Is your classroom involved in any other collaborative activities? Do leave a comment and let us know.
Among the many enhancements made to the gradebook feature, we’ve now switched on the ability for parents to take a look at their children’s gradebooks too. It’s a live, real-time indicator of progress across all the classes that a student takes.
Let’s first take a look at what a teacher would enter into his Intermediary Math 6 class’ gradebook.
As you’ll see, there are now 4 assignments and 1 quiz that has been graded for every student in the Intermediary Math 6 class.
There was this one chapter in Tuesdays with Morrie that struck a chord with me. It was mainly this test that was described to measure trust. A simple test where one person stands up on a higher ground, for example on a table, facing away from the crowd and letting oneself fall backwards trusting the friends behind to catch the person before they fall. Letting students experience firsthand the importance of being a team player in such activities makes them personally appreciate the value of trust.
Now we’re not encouraging that you try the same activity, because honestly, it can be a little dangerous, but we did look around for some team building activities or games that you can put into action with your group of middle school students. You can try these whether you’re on a camping trip or even during your next Physical Ed. lesson:
1. The Toxic River - This is a group activity. Get everyone to group up at one side of a space – a hall or a field would be fine. Measure a strip of 5 feet next to your line of students and name it “the toxic river”.
The objective is to get the whole group to cross the river as fast as they can – you can set a time period based on the number of students in the group. The catch is that they are not allowed to cross the river without wearing a pair of magic boots. Each person can only wear the pair of boots once and the boots can’t be tossed over the river once a person has crossed over. If they do step on the toxic river without the magic boots, the whole team must start all over again. Hint : Carrying people over is the key. To avoid the same person having to carry the group, you can set a rule that no single person may cross the river more than 2 times.
2. Human Letters – Divide your students into groups of 4 to 5 people. This is a game of speed. The teacher calls out a letter in the alphabet and each group has to quickly form the required letter. They can do this lying on the ground or even while standing. The group that forms the letter fastest wins the game. This game requires students to quickly communicate which part of the letter they’ll be & therefore promotes clear communication as well as clear leaders in the group.
3. Minefield – This is quite an entertaining game and it’s best played in a big field. Form 2 or more teams and get each team to select a single person who will be blindfolded. Each team then gets an obstacle course through which they need to navigate their blindfolded team-mate through. The objective for each team is to get their team mate to the finish line without stepping on any of the mines. If the blind folded team mate does bump into or step on one, the team has to start all over again. To make this game safe, it’s best to use soft toys and hoops as ‘mines’.
Have fun!
It’s time for pictures! We met so many great people along the way, and made some good friends too.
It was an amazing experience to see how teachers and administrators from smaller schools reacted towards QuickSchools.com. They saw a great fit for their schools and most of them signed up on the spot.
Our 2 month conference trip in pictures:
Here’s Carmen Diaz signing up for a QuickSchools account.
Our friends from Mansion Day School having a go on the touchscreen display.
Mark McClelland of Lima Christian School, he signed up on the spot!
Pastor Scott, from FLCS, blown away by our new look and feel 
Sister Asma from Hamza Academy.
Amazed and convinced, she decided to signup on the spot.
Sue from McGuffie Foundation School giving it a go.
3 minutes later… Sue’s inviting her teachers to try QuickSchools too 
I think the pictures say enough. This conference run proved to us that there are many schools out there that are constantly looking for a solution that fits what they need. And when they meet us, they like what they see.
Going forward from the conferences, the holiday season is upon us, so the QuickSchools team is going to focus on all the great feedback we received during this term and put together some colorful New Year’s presents for you. 
Happy holidaying folks!
I remember going to the school science fair as a child and looking at the erupting volcano in awe. It was indeed fun to execute a few of my own experiments at the science fairs in school.
Come to think of it, science experiments can be quite fun & educational for children in elementary school mainly because they provide an element of surprise and a sense of achievement after having conducted one successfully.
Some QuickSchoolers took 30 minutes off today to run some internet searches on popular projects for science fairs. Here’s a few cool experiments that we will soon be trying out ourselves:
1. How much energy is stored in a peanut?
This experiment uses a (fire) lit peanut to heat up 1/2 a cup of water. Students can then approximate how much chemical energy was stored in the peanut.
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/peanut.html
This experiment will require adult supervision as needles & fire is involved.
