Ms. Nancy Online

It seems the last few weeks have been at a frantic pace! I’m happy for all of us that we have made it to our two week break. I know for many of you it will be a true vacation and you are traveling here and there. For others of you, it will be your time to catch up. Whatever you do, have a wonderful break from the ordinary. I trust you will be able to spend time with your family and have a blessed holiday.

Notice there are several new blogs up and running and they need comments! If you have a student writer in your family, it is a good exercise to have them make positive comments to other writers. I think you just use your normal method of signing in in order to make comments.

The next event coming up will be the spelling bee on January 4th. If you haven’t seen Akeelah and the Bee with your child yet, I highly recommend it. I had planned to have us watch it together, but it looks like we have run out of time. Watching it will give them a picture of the event and how it is run. We will use the traditional method: the student repeats the word, asks any questions about the word, spells the word and then speaks the word again. I will send a blurb about the rules in an email next week. I am looking for prizes at the moment, so if you have something that would work for a particular age group, let me know. We will have multiple age groups, so all readers can participate. In addition to the focus on spelling, this activity is essentially a speech activity and many kids will feel the pressure of performance in front of a group. Don’t let that fear prevent your child from participating! This is the first of many public speaking opportunities, but it gets easier with practice. Look for more information soon.

A number of students have established blogs that will be connected soon to this site. We’re just working on the glitches of connecting them. So if you don’t have as much response to your blog as I promised, hang in there. It is coming. That’s all I will write for now. I’m looking at a busy few weeks with the Christmas break coming up. I know you are too. I will be handing out test prep packets for students in 2nd grade and above. The hope is that by getting them this early, when testing comes it will be a breeze for the kids. My focus will be on creating some writing workshops for students that are blogging on this site. As soon as the library gets back to me on a location and I work out the details, I’ll let you know. I anticipate having small groups of kids on alternate weeks at the 9:00 time slot. On weeks when they don’t meet with me, they would still have a writing assignment that they turn in. They will also be reading a book together which you will have to purchase as I have no budget for this project. Look for more information soon.