly as you all know. Go to www.neusecharterschool.org and click on teacher blogs and then on the corresponding teacher blog pages.


I hope these few things will help. If you are already doing them - give yourself an extra pat on the back ! Have a more peaceful week!
Mrs. Peele

9/11/11



Having stopped today to remember the victims of 9/11/01 and praying for those that need God's comfort and love because of it.

Our students all seem to be off to a great start this year at our new school.
In science, many students are studying weather. They have been writing weather words in cursive, breaking words into syllables, and matching words with their definitions. They watched a short video from scholastic on the weather cycle: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/studyjams/water_cycle/  I thought you would enjoy it too, even though they will have a test on it tomorrow, Monday.

In math, students are working hard in fourth grade on the different forms of numbers: short word form, expanded form, and standard form. I focus on what the teacher is teaching in the Standard Course of Study supported by work with memorization of basic facts, reading and understanding directions, and steps in problem solving and the students' individual goals, more specifically.

Mrs. Beaumont and I will be working "off campus", Tuesday, 9/13/2011.
Have a very good week!
Mrs. Peele

Assistive Technology

Did you know that your computer has some very helpful Assistive Technology built in to it?
You think you can't access it? I will show you how so that you can help yourself or your child.

1. At the bottom left corner of your screen click on the "start" circle (mine is blue with a flag inside).
2. Click on all programs.
3. Then look for Accessories and click on that.
4. Look for "Ease of Access" and click on that.
5. Click on the magnifier or screen keyboard, or narrator
whichever one is what will help you on the computer.

It's that simple! Have a great day -
Mrs. Peele

Welcome Back to Neuse Charter School!

Welcome back everyone to the new school year, 2011-2012!
I wish you all a very good year.
This summer I took a few short trips. This picture of me was
taken in Walterboro, South Carolina at their War Memorial.
I'm looking forward to seeing all of our students and hearing
about their summer adventures.

Please take a few minutes and look at some of the websites

I have posted.

Have a great first full week.

Mrs. Peele

May 10, 2011

With the energy level of our students at its peak, I have been creating some new lessons outside for some of my students. With the EOG 's in mind, we played a game with stickers to see which sticker in a line up of stickers was the "mode". It was pretty obvious but a great visual, I thought anyway. With a number on a group of about 8 cards, I lined the cards up on the ground. I asked the students to show me what they would do first if asked to find the median of the set of numbers. One of the students in the group remembered to arrange the numbers in order. Another student started turning over the cards from the outside in. Great! They were left with 2 cards in the middle and I asked, "What do you do now?" They were partly right and we proceeded to add the two together and divide by 2 to find the Median.

Another fun activity to find the "Main Idea" was to have two teams. We had two on each team.

I wispered the name of an object to the one student on each team. The other team member was the "artist". When I said "Go" the first team member told the artist shapes to draw on his paper

and where to put them but that is all he could say. I timed them for one minute and said "Stop".

The artist then had to guess what it was and whoever guessed their team got a point. We discussed the shapes representing details and how together they formed the "Main Idea" just like in a story.

I will be praying that all of our students do well on their EOG's. They have worked so hard to prepare for their tests.

Mrs. Peele

March 27, 2011

This is what I saw on the edge of Selma on my way home from school on Friday. I had to stop and take a few pictures.

This week the fourth grade is studying math vocabulary words. I went on eduplace and made copies of their vocabulary words and will use them for several games this week. Check out www.eduplace.com for more valuable helps for your kids.

Come to the TALENT SHOW , April 1st, this Friday! We have so much talent in our school. There will be a student art exhibit too!

The EC Continous Improvement Committee will hold a stakeholders committe meeting this Wednesday in the Media Center at 3:45.

Colored plastic sheets, called Overlays, are helpful to children who see the words moving on the page causing it to be difficult to read. Many students are helped by these Overlays. If your student has difficulty with fluency or comprehension try different colors of clear plastic over their pages. Pink is a favorite color of many students.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Peele

March Madness

The students that saw the UNC show this week really enjoyed it. If you looked out at the sky last night you had a show as well of the beautiful orange full moon and the brightest one for a very long time.

While teaching spelling this week, my students seemed to do better while sorting their words into four main groups. They were studying two distinct spellings of two sounds. This helped them categorize their words and they each received a great grade on their test.

