Our June newsletter is out! Your child should have brought it home today. If you can not find it, you can download a copy of it from the box.net widget on the bottom right side of the page. Enjoy!

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!

Well, we’re off to science world today. The students are very excited! Please pray for a safe trip and a wonderful learning experience. Students will get the opportunity to wander around the exhibits as well participate in a workshop on structures. We will be getting back a little late today due to the timing of the workshops and the traffic but we should be back at approx. 4:00.

If you haven’t seen the March Newsletter, your child received it on Tuesday. Please take a look when you have the opportunity. If you have misplaced it and would like another copy, please download one from the right column in the box.net box. Simply click on the document you would like and download load it to your desktop. From there, you will be able to open it and read about all the neat things happening in the class.

I will post more information on the field trip when we return this afternoon!!

Have a great day!