Important PTA Information

We held our Spring General Meeting last night and I am sorry to report that we were only able to elect a Secretary for next year's board. We still have the positions of President, Vice-President, and Co-Treasurer unfilled.  Email me and I will send you a Nomination Form if you are interested in any of the following positions.  We will need your commitment in writing by the next board meeting so if you are interested please fill out the Nomination Form and return it to the office as soon as possible. If the board positions go unfilled we will begin the process of shutting down the PTA for the 2014-15 school year.  This could be a lengthy process so we will need to get started right away in May.  If you have any questions please feel free to call or email Mrs. Gnerer.  Thank you!

Student Led Conferences

Thanks to those of you who attended student led conferences this afternoon!  If you did not make it, you can still come tomorrow (Wed the 9th) anytime between 2:40-4:30.  Please plan to stay for 20-30 minutes.  These are usually very fun and informative!  I hope you can join us.

iPad Update :)

An update on our iPad minis!  :)  Thanks to everyone who has sent in headphones.  I appreciate it! The minis have arrived.  Wahoo!  I need to work on getting cases on all of them, and then follow district protocol to have them set up correctly to put apps on them.  So .... we are still waiting (anxiously!) but should have them in our hands soon.  :)  At student led conferences next week, we will read and sign an iPad Acceptable Use Policy for our classroom.  We will use the next week talking about appropriate use and getting ready for our "connected classroom" experience to start after Easter break!

Fun Run tomorrow!

Remember, the Beartooth Family Fun Run is tomorrow morning!  It is not too late to register.  Visit the school website for details and registration information.

No School Monday April 7th

A reminder that there is no school on Monday, April 7th.  Have a nice long weekend!

P.E.

We will have PE on Thursday this week instead of Friday.  Please send your child in appropriate clothes and tennis shoes, as they will be running for the Move-a-Thon!

Royal Readers

This week's Royal Reading King & Queen are Mason & Annalyn!  Great job!

Disney Princesses

My daughter and I just found this great site from Disney.  Each princess has a story that can be read to the kids.  Enjoy!

Happy Mustache Day!

Our Next Skype Experience!

Our next Skype in the classroom experience will be with the NASA Digital Learning Network on April 10th.  As we begin learning about the sky and space, we will chat with a professional from NASA who will help us explore the moon with Wall-E!  Very excited for this experience!

Tweets about Night Zookeeper Skype!

We #skyped with @nightzookeeper & kids started creating some animals and stories on their blogs. pic.twitter.com/kunmNYmErk

— Mrs.Piltz (@MrsPiltzK) March 28, 2014

Mustache Day

Tomorrow our Student Council is having a "Mustache Day" for spirit day.  Feel free to send your kindergartner to school with a mustache, if you'd like them to participate.

Night ZooKeeper

Today we Skyped with the Night ZooKeeper!  We were able to hear one of his stories, and imagine and create our own silly night zoo animals.

 

We Tweeted about some of them @MrsPiltzK.  We also used their website to create our animals, and will be blogging and writing about them soon!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs vs. Pickles to Pittsburgh

We made this Popplet comparing these two stories by Jan Barrett.  Blue boxes are things that are the same, orange boxes are things that are different.

iPads and Headphones

I am so happy to share with you, that through a partnership with the Billings Education Foundation, our classroom will soon become a "21st Century Classroom"! This is part of the Primary Interactive Inquiry Project, which several first grade classrooms in our district are currently participating in.  Our classroom and a kindergarten classroom at Broadwater Elementary will be piloting this program for our grade level. 

Our classroom will soon have 1:1 devices (iPad minis for each student to use in our classroom) and we will have assessment capabilities using our iPads.  This technology, combined with our interactive whiteboard, will make our classroom a truly interactive room where students can learn, explore, create and share. We are very excited!!!!

To give you a better understanding of what our classroom will look like, I encourage you to watch this short video (6 minutes) taken in Mrs. Courtney Niemeyer's first grade classroom at Eagle Cliffs Elementary.  Mrs. Niemeyer's students were the first to engage in this type of experience here in Billings, and the results have been fantastic.  Click here to watch the video of Mrs. Niemeyer's students.

I will continue to communicate with you as the devices arrive and we begin to use them daily.  We hope to have a technology night or afternoon, where we can share with you what we are learning and creating.  Before the iPads arrive, we need two tools to use with them: 1) styluses for writing and drawing and 2) headphones to plug into the devices (no earbuds).  Mrs. McCall has purchased the styluses for our students to use, and many of you already sent headphones to school with your child this fall.  If you have not already sent in a pair of inexpensive headphones, please do at your earliest convenience.  THANK YOU!