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