CPU Primary Media News
September 8th, 2015
Great Beginnings!
We have had a great start to the 2015-2016 school year in Media. I always enjoy meeting the new faces and testing my memory of names from last year. Please do NOT send name tags with your students. It saves you time and I think I have most of the names figured out! Mrs. Slaymaker and I were able to have students check out on their first day of class thanks to the 45 minute class period. Several classes have had the opportunity to checkout during their guidance time. To help the guidance checkout run smoothly, please have students return books right away in the morning. KIndergarten-You already have baskets outside your room that Julie picks up in the morning. First Grade-Please have students put books in the book return first thing. Second Grade-Julie will deliver a basket to your room the day before your Guidance checkout. Please have students put books in the basket first thing in the morning on the day of Guidance and Julie will pick them up after she finishes breakfast. I am still adjusting to the new schedule of longer classes. I am not sure how the others do it with only five minutes in between each class! It is VERY important that I finish my lessons on time and that you pick up students on time. I am trying to use more technology in my classes and need that time to get set up for the next class.
Online Resources
We have lots of great online resources available for use at the Primary building. We continue to have the Iowa AEA Online resources thanks to Grant Wood and other area AEAs. The resources that are most pertinent to primary staff and students would be BookFlix, Follett Shelf, iClipart, MackinVIA, TeachingBooks.net and Tumblebooks. Follett Shelf and MackinVIA provide free e-books for students and staff. These books can be viewed on the iPads through free-downloadable apps. TeachingBooks.net is a great resource for teachers that provides thousands of resources about fiction and nonfiction books. The Iowa AEA Online Resources can be accessed from the school webpage or using the following link: Iowa AEA Online Resources. Please use the included username and password to access these resources.
Username: 1062cpue
Password: aea10
Reading A-Z and Raz-Kids
CPU Primary also has subscriptions to Reading A-Z and Raz-Kids. These subscriptions were purchased using Microsoft settlement money. Reading A-Z provides printable and projectable leveled books. Raz-Kids is new to the district this year and allows students to read leveled e-books, anytime, anywhere. Students can be added to your class roster, and levels and assignments can be set for each student. Students can record themselves reading books and send you their running record results. The books can be accessed on the iPads using an app called Kids A-Z or online at Kids A-Z. You will be receiving your username and password for these resources in your mailbox. Click on the following link for a brief overview of Raz-Kids: Raz-Kids Overview. Please let me know if your team would like me to stop in some morning and give a quick tutorial.
PebbleGo
I am also excited the district was able to purchase subscriptions to two PebbleGo databases using Microsoft settlement money. PebbleGo provides nonfiction e-books for beginning researchers that features spoken-word audio, text-highlighting, and audio/video media. We currently have subscriptions to the animal and biography databases. These e-books are very similar to the popular Pebble books we have in the easy reader section in the library. Last year, I tested the animal database with my kindergarten classes. We used this database to research different animals and created Haiku decks for each animal with the information gained from this resource. PebbleGo can be accessed using the following link : PebbleGo. Please use the included username and password to access this resource.
Username: cpup
Password: read