Kuna School District - Schoolmaster

Kuna School District Parents,

I would like to invite you to explore our exciting tool for communication between teachers, students, and parents. Schoolmaster™ is the innovative software used for our Student Information System (SIS) which boasts features to keep you, as the parent, informed on your student's scholastic progress. Schoolmaster™ enables us to track grades and attendance, communicate this data to parents using an online portal called PASS (Parental Access Support System), and so much more. See the list below for features pertaining to parents.

Parents Can Access:

• Academic Plan
• Attendance
• GPA History
• Messages
• Progress Reports
• Schedule and Classes
• Test History
• and Much More!

I would encourage you to check out this interactive Demo for PASS. Use the Login and Password shown on the first page.

http://www.schoolmaster.com/products/PASS/web_demo/smframe.htm

In addition, the Kuna School Distric has developed a module tailored to our parent's in order to aide them in using this tool. View the PDF below.

http://www.kunaschools.org/resources/documents/PASS/PASS%20Guide%20for%20Parents.pdf

I will be using the academic plan quite a bit to keep you updated on what we are doing with Spanish throughout the year. I will also be messaging parents through PASS to sign permission slips for our 2 culture field trips. I will update progress reports 2 times during each semester so please utilize them and encourage your student with the feedback given!
Login information will be given to you at your scheduled Parent-Teacher Meeting in 2 weeks.

For more in depth information about Schoolmaster™, please visit:
http://www.schoolmaster.com/

Sincerely,
Sra. Jennifer (La Maestra Buena) Violette

Spreadsheets in the Classroom

Mr. Oliver's Pumkin Project

I was very interested to see how a teacher could creatively adapt a spreadsheet for a classroom of early elementary students. I really enjoyed Mr. Oliver's lesson on Pumpkins and the relation between there weight and how many seeds they have. The classroom of 2nd graders were attempting to answer the question, "Do larger pumpkins have more pumpkin seeds?"

Using spreadsheets (quite cute I might add), students gathered information about the weight, counted seeds, and even had predictions. In the end, students could compare their data to other groups and see the relationship between the pumkin weight and amount of seeds.

Mr. Oliver was able to integrate counting in 10's and technology use in the classroom of 2nd graders! I was aprhensive at first because the students were restless during the directions portion of the assignment but WOW did the get in to it! I can't imagine my little sister, who is in the 2nd grade, using bar graphs and spreadsheets. I am impressed.

Adaptation

As far as implementing the use of spreadsheets similar to this one, I think it would be an intereting idea to compare words in Spanish, English, and a few common Latin based languages in order to view cognates. Cognates that are words that you can understand in another language because they are so similar to your native language. In English and Spanish for example:

television = televisión
phenomenal = fenomenal
immigration = inmigración
clear = claro

By creating a table, we can keep track of those types of words and possible predict what we think could happen by the end of the semester. We could answer questions like, "How many cognative word will we have learned by the end of the semester?" or "Based on cognates, theoretically would it be easier to learn multiple languages after mastering 2?

I think it would give language students an opportunity to understand how most western languages are truly rooted and adapted from Latin and each other.

I really enjoyed checking out School Spreadsheet Safari also because it has great links to activities using spreadsheets as well as simple resources for understanding terms and usage within Excel. Check it out!

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110054/