If You Give a Child a Chance

May 30, 2013

Written by Miss Garrity’s 4th Grade Class

If you give a child a chance, he’ll probably ask you to read him a story.  He’ll like the story so well he’ll want to you to teach him to read.  When he learns to read, he’ll want to read many different kind of books.  He’ll probably become curious about the world around him and will begin to ask a lot of questions.  After he has read many books, he will want to learn how to write.  After he learns how to write, he’ll probably want to write a story.  After he writes a story, he will want people to read it.  Since he wants people to read his story, he sells it.  Once his story starts to be sold, he decides he wants to travel the world.  He travels the world and spends the money he made from selling his story writing more stories.  The more stories he writes, the more money he earns.  When he earns more money, he’ll probably use his money to build a library to help give other children a chance.  He will probably begin by teaching other children how to read.  By teaching them how to read, he is giving them a chance.

One of the children that was given a chance grew up to love to read so much that she became a librarian so that she too could read to children.  By reading to children, she was giving a child a chance to use their imagination.  She will probably read a book about space and one of those children will become curious and want to learn more.  He will want to travel to the world he has been reading about, and he probably will grow up to become an astronaut. After his time in space is up, he will probably visit a classroom to tell of his adventures.  He will probably tell them how he once had an adult give him a chance.  The teacher of that class will probably be inspired by his story, and chose to follow her dream of publishing her poetry.  Encouraged by the children in her class, she will probably write a book of poetry that shows when given a chance, the opportunities for your future are as vast as space.  In giving all of these children chances, chances are they too will give a child a chance.  Will you give a child a chance?

Futaba: Digital Classroom Games for iPad

May 21, 2013

The Futaba app is incredible!! It contains a number of teacher recommended learning sets and is designed to give your students an engaging review by supporting curriculum standards.  These include lower-case and upper-case Alphabet Matching, Dolch Sight Words for 1st through 3rd grades, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Telling the Time, Currency, Countries and Flags, Shapes, Animals, Foods and more. 

Teachers can also create their own games using their own images and text. They can create a FREE Futaba Cloud Account, which allows you to easily share your games from iPad to many using a simple class code. 

Find Futaba in the App store for $6.99

1st Graders Present to School Board

May 14, 2013

1st Graders from Webster elementary presented to the school board on how they have been using iPads as a learning tool in their classroom! The presentation they created is below. Way to go 1st Graders!!!!

Go Animate Used in Speech!!

May 13, 2013

Go Animate was used to make expressive language practice meaningful and functional with a first grade student at Webster School.  The teacher had expressed that this student was having difficulty making friends.  By using Go Animate, the student saw the need for practicing good sentence structure in verbal communication (his speechand language goal).  Not ready at this point to type his own responses in, the scribing by the therapist allows him to express himself and hear himself be successful in being friendly to others. The teacher picks it up from there and reinforces his success by replaying the ‘video’ in the classroom.

Playing soccer with new friends. by Jnowalk on GoAnimate

BSU J-Day Visit

April 24, 2013

What is your J-Day Style?  A dozen PHS yearbook students were on a quest to discover more about all things yearbook-related at Ball State University’s annual Journalism Day on Friday, April 19.  The day started with a keynote address by Joe Ward, the sports graphics editor at The New York Times.  As a member of an award-winning multi-media team that makes interactive graphics, Ward gave students a behind the scenes look at the hours of work that go into creating 3D, avatar-like graphics using motion-capture technology.  He has covered the London Olympics, Hurricane Katrina, Ground Zero after 9/11, Super Bowls and more.

During the breakout sessions, student writers Kelsey Schnieders and Stephanie Boyle learned about the writing process and how to go about publishing their work from freelance author Colleen Steffen.  Stephanie said, “The best thing I learned was how to do research for a nonfiction novel.”

Seniors Bobbie Stiles and Hayley Long learned about what to expect during the college years and how to prepare for their careers post-college from a panel of Ball State students.  Instructor Tim Cleland taught Nadia Baca, Olivia Baca, and Brayden Davis more about selling senior ads to generate revenue toward publication costs.  Gloria Garcia, Diana Peynado, and Ramon Luna received design inspiration from instructor Robin Bilinski.  Cindy Todd, National Yearbook Adviser of the Year, shared leadership tips and answered questions about becoming editors from students Morgan Oberley and Dayana Ortiz.  Additionally, students submitted five of their favorite photos at an on-site critique by Chris Townsend.

Nadia said, “My favorite part of the day was seeing the Olympic sport presentations.  They were really cool.”

PHS graduates Lindsey Downs (Butler University) and Samantha Hellinga (IPFW) received an Honorable Mention in display writing for their work published in the 2012 Mayflower Yearbook.