First Graders in a Google Classroom

All of our first graders have been visiting the lab lately.  Mrs. Gray, Mrs. Farrell, and Mrs. Komenda, with the help of Ms. Pelsor, our instructional technology coach, and Mrs. Berko our school technologist, have been introduced to Google Classroom and Google Docs.  All of our students have personal student accounts that they log into.  Their first grade teacher is able to create a document and share the document with all of the students in the room, similarly to providing them all a worksheet. Our students have not only been completing these assignments, they have been learning how to log in, open documents, change the font, size, and type in their assignments.  The students have been learning how to capitalize, find the @ key, appropriately space between words, and have learned the purpose of the Return/Enter key. It's amazing how much our little ones are learning in one designed activity from their 1st grade teachers!

Kindergartners setting stamina goals?

Building Stamina for Reading and Writing

So I was walking down the hall the other day, and our kindergartners were getting ready to go home.  "We met our goal, Mr. Balduf" they said excitedly.  I asked them, "What goal did you meet today?"  "We met our goal of stamina" one little boy explained.  It wasn't quite what I expected to hear, I have to admit.  It is quite interesting to hear the words "we met our goal of stamina" coming from a five year old. However, they knew exactly what they were talking about and after conferencing with Ms. Bultinck and Mrs. Hoffman, they surely did meet their goal of stamina.  So, I decided to check out these kindergartners' boasts of goal achievement on Thursday afternoon. You see, to help effectively work with all of the different levels of learners in a kindergarten class, our teachers are helping our  students build their stamina to be able to read and write independently. This allows for increased differentiation in the classroom and provides our teachers the ability to create conferencing times, guided reading groups, and differentiated learning centers.  So, in both Ms. Bultinck and Mrs. Hoffman's rooms, the students were provided a guided story where they worked on their comprehension skills. They then tested their independent read to self stamina and both classrooms once again completed their daily goal. I was quite impressed with our five year olds! I simply could not pass up the opportunity of snapping the photo of our four independent readers on the left. 

Get Fit, Have Fun! Track-a-Thon 2014

Get Fit, Have Fun

Carpenter students who had already run, lined up around the track to give their older classmates some encouragement.  By the end of the day, I needed some too, so I ran through the high-five line with my camera.

On Friday, September 19th, it was a beautiful day for Carpenter's PTO-sponsored Track-a-Thon.  Students in kindergarten through third grade participated for 30 min.  Our fourth graders were out there for 45 minutes and our 5th graders finished the day strong for an hour. Students got to choose if they were going to run, jog, walk or combine their efforts. Parents, grandparents, and neighbors lined the field to give their encouragement and snap quite a few photos. (Remember parents, all photos of Mr. Balduf running, walking, or crawling need to be approved through the principal's social media video/photo approval committee before being shared publicly). We had many organizers, volunteers, and sponsors helping to make the event possible. This is Carpenter PTO's largest fundraiser and the best thing about it was the amount of fun had by all raising money for the students of our school. Our students will celebrate in October at an all-school assembly where they'll watch a DVD made of the event and some lucky students will win prizes for their efforts. The event ends with the presentation of a very large check often eliciting many "wows" from our student and adult audience in the gym.

Fall Fest a Huge Success!

On Friday, September 12th, the PTO sponsored their annual Fall Fest.  The weather didn't cooperate and all activities were moved inside.  However, it was a fun night had by all.  The DJ had a lot of the crowd participating in the YMCA, while other students had the option to get special balloons made, get their face painted, or pet a snake from the Nature Center.  Thank you to all who came out to make it another special evening at Carpenter.