Today is the last day of a school year that started out great and ended in a weird way. I went to clean out our classroom today and it made me miss all of you so much. (I included a photo below.) Being in our classroom reminded me of how hard you all worked this year and how much fun we had together. I hope you know how proud I am of you all!
If you would like to create a memory book over the summer to remember this school year, click this link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jiXV_fCL4JX3Ki3dN8FWhTN6UcRtI57tP4MPTXB8ZaQ/edit?usp=sharing. There are directions on the first slide. Your parents can help you out. Here is a link to a special goodbye video from the Nate Mack Staff: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f0ievQI--mqh_sanz8x0lpcDJxC9aeGT/view I hope you all have a great summer and I can't wait to see you again in the fall. Stay healthy and safe. Love, Mrs. Cowley Thank you for doing what you could to support distance learning during the COVID - 19 school closure. I was happy to connect with those students that were able to connect with me during these past few weeks, and I appreciate the correspondence I received from you. Here are a few reminders:
1. Report cards will be mailed out from the school district, but can also be viewed in Infinite Campus. 2. IEP progress reports were emailed today to the email address I have on file and have been using to communicate with you during the school closure. If you would like me to send the progress report to a different email address, just let me know. If you would like a hard copy and are unable to print one out, I'd be happy to do so for you in the fall. 3. Registration for next school year is open, so if you haven't done so yet, please register your children for the 2020- 2021 school year. You can find all pertinent information on the Nate Mack website. https://sites.google.com/nv.ccsd.net/natemack 4. Many programs students have been using during the school closure will stay active over the summer so students can still access them for summertime skill practice. I recommend reading daily and working on math facts as well as writing or journaling a couple of times a week to keep skills fresh, however having some fun this summer is just as important! I think we've all earned it. I look forward to seeing your families again in the fall. Take care and stay healthy! - Mrs. Cowley Hi everyone! Please check your email for the link to the final video meet this year. I hope to see as many students as possible before our school year comes to an end. Please check back here on the last day of school, Wednesday, May 20th, for final reminders and my last message of the school year.
Love, Mrs. Cowley Thank you for reaching out this week and making me feel so appreciated. I miss you all so much and can't wait to see you all again IN PERSON. Until then, please be on the lookout for my email with the links to our meetings next week. We only have two weeks before the end of the school year and I hope to see as many of you as possible online before we say hello to summer.
Love, Mrs. Cowley Are you trying to keep a healthy mind and body? We are! Enjoy this video we made for our students.
https://youtu.be/SlwCaRGwZgM Are you interested in virtual counseling? Visit Catapult Learning https://catapultlearning.com/ to find out how they can support students and families during this time. Interested in having your student practice math drills and have access to a printer? Visit https://www.math-drills.com/ and check out all the worksheets available for at home practice. Finally, check out these writing prompts for May from Lakeshore ***This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. Our year is ending in such a weird way and we are all missing each other. Consider sending your teacher an email to tell them what you loved about being in their class this year and what you are looking forward to when we are back at school. I bet it'll make them smile and they may even email you back! Hello everyone! I will be sending out my weekly email shortly with the links to this week's MEETs meetings.
**Please remember second and third graders will meet on Tuesday at 11 if they are available. **Kindergarten and first grade students will meet on Wednesday at 11 if they are available. These meetings are not mandatory and I will not be teaching a lesson. This is a time for us to see each other and catch up a bit. As always, if you have specific questions for me or need assistance in any way with distance learning, you can contact me via email or phone. I have my classroom phone number forwarding to my cell phone. You can find that information under the CONTACT ME tab here on my website. Have a great Monday! I hope everyone is staying well. xo Hello everyone! This week we are going to try to MEET on Google. Please check my weekly email for the links. I hope some of my students will be able to participate.
Second and Third graders will meet on Tuesday at 11 Kinder and First Graders will meet on Wednesday at 11 The school is now able to check out Chromebooks to students in Kindergarten and First Grade that have not been able to access distance learning opportunities due to lack of access to technology. Please fill out this form if you are interested in picking up a Chromebook for your child to use while at home. You should then be contacted by Mrs. Heavey or Ms. Arias. The deadline to fill out the form is 4 p.m. on Monday, April 27th.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc61nQvpXcsGgtugDtkzeTKcZJ50Yt96gpidSIQZ4Oxl5P3Nw/viewform Today I want to tell you about a math fact website that many of my students are familiar with. It's called Math Fact Cafe and it's a great website to use to practice math facts.
