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