This week has been a very busy one. Miss Maher’s class has been making tremendous progress with Type to Learn. They are at the end of their second week and have one more week to go. In a week all the students will have learned home position, all letters and basic punctuation, without looking at the keyboards.

Students can practice their typing skills at home by visiting this site

Fourth Graders Writing Books

Mrs. Printer's fourth graders are writing books for their kindergarten book buddies. The stories feature individual plot lines which include details about each student in Mrs. Dallzell's class. For example, Frances' book buddy, Lola, loves to dance so Frances' book is about Lola dancing.

Third Grade Researchers Write About Animals

All third grade classes are working on animal research topics. Each student picks an animal, learns about its' habitat, life cycle, life structure, potential hazards and develops a plan of protection. Students present what they have learned to their classmates in a PowerPoint presentation.

Kindergarteners Learn Letters and Numbers

Kindergarteners are busy learning how to navigate the Kindergarten Curricula web site. One of their favorite games comes to us from The Literacy Center Education Network.Please visit it at http://www.literacycenter.net/lessonview_en.htm# for learning fun!

Second Graders Begin Multi-media Heritage Unit

Second graders research their family heritage and create a multi-media presentation including information about:

• Landmarks



• Special holidays and events



• Traditional foods



• Sports and games



• Traditional music

In February Second graders bring their families for an evening of celebrating 'Heritage Night' sharing food from many cultures and student presentations.

Second Graders Go Shopping

Second graders are using pre-selected web sites to practise counting money. It's an activity that they enjoy. (Who doesn't like to go shopping?) You can try it out at http://www.arcytech.org/java/money/money.html

Third Graders Compare and Contrast Cultures

Third graders recently took a field trip to Plimoth Plantation. We are using what we learned about two cultures, the Wampanoags and Pilgrims, and creating Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast these two cultures.

Second Graders Climb to the Peak of the Seven Continents

Using Nova's website (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/kilimanjaro/seve-flash.html) second graders have been 'climbing the tallest peaks of the world's seven continents. We have been using this site to learn and compare the elevation of the world's seven tallest peaks. This lab activity ties into what second grade students have been studying in the classroom: the seven continents and their landforms.

Did you know that students in Europe learn that there are six continents, not seven? Europeans count North and South America as one continent, while Americans count them as two seperate continents. We learned that on BrainPop.com. You can visit http://www.brainpop.com/ at home now. The user name and password is the same: neslab.

First Graders Have Fun Learning Short Vowel Sounds

First Graders are learning about short 'a, e, i, o and u' sounds in the classroom. In the computer lab we use Learn to Read at Starfall (http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f) to read about Zak the Rat and Peg the Hen.

Children love the interactive books and the silly characters. They wear headphones and read out loud. Each book can be read any number of times.

Fourth and Fifth Graders Learn Keyboarding Skills

Here we all sit, in the computer lab, Mrs. Printer's fourth graders and I, learning how to keyboard. We use Type to Learn and black opaque 'skins' so that we can't see the letters on the keys. Shane complains that his left arm hurts because he got a flu shot. Mrs. Printer suggests he use his right arm. Peter has his arm in a sling. He was playing football when his elbow hit another kid's helmet, so he can't type in the traditional home position. Everyone else is used to the routine . (They do keyboarding for 25 minutes a day until they reach level 16.) Many of them have already reached that goal and are typing stories. Soon they will all be done and I will begin at the beginning with the next fourth grade class.

Nantucket Elementary School Tech Department

Hi. Linda and I work at Nantucket Elementary School, on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.

This is a very old picture, so I'll try to get an updated one soon.

Linda does the tech support and I teach the kindergarten through fifth graders in our great computer lab.