Google Expedition

Today our class went on a field trip swimming through some of the most beautiful waters from around the world.  We were fortunate enough to participate in the Expeditions Pioneer Program, using Expeditions, Google Cardboards, and phones to see virtual reality panoramas of places such as Saunders Reef, Galapagos Island, and Komodo Island.  As the students wore their virtual reality viewers, I used a tablet to guide them through what they were seeing.  Ask them what they saw on their field trip today! 

To learn more about the Expeditions Pioneer Program, visit the following link.

NMES Wellness Forum 2/25/16

The NMES School Council will be hosting a Wellness Forum this Thursday, February 25th from 6:30 - 8:15.  Please join us to learn more about a variety of topics to help with your child’s overall wellness.  Guest speakers will share their expertise about the impact of social media and reducing anxiety in your child’s daily life. Additional information will be available about topics including allergies, addiction, head lice and more.  We hope many parents can attend!

Homework Update

Please be aware that as a result of the Wellness Forum, students will not be receiving homework on Thursday night. As a result, students will not be expected to complete a writing about reading response this week. In addition, students will receive the blind writing sort to complete on Wednesday night instead of Thursday night this week.

Class Visit with Beamer

We spent some time last week putting our nonfiction reading skills to work while we researched Service Dogs.  We identified categories we'd like to know more about, such as how service dogs are trained and how service dogs help people.  We read books, articles, and did some research on the internet.  We ended our research by having a special visit with the service dog here at NMES: Beamer.

We met with Beamer and Ms. Keane (Beamer's handler and a teacher here at NMES) to learn more about service dogs.  We learned specific things about Beamer and even got a chance to watch him follow many commands.  The students enjoyed learning about service dogs, especially about Beamer.

A segment about Beamer aired on the WBZ "Eye on Education."  You can see the story here.

A few busy days leading up to the long weekend

On Thursday, January 14th the third, fourth, and fifth graders were fortunate enough to see Ithacappella, an acapella group from Ithaca College, perform at Nathaniel Morton.  The students were very engaged during the performance and even had an opportunity to learn how to beat box.  Take a look below for some photos and videos from the performance.

On Friday, we met with our little buddies to learn about the zones of the ocean.  We learned that the ocean can be divided from its surface to its depth into three zones based on the amount of light received.  The sunlit zone receives the most light, the twilight zone receives dim light, and the midnight zone doesn't get any sunlight.  After watching a short video on Brainpop Jr., big friends and little friends worked together to create a poster showing the different layers of the ocean and which animals live in each layer.  We showed our little buddies how we can use the chromebooks to help us research.  We also replicated the zones of the ocean in a water bottle by using food coloring and oil.