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.