Second Grade News

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February 22, 2004

Getting Started - Summary of Events

Photo Gallery!

Please go look at our picture gallery. There are pictures from Colonial Day (which was held 2/21/04). Many thanks to Mr. Steve Upton for providing the pictures.

     School is going very well this year. In the first months of school, we learned manners and the proper way to treat each other. When that was completed, we studied all about the oceans of the world, and the ocean life within them. At the end of the unit we had an Oceania Party, with all kinds of seafood to eat. During the proceeding  months, we studied prefixes, suffixes, rhyming words and proper sentence structure in Language Class. In science, we had a lot of fun studying plants and seeds. 

     One fun thing we learned about was John Chapman, known to many as "Johnny Appleseed." He traveled across the country spreading the word of God and planting apple trees, always carrying his Bible with him. He would never miss and opportunity to share the Word with people he met along the way.

Computer Class!

     This year's computer class is getting -very- involved in computers even more quickly than in years past, due to our acquisition last year of 15 Windows-95 based machines. We have 11 students this year, so if a machine breaks down we have something to use while it is being fixed. Next year will be different - enrollment is projected at 24 based on the size of this year's First Grade class. No doubt that class will learn an extra lesson or two on sharing. 

     We're doing something else very new now - all of our computers were networked together in mid-February. The students (and their parents!) are learning the basics of peer-to-peer networking and client/server relationships. This also helps out if a machine should break down, as they can just "log in" to a different machine. Before, if a computer was down, all of their data went down with it. Students have the ability to send instant messages to the teacher and each other. (Note to parents: This is a closed local area network (LAN) system - the children are fully protected. No message leaves the classroom and their is no Internet access) 

     We also would like to thank Microsoft Corporation for accepting our application to the Fresh Start program, which will provide free copies of Windows 98 for our older computers. Visit their web page for more details. 

     The students' first challenge this year was to learn where their fingers go on the keyboards. This group of students (unlike the past two years) have not had a computer class before. So their first challenge was to earn their Level One mastery certificates in keyboarding - 20 random characters in 30 seconds or less. Then came the  Level Two mastery certificates, which required accurately typing 20 random characters that were presented before them by the computer with 100% accuracy in 20 seconds or less. This is a lot harder to do than it sounds! Remember, those of us who type 60+ words per minute are typing WORDS, not computer-selected random characters! To hit the 20 second mark, think of what has to happen: The student must see the character, recognize the character, decide which finger belongs to it (correct hand position is always required) and take the correct action to press the key, then return any "borrowed" fingers to correct home position -- all in 1 second or less per character! Quite a challenge for a classroom of kids where the average age is just over 7 years old and some have no keyboarding experience. 

     All of our computer software (with the exception of Windows itself) is licensed as "Freeware" so if you see something on the computers in our room that you would like to have at home, send an email to MrMagill@WordForLife.com and let us know if you would like to receive it on a floppy disk or by e-mail attachment. If neither of those work for you, I can place it in the soon-to-come download section of our website.. We use the freeware program "Letterchase Typing" in our classrooms to teach typing and it works on about any PC. Although a DOS program, it runs well under most versions of Windows 95, 98 and ME. We've not tested it yet on Windows NT or XP. Sorry, we still have not found a comparable freeware program for the Mac yet. If you know of a good one, please Email me with the details.

New Website Home!

Remember, our website has a new home Mr. Magill has registered the WordForLife.com domain on the Internet. It is a Christian resource center at www.wordforlife.com and our page is located just "under" it at www.wordforlife.com/kcs .

And last but not least....

We would still very much like to thank Brett Howard for hosting our website on his domain free of charge for several years on his at Livecomputers.com domain. 

Mr. Magill, webmaster.