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Devotions:

Pray in the spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Ephesians 6:18

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Just a quick blog entry today. I have been having lots of fun with the WWTelescope. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, please get it as soon as possible! It is a great program and those of the students that have downloaded it, many of them are already creating their own slideshows and presentations using the images available. I’m hoping that Microsoft will add some music soon so I don’t have to look for free, usable music.

It was a busy day and it was made harder by the beautiful weather outside. We did get to go out and play some kickball which helped (and I think I got a sunburn because of it). Students had a math test today which was fairly long due to the fact that they also had a review test to go along with it. Tomorrow, students will have their spelling test. We have moved the memory verses to Tuesday as I will not be in the class on Friday. The students will actually have a sub tomorrow even though I will still be in the building. Tomorrow is the Spelling Bee and I will be busy helping out with that event.

Have a great night. I think I will go and get a bowl of ice cream!!!!

Today is our qualifying round for the Spelling Bee on Friday. We will select five students from the class to join with the five students from Ms. Starks class. We had lots of things happening yesterday. Poetry in particular is a big push right now as we try to finish all our poems by Friday. We also had our part yesterday to celebrate how hard the students have been working. It was a good time had by all.

Some really great news popped up yesterday. It was funny, but just after I wrote about the new space program coming out in late May; lo and behold, if it doesn’t pop up ready to be downloaded yesterday. I am very excited. My wife says I’m like a boy in a candy shop. Anyway, the program looks brilliant and I am going to download at school as soon as I get there. The site is called WWTelescope and it comes to use from Microsoft. It’s also free!

Our devotion today was Genesis 2:8-9

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the site and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge.

Here are the spelling words for this week:

Here is a new program that is coming out that looks really cool. Keep an eye out for it!

WWTelescope Headed for Late May Launch

May 09, 2008 | by Nick Mokey

Microsoft’s Google Sky competitor, dubbed WorldWide Telescope, is almost ready for release, according to Bill Gates.

Google Sky may be widely credited with pushing stargazing software beyond astronomy geeks and into the mainstream, but Microsoft hopes to improve on Google’s formula with its own free celestial application, WorldWide Telescope. Bill Gates spoke more about the upcoming release and gave a more definite release date at a speech in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Friday.

According to PCWorld, Gates told audiences that Google Sky would launch at the end of May, staying within the spring 2008 time period promised on Microsoft’s prelaunch page. In his address, Gates was especially proud of the Microsoft Visual Experience Engine that will power WW Telescope, compiling terabytes worth of data into a seamless view of the night sky. “This is taking data that’s very complex, gathered over many years from many telescopes, and making it accessible,” he said.

Gates was in Indonesia for the Government Leader Forum – Asia, where he also announced a handful of education programs Microsoft would participate in to help deliver technology and education to those in less developed countries.

source: http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/16650/wwtelescope-headed-for-late-may-launch

Here is a video about the program:

Here is a nice video from Bill Nye the Science Guy. I have always enjoyed him and he gives a great explanation as to why Pluto should not be considered a planet anymore.

One of the projects we have been working on is a comic strip based on the events of the poem “The Secret”. Students had to use the actions in the poem to create a comic strip showing how secrets can spread and hurt others. This helped us to understand the main idea of a poem. I told the students that I would pick the winner and create a comic using a comic strip creator called MakeBeliefsComix . The winner turned out to be a tie between B.D. and J.K. So I combined the two ideas and created these comics.

Click on the picture to see the whole thing.

The sun finally came out today!!! What a gorgeous day! It was a much smaller class today with four children missing. That is very rare for our class. We had many things to do still and got them all done on time. Students have a home letter for you to sign and bring back on Monday. You should also be receiving a newsletter if you haven’t already seen it from the website.

We also had something very cool today. I got a website this morning where you could sign up to have your name inscribed on a plaque and put into the next NASA spacecraft going to the Moon. The site describes it as this:

Sign up to send your name to the moon. Names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO spacecraft for its historic mission bringing NASA back to the moon. You will also receive a certificate showcasing your support of the mission.

The deadline is June 27, 2008 for the submission of names.

LRO’s objectives are to find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology.

It was very cool and I got all the children signed up. They also got their certificate to bring home. We were talking about it all day!!! Just think! Our names on the Moon!

By the way, did you know you can use Google Moon to see the Moon in detail????

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On a completely different topic, I had mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to focus on a couple of topics of interest to parents. I am going to talk about Internet Safety to start as more and more students use the internet at home. Sometimes it is scary how comfortable children can be with the internet and computer and know so much without understanding the consequences.Today, I am going to start with one of the most important things with protecting your child:

1. Supervise your child while online and consider putting the computer in a common room of the house.

This sounds fairly common sense but you would not believe how many kids (and not just from here!) tell me that they have a computer in their rooms. Whether or not the computer is connected to the Internet, it should still be in an area where the time and content is being monitored. Common areas can be kitchens, family rooms or other places where the child has the expectation that someone could come by at any moment. Having the computer in the bedroom does not allow for this and students can be very good at hiding their tracks and using the computer when they think their parents are asleep or busy. Children are naturally curious and the Internet has many elements that can be tempting to curious minds and extremely easy to get to. With the computer in a common area, this helps children deal with these temptations in a non-combative manner. The computer is just placed in a common area. You don’t have to worry about what they are up to when the bedroom door is closed or whether they are on late at night.

I am seeing a whole lot of comments tonight which is great. Before I put down the computer for tonight and spend some time with my wonderful wife, I thought I would put a quick blog entry to highlight the new newsletter coming out tomorrow and mention a couple of things going on today. I have added some new links on the side including the cool link to the video of Mercury crossing the Sun. I just think that is so neat; this little planet going across the huge magnificence of the Sun. It certainly gives you another reminder of the awesomeness of God. There is also a link to a new logic game called Blobs. It is very addictive. The students really got into it.

So here is the newsletter for May. You can download it from the Box.net widget on the right. Don’t forget to vote in our new poll!

What a busy day of learning today!!!! Today we started a new poem called “Apologies”. Students brainstormed a variety of inanimate objects, then though out apologies for how they have used them. Whether it was sharpening a pencil or kicking soccer balls, students had a great time thinking up apologies for their actions! We did a sample poem together, which you can see below:

Students also finished studying the eight times tables, which are the last times tables the students had to learn. Actually, the only 8 times fact we had to learn was 8×8 as we had already learned all the other times tables and could apply those to learning the 8 times tables. For example, students already knew 2×8 so they also knew 8×2. After this, students will be working on multiplying multiple digits (ex. 28×2).

In social, we started a new project called “A Tribute To . . .” We have been learning about about everyday services and emergency services in class. Using that information we picked an emergency service to write a tribute about. We will take those tributes, add music and pictures to it and create a voicethread to add to our blog.

Finally, in science we have been making some fantastic discoveries. First students discovered that the Sun is huge compared to the Earth and Moon and that the moon is actually tiny compared to the Sun and Earth. We then then solved a mystery. WE have been wondering how it is possible for the moon to cover the sun during a solar eclipse if the Sun is so big. Using a couple of examples, (including one of the boys standing on a counter!) students discovered that the farther away something is from us, the smaller it looks. So the sun appears to be the same size as the moon because it is so far away!! Next week, I will show the students a neat website that shows what the sun looks like from different planets!!!!

I have included the spelling letter in the box.net widget on the side. As well, I am working hard to get the May newsletter ready. Look for it coming soon!!!!