Link: https://www.mathfactcafe.com/ scroll down to the section Worksheets by Grade. - Click kindergarten, first grade, or second grade for addition and subtraction fact practice. - Click third grade for mostly multiplication and division practice. Then scroll down and choose Flashcards. You will see different fact practice options. Choose whatever you like. A box will come up with some options, click create. Students can work through 25 flashcards. At the end, you will see all the problems on one screen and they will be color coded: green = correct, red = incorrect so you can see at a glance how they did. Students can work on the same set of flashcards multiple times and different facts will pop up, so they won't be doing the exact same facts every time. I hope this helps. There are many reading resources out there. We can't forget about our basic math facts! A couple of resources for you today in case your child could use some social/emotional support (couldn't we all?). Ms. Juliano shared these with the author's permission on our school's Facebook page, but I wanted to share them here as well in case you don't have access to Facebook. There's a book in PDF form and a coloring book that goes with it. If you can't or don't want to print them out, you can just view them on the computer and use them to guide a discussion at home.
book: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ak27XGdWDaPNw1PNkT6N30hU_kQqu7Ku/view coloring book: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Y09y7SEiTz44UKINx3QtxJxckanqXVj1 A little something fun - Dramatic Poetry Reading #2 I make TWO appearances in this one. Can you spot me?! https://youtu.be/pRlYFTHAaMM (copy and paste into browser) Hello again! Registration for the 2020-2021 school year opened today. Please consider starting the registration process soon. The online component is available now. Check your email for a link. It's quick and easy for returning students. If your child is on a zone variance, don't worry about that paperwork just yet. More information is to come, but you can and should complete the online registration soon. I just did our family registration and it took less than 10 minutes.
Hello Families. Did you see this announcement on the Nate Mack website? You should have also received a message from Mrs. Heavey. If you missed the deadline, it's not too late to pick up a Chromebook for your child to use. Contact Mrs. Heavey to inquire about getting on the pick up schedule.
Here is a link to a COVID-19 Time Capsule your child can fill out to remember this time in history.
file:///media/fuse/drivefs-bf4770fa463eafa68ccf2fd31c2e29c7/root/Copy%20of%20COVID%2019%20Time%20Capsule.pdf Also, I learned of another resource for younger learners from my own child's teacher. It's called Smarty Ants. My kindergarten student has enjoyed using it at home. Below you will find login information. Please know the 'swimming pool game' is a placement test so your child will have to complete that independently when they login for the first time so the program knows what they need to work on. Have fun! I hope everyone enjoyed spring break with their family and found some fun and relaxing activities to do while staying home and social distancing. We watched some movies, played some games, enjoyed some outside time, and did some organizing around the house. It was nice, and now we are ready to get back to distance learning.
I will be checking in with everyone this week via email. Please be sure to respond, and as always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance during this time. If your child had not already had their IEP meeting this school year, I will be contacting you to let you know how we are going to proceed. While I will email everyone to check in, I will also be calling parents to talk about IEPs, so be on the lookout for a call from the school phone number. It'll be me! Here's a new resource that was just added to the Nate Mack Academic Plan. Check it out if you are in need of books to read. Mackin Publishers - user name: mackes password: bears That's all for now. Here's a little something to get everyone back in the school mood! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lVNW5kfppaLQLwG4yujL1ykkxbCeCSkg/view?usp=sharing (copy and paste into your browser) Check out Nate Mack's Facebook page for a special video message from Mrs. Heavey! (Families should have received a spring break phone message.) Enjoy this week together and I'll be in touch again next week.
Here are two new resources I learned about today that are offering free trials during the school closure.
EPIC - a digital library you can access if your child is getting tired of using MyOn or other reading resources - https://www.getepic.com/ FLOCABULARY - a library of songs, videos and activities for K-12 online learning https://www.flocabulary.com/ We're all just doing the best we can during this crazy time. Please let me know if I can help in any way or get you in touch with resources you may need.
Here are some ideas for getting your child to do some writing while at home. If they want to share their writing or any other work they've completed during this time with me, please feel free to email me. I will be sure to respond! [email protected]
If you haven't already seen these, here are some fun videos we've been working on for our students. If you are on Facebook, be sure to follow the Nate Mack school page AND the Nate Mack PTO page so you can keep up with any school news (and fun) during this time. (You'll have to copy and paste the links into your browser.)
We Are Family Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FpOF0oEaA4&authuser=0 Dramatic Poetry Reading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjxebdEECo Hello Families,
This week I am posting a packet that I prepared for summer break and other shorter breaks from school. I think there are some good ideas here that might help you while we are all trying to do our best from home. Thank you to those of you that have communicated with me via email. I am happy to correspond with you and offer any suggestions that may be helpful. Please know I am required to record two way communication between myself and my families on a weekly basis at a minimum. Thank you for your participation in said communication. If you have any questions or need anything this week, please email me: [email protected]. Take care! Love, Mrs. Cowley I don't even know what to say! I'm missing my students.! It feels like we've been out of school for longer than a week!
