Mr. Z's Grade 4 Class – Remote Learning Update #6

This week I want to introduce a new math website your child can use at home, called Happy Numbers. The site is aligned with the Common Core learning standards. It is usually a fee-based program, but is temporarily free of charge until June 30. 

I am generally not a big fan of many online learning programs, with some exceptions. Tailoring online instruction to individual student needs can be difficult and imperfect, despite what many online programs promise. Also, a site may present concepts in ways that are different than how we’ve covered it in our classroom, often leading to student confusion or frustration. Finally, online programs can complement and reinforce traditional classroom instruction, but were never intended to replace it. Given the circumstances and our need to use some online tools while the school is closed, I am optimistic that this Happy Numbers site can be a helpful tool in our remote learning toolbox. It is probably the best math site I have come across that is available free of charge.   

This is the sixth week of remote learning, so all the new weekly work I provide in the Google Classrooms will be labeled as “Week #6.” The overview of this week’s new work is in the "Remote Learning Week #6 Parent-Caregiver Guide," available as a PDF file attached to this e-mail message. Also, this message and all the previous weekly Remote Learning Parent-Caregiver Guides are always available on my class blog at bssroom302.blogspot.com.  

 

PARENT/CAREGIVER ACTION ITEM #1

Have your child take the Happy Numbers placement test. Details and passwords for logging in to the site are available in an individualized post for your child in our Math and Science Google Classroom. After they log in, the site will automatically have them take this one-time placement test. The test takes about 20 -30 minutes.

**IMPORTANT**  Please pick a time to have your child take the placement test when they can focus and try their best. Even though the site is adaptive, meaning it will adjust content to try to meet your child’s needs, their performance on the placement test determines the initial learning path they are placed on. We want to get the most accurate initial placement possible. It is also a good idea to have a pencil and scrap paper nearby during the placement test, and during any online math work.      

  

PARENT/CAREGIVER ACTION ITEM #2

This week I am offering an online read aloud of Tuck Everlasting, a book that we started in class last month. Help your child find these online read aloud recordings in our Reading and Writing Google Classroom. I think they will enjoy continuing to share this book together.

  

PARENT/CAREGIVER ACTION ITEM #3

Tell your child about a new feature I have set up for students to communicate with me called “Talk with Mr. Z.” They can get to this private chat feature by going to the “Talk with Mr. Z” post in the Specials, Talk to Mr. Z, and Other Cool Stuff Google Classroom.  Directions for how to use the chat feature are in the post. Of course please feel free to check in on our chat and join us any time.

OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

* Bridge Street Occupational Therapist Stacey Noble has teamed up with other district therapists to create a district website focused on OT/PT activity ideas, videos, worksheets, visuals and games.  The site is at https://sites.google.com/northampton-k12.us/northamptonotandptresources/home

As always, feel free to call or text me at my new phone line (413) 342-1490. You can also email me at jzyskowski@northampton-k12.us

  

Mr. Z's Grade 4 Class – Remote Learning Update #5

What do labradoodles, LeBron James and Legos all have in common? They all are the subjects of some great non-fiction books available on the digital library site Epic!. Due to school closures, Epic! is offering free student accounts until June 30. I created a classroom for us, so now your student can access this reading site from home.

Besides tons of great non-fiction books on topics like history, science and animals, Epic! has lots of popular fiction titles, including many graphic novel series like LumberJanes and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It also has audio books and videos. I hope this resource can help ease frustration around getting access to appropriate reading materials while the school and libraries are closed. Your student can find a personal password and link to Epic! through our Typing Club, Epic!, Etc Google Classroom.

On the subject of math, I have heard the MathGames website that I steered students to last week can be a little laggy on some computers and contain a little more advertising than some parents would prefer. In response, starting this week I will offer a second option for practicing the targeted skills. It is a website that allows you to print skill-specific worksheets and answer keys. In the meantime, I will continue to research other online math practice sites.    

This is Week #5 of remote learning, so all the new work I provide in the Google Classrooms will be labeled as “Week #5.”

The overview of this week’s new work is in the Remote Learning Week #5 Parent-Caregiver Guide, available as a PDF file attached to this e-mail message.

Lastly, every week I learn about some new website created by Northampton school staff to support families. Links to all those sites, plus these weekly emails that I send to you, can be hard to keep track of. I want to remind you that I post copies of every class-wide email I send on my teacher blog, available at bssroom302.blogspot.com   Click on “List of Websites” on my blog to get to a list of all the websites I mention. I encourage you to visit and bookmark the blog for one-stop shopping to these emails and links.

OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

* Bridge Street Adjustment Counselor Laurie Sperry and her NPS colleagues have created a website loaded with social emotional learning opportunities, supports, and contacts. Among the many resources are videos of our awesome counselors reading aloud some great books about worrying, mindfulness and bullying.

Mr. Z's Grade 4 Class – Remote Learning Update #4

Welcome to the first week of online remote learning, with an emphasis on the online! The Google Classrooms have been set up, the passwords distributed (mostly). It's time to rock and roll! 

The routines I introduce this week will take a little bit for us all to get used to, so please contact me if you have any problems accessing the work or understanding the process. They are also new for me, so I aim to tweak and improve this as we go.

This is Week #4 of remote learning, so all the work provided will be labeled as “Week #4.”

There will be two pieces to this process:

* Remote Learning Week #4 Parent-Caregiver Guide – this guide, in a PDF file attached to this e-mail message, is an overview of the week’s work. It will be delivered Sunday nights;

* The actual work materials – these are posted in your student’s Google Classrooms with a name that refers to the week number. I set up four Google Classrooms for us to work in: Reading and Writing, Math and Science, Typing Club, and Specials and Other Cool Stuff.

For this first week especially, I ask that you sit with your child to review the work in the Google Classrooms. Please read all the instructions in there, especially for how to find and work with the materials, which can be a little tricky the first time. My goal is that once we get past this initial learning curve, students will be fairly self-sufficient and know exactly what they can work on each week and how to get to it, with you checking in on their progress.

Finally, Massachusetts State and Northampton School District officials recommend that elementary students have about three hours of school work and related activities on days that school would normally be in session. I hope to provide an increasing amount of offline activities as we get up to speed so that students are not staring at a computer screen the entire time.   

OTHER IMPORTANT TIDBITS

* Please look at this linked PDF about Northampton’s Food Distribution Program. There are some important program changes that will hopefully make it easier for folks to take advantage of these resources.

* Feel free to contact me at my new phone line (413) 342-1490. You can also email me at jzyskowski@northampton-k12.us

Mr. Z's Grade 4 Class – Remote Learning Update #3

Hello again! In light of the school closure now extending through May 4^th, we have developed new plans for supporting student learning remotely during this period. Please read this entire letter, since it has important instructions about how to get schoolwork for your child as we move forward. It is a long letter – my apologies in advance!

To get this new phase of learning off the ground, I need to provide every family with their student’s user name and password for the child’s school Google account. This will allow students to get in to our Google Classrooms. I am not allowed to send these passwords via email, so I need families to call me.

PARENT/CAREGIVER ACTION ITEM #1

Call Mr. Z at (413) 342-1490 to get your student Google user name and password. I will also provide a second user name and password that students will use to log in to their accounts on third-party educational websites, like Typing Club, ReadWorks and others.    

PARENT/CAREGIVER ACTION ITEM #2

Try to log in to Google Classroom on the device your student will use for school work using the Google user name and password I gave you. You should do a web search for “Google classroom sign in,” and then go to the top page in the search results list and log in there. More on how to log in below.

What Kind of Device to Use

The device a student uses should ­not be a Smart Phone. The ideal device will have a keyboard, like a desktop computer or laptop. Tablets like iPads will work, especially for just reading texts, but they are not nearly as good for typing, which the students will be doing.

**IMPORTANT** If your student does not have access to a computer with a keyboard, please let me know as soon as possible and we can probably get a Chromebook from the district delivered to you.      

What Web Browser to Use

The Google Chrome web browser provides the best user experience when working with Google Classroom and the other Google tools we will use (Docs, Forms, Drive, Slides, etc). It is also the browser your student uses at school on a Chromebook, so it will be familiar. However, I have tested visiting Google Classroom using the web browsers Firefox on a PC and Safari on various Apple devices. These all seem to work fine, but I can’t guarantee that all the features we may use will work as well on these other browsers as they might on Chrome. If you want to download Google Chrome to your student’s device so he or she can use that browser, it is available for free on the Internet. Also, I am attaching a letter to this message from our IT Teachers that provides directions for setting up the Chrome browser to deliver the best user experience to your student, just like at school. 

THANK YOU for reading this far! Here are some other quick tidbits to inform you about plans for schoolwork going forward.