While reading an article in Scholastic News, my students enjoyed the topic of volcanoes. With this high interest topic, I was able to frequently interject questions as we were reading to see if the students were comprehending the material. Getting students reading a variety of reading materials can be a challenge. Scholastic News is a great resource for any age student.

Please contact me through npeele@neusecharterschool.org

The ninth grade has done an excellent job while reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Their projects are due this week and they will be finishing up the book the first of the week. A test will also be given on the book. I'm looking forward to seeing the class projects.

Third grade has been working hard on reading comprehension practice. In math, we have been working in centers which allows the teachers to see where the students are excelling and it allows the students to interact with each other while learning new information such as fractions.

The students have been playing "Pizza Sandwich" which teaches equivalent fractions as they cover up parts of one pizza with fractional parts of another.

All of our students are doing a great job!

Have a great week:)

Mrs. Peele

LD OnLine :: Teaching Expressive Writing to Students with Learning Disabilities

LD OnLine :: Teaching Expressive Writing to Students with Learning Disabilities

March

Swansboro, NC

This past week I took a course through Scholastic on Adolescent Literacy. It was an interview with Mrs. Robb who has written books on teaching reading, one of which I use in my classes.

She had so many great suggestions about working with students, especially in the 7th grade.

One recommendation was using more technology with the students. I tried one of her suggestions and used technology is a new way this week and it created a whole different atmosphere in my class. Sentences were initiated by my student instead of by me and it gave the student permission to create on her own which she loves because she is very creative.

We live in a very technical world and, used correctly, technology can be a great tool with our students.

Seventh grade is finishing up Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson. I love historical fiction and especially the Revolutionary War period. It brings in slavery at that time which I find very interesting because you usually hear about slavery being associated with the 1800's.

Ninth grade has begun reading To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Did you know that this was the only book she ever wrote?

Other classrooms at school are doing many wonderful things.

When students have difficulty with spelling, try having them cut out their words and sort them into similar groups, discuss similarities in each group, contrast groups as well, and have your student write down their words in the groups he/she created. Use a file folder and paste an envelope in the file folder for different words: spelling, vocabulary, science, social studies, etc. or different envelopes for different categories could work too: tion, sion, on, un.

The Dr. Seuss week of celebration was enjoyed by all!

This week is Book Fair! Buy, Buy, Books!

Have a great week:)

Mrs. Peele

Spring Fever

This is Gizmo! I do believe he has "spring fever"! At Neuse Charter School we all had a little bit of that with the great weather we had throughout the week last week.

Please come to the PTO Auction at our new gym on Booker Dairy Road, Tuesday night at 6:30,
March 1st. The baskets that will be auctioned are full of so many great items.

Dr. Seuss' birthday celebration will be March 2nd, starting with a green eggs and ham breakfast in the Media Center. Be sure to turn in your original illustration with caption to me in the Media Center by this Thursday! Prizes will be awarded!

The seventh grade is doing a great study for Black History month, this month, with the book Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson. For students with reading disabilities this may be difficult to comprehend. Look around the internet on YouTube and SchoolTube for videos. I found one by a young man who did a rap song all about the book. He gave a great summary which I will use in my class. Also http://www.audible.com/ has this book on audio which can be downloaded directly to your PC or phone or IPod.

Some of my students are implementing the tool http://www.spellingcity.com/ where their spelling and vocabulary words are spoken back to them for auditory learners and games are created with their words for those who are primarily visual learners. I am a visual and auditory learner so I need both.

The high school students have been creating games as part of their study on The Odyssey.
The games they have made in teams, are of sections of the story and they are great learning toolare s because they include questions that the students ask each other and have to answer in order to proceed in the games.

The third graders have been working so hard on reading comprehension in Language Arts, and on learning to count change back in math. Progress is being made in both classes.

The fifth graders are doing a study on Black History and they are making quilts that have material dyed using herbs and berries.

I have mentioned just a few classes of amazing work that is going on with our EC students as well as all of our students at Neuse Charter School. Thank you, parents, for all that you do for and with your children.

Have a great week.

Mrs. Peele

Spring Is Coming Soon!