2. Making a model arm
We use it every day and probably do not even think about how it works. The human arm is a complex structure made up of bones, joints, ligaments, and muscles. But how does it all work? What makes us pick up that cup of coffee or throw that football to an exact area fifty yards away? This project will go deep into the human arm and how it works.
http://www.scienceproject.com/projects/intro/primary/PX003.asp
3. Sundial
From sunrise to sunset, shadows of buildings, trees and other objects move slowly, but continuously. In the northern hemisphere, shadows cast west in the morning, north at noon time and east in the late afternoon. Knowing the direction of shadows is very helpful for telling the time and the directions. To tell the time using the shadows we use sundials or sun clocks. Sundials have been used for centuries to tell the time.
http://www.scienceproject.com/projects/intro/primary/PX008.asp
4. The good old erupting volcano
For those who still want to try out this experiment, knock yourself out!
http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/scienceprojects_szkl.htm
Have fun teaching! =]
How time flies when you’re having a good time!
We started our journey a mere month ago. Ready with our roll bags in hand, backpacks, laptops and not to forget, some chocolate bars, we headed off to our first out of 8 exciting conferences.
Marking our first pit stop in North Carolina, we made our way up and down the country and made our final conference stop in Florida – and that’s only half the story.
This will be our 8th and final stop.
Its been great!
We’ll be sharing with you more on our adventure through our next posts.
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FCIS Convention (Florida Council of Independent Schools)
“Value Added : Why Our Schools are Special”
Date : November 19 – 20, 2009
Location : Omni Resort at ChampionsGate, Orlando, FLorida
Come visit our booth to sign up for your FREE IRIS account, FREE 30 day trial for all other plans, or simply drop by and say HI!
See you guys there!
25th Annual Conference for Administrators of the Independent & Religious Schools
Organized by NYS Coalition of Independent & Religious Schools
The CAIRS 09 conference will bring together over 400 independent & religious school administrators from across New York State in an atmosphere of learning, collegiality and friendship.
Dates – Nov 16th and 17th 2009
Location
The Marriot
Wolf Road
Albany, New York
Website link - http://www.nyscirs.org/Conference.html
Detailed program information is available on this PDF doc:
http://www.nyscirs.org/2009%20NPS%20Program.pdf
A geography teacher’s task isn’t an easy one as it requires piquing the classroom’s interest in countries and cultures that they cannot see or touch. At the same time, it’s also very rewarding as once you’ve managed to spark interest in your student’s minds, it could very well last a long time.
To help you make your classes interesting, we decided to look around for activities that you and your classroom could join. Hope you enjoy trying them out.
1. Firstly, join Geography Awareness Week happening from Nov 15th -21st ‘09 http://mywonderfulworld.org/gaw.html. This event aims to explore the world through mapping.
2. Get your classroom to join programs like ePals - http://www.epals.com/ This site connects classrooms from across the world and helps to connect the students in those classrooms to provide an exchange of cultures. Your class can even join ongoing projects on topics that range from climate to global warming to people and culture. Read more at this link: http://www.epals.com/projects/info.aspx?DivID=index
3. PBS.org has a wealth of knowledge to offer your students. Based on a tv series called AFRICA, the website helps teachers come up with lesson plans as well as provides good content for discussion with elementary students http://www.pbs.org/wnet/africa/about/index.html. There’s even a site that kids themselves can log on to, to watch videos taken from various parts of Africa on this page: http://pbskids.org/africa/
4. National Geographic too tries to get educators and classrooms more involved by providing action plans to teachers on their Geography Action! section http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geography-action/
5. On a lighter note, National Geographic also site where elementary students would enjoy playing interactive games http://games.nationalgeographic.com/
6. The site MyWonderfulWorld.com offers great lesson plans that makes teaching geography fun http://mywonderfulworld.org/toolsforadventure/educators/index.html
Do leave comments if you have more ideas to make geography a fun subject to learn about.
ACTS National Educators Conference
Organized by the Florida League of Christian Schools
FLOCS marks its 25th year of services to schools this year and it’s organizing this year’s conference which will host over 100 workshops within three professional tracks.
Dates – Nov 12th and 13th 2009
Location
Renaissance Resort at SeaWorld
6677 Sea Harbor Drive
Orlando, Florida 32821
Website link - http://www.flocs.org/pages.asp?pageid=83723
This year’s conference features the following speakers:
Dr. Don D. Petry – Executive Director and founder of the National Council for Private School Accreditation (NCPSA).
Dr. Bryan Smith – Bible Integration Coordinator at BJU Press.
Michael Burroughs – Executive Director of the Florida League of Christian Schools.