First of all, I hope you are all staying healthy! If you have found your way here that means you received my email. (YAY) I am not usually very active on this site, but I will be checking it frequently and I will be checking my email frequently as well during this time. Please feel free to post a comment or email me privately with any questions - [email protected], and I will get back to you promptly. I will be posting as many resources as I can here in case you need materials and ideas of things you can do at home with your child. Please know family time and self care is just as important (in my opinion) as skills practice so while I will be trying to post lots here for you to consider, I am not specifically assigning any work for students at this time. Please do what works best for your family. Ok, let's get to some resources: 1. Check out the Nate Mack website: https://sites.google.com/nv.ccsd.net/natemack You will see a link underneath the Student Hub. This will take you to our school's suggested academic plan. I will also post the link here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PWWCq9KXurSTBL0FAOFkF7ZkF4RMCxBmlFeh7vsu0dc/edit The resources for free online learning are really great. At the bottom of the plan you will see Grade Level Suggestions. If you click there, you will find some ideas and you will also find links to the CCSD Learning Extension Opportunities. 2. Also from the Nate Mack website: Click on the Student Hub and you'll find lots of websites that your child can assess. MyOn is a great website to investigate if you haven't already. Your child can read books at their level online. There are thousands of books to choose from, and some of them even have AR tests that go with them. (More on AR in a minute.) We love using MyOn at our house. Also check out PebbleGo, Storyline Online, ABCya, etc. Check it all out!! 3. From the Nate Mack Student Hub, your child can also access their ScootPad account. It is very likely that your child's classroom teacher has loaded activities and assignments for them to choose from in their account. (*You should be hearing from your child's classroom teacher this week if you haven't already. They will likely provide more resources and let you know if they assigning any work during this time.) 4.. VOOKS!!! Parents can get a 30 day free membership right now. We have really enjoyed using this website at home and in the classroom this year. (Vooks = video books.) It's a lot of fun and a great way to keep reading while at home. https://watch.vooks.com/ 5. Resources from Scholastic: https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html 6. Finally, please know that your child can access their AR account and quiz from home during the school closure. In order to do so, you MUST follow the AR link from our school website OR from within the MyOn program after reading a book. You can test from 6 a.m. - 9 p.m. including weekends. Parents, please be sure to have students test on their own, however if they need assistance reading the questions and answers, please read the quiz to them or read it together. If available, you can turn on text to speech with AR for some quizzes before testing. *My students know how to do this! I can't wait to see how many points everyone racks up. We had been working hard to meet our AR goals and personal goals the students had set for themselves this year. Don't give up! Keep reading and keep quizzing! Please continue to check this site and your email. I will be checking in weekly via email and posting here as I find additional resources and anything else I think might be helpful. Also continue to check the Nate Mack website. You might see some fun new content pop up over there. Wishing everyone health. Love, Mrs. Cowley Hello Families,
IEP progress reports went home on Friday, March 6th. Please be sure to check your child's backpack if you didn't receive one for your child. As always, let me know if you need an additional copy. I'd be happy to send one. Also, please know I take the health of all my students very seriously. Due to recent concerns, we took the opportunity to watch a short video about hand washing and modeled proper hand washing procedures yesterday in class. In addition, while we have had several containers of sanitizer accessible in the resource room all year, we have directed students to use the sanitizer as they enter and leave the classroom. Finally, we are taking extra precautions focusing even more than usual on keeping surfaces clean with wipes and Lysol, which I use at the end of the day once students are gone in preparation for the next day. If you would like to donate any supplies to our classroom such as wipes, Lysol spray, sanitizer, or tissues, we would gladly accept them. Thank you so much! Hello Families! Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed a wonderful winter break. Please note IEP progress reports will be coming home tomorrow attached to your child's report card. If you did not receive one for some reason, please contact me so I can send you another.
In addition to the progress report, you will find communication from my student teacher. We are happy to welcome Janet Sousa to Nate Mack! She is studying to be a special education teacher at UNLV and I will be her teacher mentor through the end of the school year. All families should have received the introductory letter. Students in second and third grade also received the media consent form. Please excuse the error regarding the length of the lesson. The video taped lesson will run 30-40 minutes, not one to two hours. If you give consent please remember to send that form back asap so Mrs. Sousa can begin planning and can fulfill her class requirements. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Thank you! Wow. I can't believe October is already over! Time sure is flying! We must be having fun in the resource room. Please know that progress reports went home last week for my students. If your student's progress report didn't make it home, please let me know and I can send another.
It was great seeing everyone today in their costumes. I hope you all have a safe and fun night. Remember, we DO have school tomorrow. Also, please remember to schedule a parent teacher conference with your student's homeroom teacher. I will do my best to attend all conferences (as long as I don't get double booked). Conferences are a time to talk with your child's teacher, discuss their performance, celebrations, and concerns. There is also some specific data that needs to be reviewed. Please know this is not a time to review your student's IEP, however if you have specific IEP related concerns or questions, please contact me anytime! |