The groundhog showed that spring will be early this year- we all hope! Sometimes you need to stop and create something to get you through the winter and express yourself! Try making this door decoration that my husband and I made last weekend. Take apart 3 coat hangers, wrap them together into one long piece of wire, shape into a heart for your door. Take a string of red lights from your Christmas collection of lights and wrap them over and over the wire. Take a wreath hanger and hang it on the outside of your door. Hang the heart on the door and tape it all to the door so that the wind doesn't blow it off. Attach an extention cord and plug in your heart. You may add a red bow to the middle of your heart to show it off during the day as well.

I am doing some research into the I-Pad for students with disabilities to use in the classroom.

Check out the article iHelp for Autism at http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/20290215/

A few of my students use I-Pods and I have learned so much from them about the device.

It is going to be a useful tool in my classroom and I hope to one day have at least one I-Pad for my students to use. It can do so many things to inhance their education.

Our lessons are being coordinated in the Resource Room setting with the regular classroom curriculum. This teacher collaboration is necessary in order to have our students meet their goals. Many parents are also in this collaborative triangle which increases each student's chance of meeting their goals and passing their End of Grade tests . As Mrs. Beaumont and I continue working in many of the classrooms, we continually see improvements in our students' classwork.

Much work needs to be done to help each student keep up with their studies and assignments.

They need encouragement everyday by us, as well as , the rest of those on campus and those at home to be successful, as does any student. It is great to see that collaboration on our campus.

Thank you to everyone as we press on to work together to help each student have success.

Success

by Nancy Peele

Smiles

Handshakes

Confirmation

Laughing---

Working

Overcoming

Hope

Endurance

Perseverence

Completion

Acceptance

Love

Success

Have an awesome week!

Mrs. Peele

January 24, 2011

This week , although cold, will start the beginning of the third quarter. I am very excited about the work that is being done and the grades achieved by our students this past quarter.

The 9th grade is reading the Odyssey and doing amazing related activities.

The 7th grade is beginning Chains. I love historic fiction and this is a great book.

The 5th grade will be working in literature centers during language arts and accomplishing many goals in each center.

4th grade continues to work hard on vocabulary and spelling along with readings from their reading book.

6th grade is also working very hard.

The students worked very hard on their practice EOG tests last week and the week before.

My schedule and Mrs. Beaumont's schedules have changed slightly. If you need to reach us the best time would be at 12:00 in the Media Center.

The EC Continuous Improvement Stakeholders committee meeting will be held in the Media Center this Wednesday, January 26, at 3:45. There is a notebook in the school office for public viewing.

I continue to encourage parents and students to use the Spelling City website for improvement in spelling, vocabulary, and language.

Report cards will go out Friday. For students with IEP's, an additional progress report will be included in the envelope.

4

Awards assemblies will be on Friday, with grades 5-9 @ 9:00, and grades K-4 @ 10:30

Thank you and have a great week,

Mrs. Peele

January 10, 2011

I have noticed that many of our students like using our headsets to help block out noise while they are testing. If you would purchase a set of earplugs for your student to keep in his/her backpack with his/her name on the package that would be a great help. They have them at Walmart.


At www.spellingcity.com you can have your student start a homepage and collect spelling and vocabulary lists. I have started doing this with some of my students because from the list the website turns the list into word searches, games, sentences, and crossword puzzles just to name a few of the great activities. It is great because it reads the sentences to the student and gives them definitions which are also read out loud to them. I highly recommend this sight.

The EC Improvement Team will meet soon. Please watch for a date and time. I hope to meet in the next two weeks.

Have an inspiring week :)

Mrs. Peele

Welcome Back and Happy New Year!

I like to think of all the activity of the second semester as a skier skiing down a slope from the top of the mountain, making several major stops along the way to rest and recover after going over many obstacles. It is always a great sense of accomplishment to reach the base of the mountain in one piece. With our students in grades K-9, we look forward to seeing each student reach their IEP goals and make great progress in all areas this semester.

Some dates to remember:

January 14- end of second quarter

Janurary 17- Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Janurary 18- Teacher Work Day

Janurary 21- Report Cards go home/ Awards

Please check all of your student's teachers' blog pages for updates and homework information.

A great website that I discovered is http://www.ixl.com/ for math.

Please make sure your student has plenty of pencils and paper for class in his/her backpack.

That takes so much pressure off of them when they go into class just knowing they have supplies accessible to them.

Have a great first week back. We are off to a great start.

Mrs. Peele