Mystery Hangout

Mrs. Grau's 7th grade World Geography class (hour 1) took part in a mystery hangout.  Their goal was to figure out where in the world the class we were hanging out with was.  The students did a great job using their mapping skills and deductive reasoning to figure out that the class was in Houston, Texas.  The class we were skyping was able to figure out our location as well.  After the skype we spent some time sharing facts about our area as well as having a short discussion on what comes to mind when we think of Texas as they think of Wisconsin.  The students did an excellent job working together on this hangout.

December 15 -December3

Winter break is heading near and the students are buzzing with excitement, but before they have the opportunity to enjoy break we have a few things to finish up  here at school.

This week to off to a great start with a Best Buddies cookie exchange in the library after school.  How exciting to see about 50 of our students having a great time hanging out and learning more about each other.

Check out the video below.  The students tried using a green screen and had great success with it, but also found out some of the tricky issues that come with the green screen.

Our Homeroom "Optimism" Door

The challenge this month in homeroom was to make a wish list stocking of what each student personally wants to obtain in the new year.  The student focused on ways to make their new year, not things.  For example one student wants to be nicer to her sister in the new year, another student wants to increase their grade point average, and a lot of students wish for happiness.

After creating the stocking wish lists, the students may a display for their stocking, and I'm impressed!  The homeroom students can before school, after school, and during their study halls to create this awesome display.  It was is a great example of team work!

Student Samples - Movenote & Thinglink

Examples of how Movenote was used to create presentation on native american culture in Ms. Pozolinski's social studies class.

Ojibwe Daily Life

Ho-Chunk Social Groups

Ho-Chunk Language

Earlier this year Mrs. Turk's class was able to choose a topic to explore in more detail that related the stories they were reading in class and then develop a Thinglink.  Below is an example of a Thinglink created in her class.

December 8 - December 12

This week students will be participating in the Hour of Code! The Hour of Code is a global movement that is encouraging students to learn coding.  More information about the HOC can be found here.  Classes will be in the library as well as other classes, such as STEM and Computer Applications will be participating in this exciting week.

This week Mrs. Nowak's class will be using in the library using the school's databases to do research on minerals.  When their research is done students will then work on creating a cartoon with their information.

Students in study hall are working on finishing up posters and presentation for their physical education classes, studying for their country quizzes in social studies, as well as keeping up on their daily homework.

Mystery Skype with Yellowstone

This week Mrs. Grau's world geography class and I did a mystery skype together.  This was awesome! A mystery skype is when one class skypes with another class or person and they try to figure out where they are located in the world.  We explained to the students how the process would work and then did a practice run.

We had a greeter and closer as well as students to ask questions and keep track of questions.  All students took part by putting their questions into a google form.  The students were prepared and ready.  The students came up with excellent questions to narrow down where we were skyping too, and quickly we found out it was Yellowstone National Park.

After the students guessed correctly, Ranger Allie shared information about Yellowstone, everything from the super-volcano to how Yellowstone became the United States first national park, to the animal life.  Not only was the class able to use their geography skills to find Ranger Allie, but they went on a virtual field trip as well!  Mrs. Grau has two more mystery skypes set up for this month, we'll let you know where we go!

December 2 - December 5

It's hard to believe that December is already here and that we are starting the second trimester of school, time sure flies.  The students started their new trimester classes and are getting familiar to new teachers and subjects.  In the library we are being introduced to new study hall students.

This week Mrs. Grau's class will being doing a mystery skype.  I can't say too much about it at the moment because it would give too much away.  Yesterday Mrs. Grau and I did a run through with the students so that they would know what type of questions would help them figure out the location of our mystery skyper. We also discussed the use of Google forms so that questions could get inputted for our speakers to ask and we reviewed some map reading skills.  We were supposed to have a second mystery skype this week, but the other school had an unexpected assembly so that skype has been put on hold for the time.

Mr. Werth's students will be working on creating a Google presentation on one of the dimension of health and wellness. Students will be working in small groups to create the presentation that will later be shared with their classmates.

The month our school character trait is Optimism, so the library staff gathered some books that reflect the trait of optimism for students to check out.

Mustang TV - New Background

Mustang TV is how our students at Park View get  their daily announcements on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday each week.  The students deliver the announcements as well as run all of the equipment so that the announcements can be viewed by the student body.  Ever since Mustang TV developed, well over a decade ago we have been used a couple of bed sheets as our backdrop.....see picture below.

As you can see this background did the job we needed it to do, however we have often thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a more professional looking background?

We are proud to show you the new background that Mustang TV was able to purchase thanks to the Education Foundation awarding Mustang TV the Paul Strobel grant.  This grant is awarded to help student in public speaking.  We are so grateful to have received this award and want to send out a huge thank you to the foundation.  See how great our new background looks?

Maker Room Projects

The students have been working hard in the Maker Room again. This time they used Lego's to make a "pumping machine" as the students named it.  Once again, it was great seeing the students work together and troubleshoot to make a working model.

November 17 - November 25

Our students created some great comics on the 5-themes of Geography, see below for some examples. They were on task and working hard and it paid off - they told great stories about their states while including the themes.  Mrs. Nowak made an impromptu stop in the library after having some trouble with the Chromebooks in her class, way to troubleshoot quickly!

Ms. Pozolinski's class will be in Friday and then next week Monday and Tuesday to create slides on a Native American group and then use Movenote to make that slide into a presentation for the rest of their class to view.

The student in the video below will recap the week for you.  Have a great Thanksgiving Break!

5-Themes of Geography Comics

Students from House 7C were in the library working on their 5-themes of Geography comics this week. Students create a storyboard making sure that they incorporated location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and region. Then they used the comic creator Pixton to show their story. All of the students worked hard and made incredible comics. Take a look at a few of the comics.

What are they building?

Study hall students have been busy this week creating a vehicle that can travel over rugged terrain. They created, found the flaws in their design, and then adjusted to make the vehicle work in the way they wanted. Check it out!

Photosynthesis Powtoon

Students in Mrs. Schmidt's science class have been creating movies about photosynthesis using the program PowToon. For most students this was the first time that they used PowToon. They found it easy to use and created some great movies. Below are a couple of student examples.

November 10 - 14

Well, the temperature dropped by about thirty degrees this week, but that didn't stop our students from coming in ready to learn how to use new tools online.  Take a look at the video below to see what is going on in the library this week.

November 3 - November 7

This week in the library we are working with the web tool Thinglink, using Noodle Tools, doing research, and creating QR codes.  Take a look at the video for more details on our week.

Fall Displays

One of the ways that I can help showcase the awesome books we have in our libraries is through displays.  I have had the opportunity to work with  students and staff members in creating some of our fall displays and thought that I would share them. A special thanks to Mrs. Caulley for all of the detail she puts into the library displays.

For Teen Read Week, students were asked to take a book selfie - this is where they put their favorite book in front of their face.  We had lots of students take pictures and the word spread quickly.  By the end of the week students came in and asked if they could get their book selfie taken.  This display was a great success!

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The library also had a display for Halloween, take a look!

October 27 - October 31

Take a look at what happening this week in our library!

New Maker Room

Over the summer Mr. Weiler's summer school art class made an awesome Makerspace for Park View students.  This space is new, so we are learning as we go this year, but students been creative.  We've seen a pinball machine and foosball table created out of Legos, great artwork, origami, and many neat projects made from the Electrical Snapset. 

Take a look at the Electrical Snap Circut Set in action!

A few of the Park View students creating.