National Math Champions

Congratulations To Our Team Winner!

Last month my class competed in The Noetic Learning Math Contest, which is an advanced, biannual, national math competition for elementary students. The goal of the competition is to encourage students to be interested in math, developing problem solving skills and inspire young learners to excel in math!

National Honor Roll Winners

My class did very well and we had eleven students finish in the top 10% nationally. Wow! These students were awarded math medals. We also had many students place in the top 50% nationally, and these students received an Honorable Mention.

Rosetta Stone

We have been studying foreign languages at school! For many years, the most consistent parent feedback I received was that the self-contained program needed to offer a foreign language. We have come up to a solution to that concern by allowing students to use the Rosetta Stone software online.

All students enrolled in this program for the 2013-14 school year will have access until July 30, 2014. We intend to use Rosetta for approximately for 30-minutes a day, three times a week. Students are encouraged, but not required to access the program at home. This is not part of their grade nor will it appear on their report card, but rather a valuable learning opportunity. 

To log in at home, students can access the classroom portal here:

 http://pvusdcommunityed.rosettastoneclassroom.com 

Students all know his or her username and password. 

Fairly recently Rosetta unveiled a free iPad app. The link to the app can be found here. After it is downloaded, students should go to the classroom portal using a browser (we have found Safari works best for this app) and log in. Then click on "Launch Rosetta Stone" and the app will open, with the student logged in and ready to learn! 

QR Codes

 We recently started using one of my FAVORITE classroom tools: QR Codes!

I was honored to be invited to speak about using QR Codes in the classroom at the 2013 TED Conference and was also recently featured on Amplify.com talking about how QR Codes increase classroom engagement. 

Students in my class recently scanned a series of QR Codes, to learn about QR Codes! We used iPads and the i-nigma app to learn all about QR Codes including what they are, their history, different ways to use them, and how to create our own!

We will continue to use QR Codes in the classroom all year and now that students have learned to create them, you will start to see it as an option for homework.