Thank-you!

If you look back to my blog posting of October 15th, it may bring back memories of the visit by Kazu Kibuishi when he did an assembly for our 3rd and 4th graders. He did not have time to do autographs for students but we got something even better!

Kazu sent bookplate stickers with his autograph and the image of either Miskit or Leon to our school recently; enough for each student to have one bookplate. Two of those stickers are shown on the top line of the photo.

Imagine my surprise when I realized he did not simply make copies, but that each sticker was an original sketch! When these stickers were distributed during the last two weeks, the students were quite appreciative. We wanted to do some something special to show our gratitude and Mark, in Mrs. Beaudry's 4th grade class, had the idea that each student could make a sticker for Kazu.

Today we began making them in Mrs. Rathbone's 3rd grade class. I loved seeing the students' original thoughts and drawings and four of them are included in the photo. Mrs. Rathbone's class has many Amulet fans; however, not everyone is crazy about this graphic novel series. One student included a drawing with "I'm not a fan, but thanks!" The rest of the 3rd and 4th grade classes will work on their stickers next week and then I'll be sending them to Kazu Kibuishi in California. I'm sure he will enjoy the students' work as much as we enjoyed his visit.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who bought one or more Gingerbread Books at PTO's recent Holiday Fair. Today I was able to hand $227 to our social worker who will make sure the cash goes to help a family in need. What a great school community!

More Tech!

There will soon be more tech equipment coming since the PTO has generously offered to buy six Ipevo document cameras for the school. These cameras, or visual presenters, offer basic functions similar to the better known Elmo cameras. We've had an Elmo for a year or so and it's great. The Ipevo does not do as much and isn't the same level of quality but they're smaller, much cheaper, and they do the job. Thanks, PTO!

In addition, we now have a total of five SMART Boards in our school. The district budget funded these purchases and we're glad to have them get into more classrooms.

Regarding this week's photos:

• The first photo shows an Ipevo (on loan from CMS; ours are being ordered) connected to the laptop which is connected to the LCD projector. The Ipevo is focused on a penny.
  
• The second photo shows the projection of the penny when viewed by the document camera and projected onto the SMART Board.
  
• The third photo was taken by the Ipevo and easily stored into my picture file. Can you believe it's so big that the image fills the SMART Board? Wow!

Gingerbread Books

Perhaps I'll see you tomorrow, Saturday, December 4th, at our PTO's holiday fair. I'll be the one selling nearly-new books for one dollar - yes, that's right - $1.00. These books are donated or are ones I've collected for this annual event. The Gingerbread Books include some great ones for both children and adults and you might get a real bargain.

Most importantly, the cash raised goes to our district Gingerbread Express program to give a little boost to families in our community that may need help. At our school, the program is coordinated by Mrs. Cafaro and Mrs. Connell who make sure the money goes where it can help the most.

Our school community has been very generous in supporting the program. Some people just throw in some money and don't worry about buying a book! In any case, it's a good cause and I hope to see you there.