QUICK TIDBITS ABOUT PLANS FOR SCHOOLWORK GOING FORWARD

* Starting on Monday you will get a weekly email from me that provides an overview of and links to the work available for your student for that week. This work will be available via the Google Classroom you will (hopefully) access after getting this message.

* Remember that this work I provide is not required, will not need to be turned in to me, and will not affect your child’s report card. These activities are suggestions to keep your child’s skills sharp and the learning going during this school closure period. Please do what you can, when you can, but PLEASE don’t stress you or your child out if this feels like too much. Do what’s right for you and your family!

* I will “share” a unique Google Doc titled “Talk with Mr. Z” with every student in the class. (Your child will know what I am talking about when I say it is “shared” by me and them.) This Doc will serve as a sort of private chat room between your student and myself for school-related discussions (or for just catching up – I really miss your kids!). Please feel free yourself to look at the Doc at any time.

* Families with students who work with Ms. Foley will receive additional instructions for supporting learning remotely.   

      

WAYS TO CONTACT MR. Z

You can reach me at my new phone line (413) 342-1490. You can also email me at jzyskowski@northampton-k12.us

Mr. Z's Grade 4 Class – School Closure Update #2

Greetings again from the Room 302 (not so) top secret remote headquarters. I hope you are all managing well. I have a few pieces of news I’d like to share in this update:

PHONE CALLS TO FAMILIES

The district has asked teachers to check in by phone with families of all students at least once a week. I am starting these calls this week. I will be calling via a new telephone number that I set up specifically for this task. The number is (413) 342-1490. It will show up on your caller ID as “Springfield, MA.”

If you are busy, please do not feel obligated to answer when I call. I will just leave a message if you don’t pick up. You may also use this number to call me, leave a voice message or send text messages to me. This is not my home phone, but I can access it at home, so don’t feel funny about using it to reach me. That is the purpose of it.

SPECIAL FOOD RESOURCES AVAILABLE

The school community, including the PTO, is putting together some great resources available to families during the school closure period, such as free school breakfasts and lunches, some Stop and Shop gift cards, etc. Please feel free to contact me by any of the means mentioned below if you need a hand getting connected to any of these resources. I would love to help.  

WAYS TO CONTACT MR. Z

You can reach me at my new phone line (413) 342-1490. You can also email me at jzyskowski@northampton-k12.us

I also want to remind you that I am posting copies of all these e-mail updates I send on my classroom blog at: http://bssroom302.blogspot.com/  You can always visit there for access to the complete collection of the school closure updates I send.

Mr. Z's Grade 4 Class – School Closure Update #1

I hope you are all settling in to a new routine for the next few weeks, and that you are all as well as can be.

In the first work packet you will find a cover letter from Ms. Liz and I that details the work enclosed and offers a semblance of a school-day schedule. The schedule idea of course is just a suggestion. We anticipated that some folks might find it easiest to try to keep a bit of a schedule, but it’s really up to you and your family’s needs if you want to follow it. The included work is largely review and enrichment, an approach that is being used across the Northampton school district for all the elementary grades.

I will try to keep my communications to you brief (I know I’m getting a little burned out myself already trying to stay abreast of all the news). I will number my updates to you to hopefully make it easier to keep track of them. This is Update #1.

I will also post copies of all the e-mail updates I send on my classroom blog at: http://bssroom302.blogspot.com/  You can always visit there for access to the complete collection of the school closure updates.

Finally, I feel a little bad about the situation last Friday afternoon at school dismissal time. I found out about the school closure literally two minutes before the dismissal bell, and was told not to tell the students. When one or two students packing up at their cubbies asked me if the school was going to close, I told them it hadn’t been decided yet. However, some of the older students had found out about the closure and were talking about it in the bus line, causing some confusion and perhaps anxiety. It’s so important for children to be able to trust adults, and I do feel bad about not being able to be more forthcoming in that moment. If your child wondered if I knew about the closure, I’d be grateful if you could explain the special circumstances we found ourselves in that afternoon and why I said what I said.

Please be safe and healthy. Please contact me at jzyskowski@onrthampton-k12.us if there’s anything I can do to help support you and your child these next few weeks. Lastly, please tell your student I say “Hello” and that I miss them already.

U.S states song and presentation

Here is our presentation of the elementary school classic. The song is a fun way to learn and remember the names of all fifty states.