End of the Year

9 days left of school

You can do it.

Don’t give up.

Do your best.

Finish well.

IT’S FIELD DAY TIME!

All Field Days will be held from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.  Each event includes a Barbecue from noon to 12:30 p.m.  Please enroll your students in Launchpad.  Event numbers listed below. To view more detailed information see Launchpad for flier.

See below for the date and location in your area:

• Friday, May 15th: MARTINEZ FIELD DAY – Martinez Marina – Region Shoreline Park. #3865 Open link for map.
• Thursday, May 21st: JACKSON FIELD DAY – Detert Park – Jackson. #3866 Open link for map.
• Friday, May 22nd:    SO. LAKE TAHOE FIELD DAY – Tahoe Paradise Park. #3867 Open link for map.
• Thursday, May 28th:   DAVIS FIELD DAY – Davis Community Park. #3868 Open link for map.
• Friday, May 29th:   SACRAMENTO FIELD DAY – North Highlands -  Freedom Park. #3869 Open link for map.
• Thursday, June 4th:   FOLSOM FIELD DAY – John Kemp Park. #3870 Open link for map.
• Friday, June 5th:   ELK GROVE FIELD DAY – Elk Grove Regional Park. #3871 Open link for map.

Please complete and sign a Field Trip Permission Form (one form for each family with all attending student names on the form).  ALONG WITH THE FORM, WEAR PLAY CLOTHES, SUNSREEN, AND A HAT IF NEEDED. ENJOY A FUN TIME WITH YOUR VISIONS STAFF AND FAMILIES!

Yes.  I know.  It is April Fool’s Day.

And how could I forget, when my students expressed their creativity all day long, in hopes to get me this time.  Who knew that tales of missing work and spiders on my computer could bring them such joy?  People were trying to fool me all day long.  My favorite today was the link shared with me about Google’s amazing announcement:  “Research group switches on world’s first ‘artificial intelligence’ tasked-array system.”  Google refers to the artificial intelligence as CADIE, the world’s first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity,” according to their blog. Check out the announcement.

I don’t know if any of you noticed, but I had been having some trouble with this blog.  Google ads were taking over the blog, and I tried several ways to have them removed.  I also have a professional blog on wordpress, and didn’t have any trouble there, so I had been in the process of moving this one over.

Yesterday a bit of St. Patrick’s day luck came my way.  I was given a prize of free premium services for a year from EduBlogs, compliments of Sue Waters and Alice Mercer, a teacher I met at the recent CUE conference I attended.  So now, I am returning to this blog, as I prefer the Edublog platform.

Continue to check here for event information, tech tips, newsletters and ideas.

Now Accepting Student Entries


The Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, the premiere national science competition for students in grades 5 through 8, is now open for entries. Students must complete a video entry about one of four assigned topics and submit it online before May 20th, 2009*.
The top 10 students in the country will each win a series of prizes, including $1,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to the competition finals in New York City this fall.

The winning student will receive $50,000 in U.S. savings bonds and be named America’s Top Young Scientist.

Click here for more information!

This Government Website provides learning opportunities for grades K-12, along with resources for parents and teachers. There are games and activities, worksheets to print, and a list of additional related websites.

Sample Topics:

• Our Nation
• Our Government
• Your Neighborhood
• Symbols of U.S. Government
• Your Neighborhood and Beyond
• Historical Documents
• Branches of Government
• How Laws are Made
• National vs. State Government
• Election Process
• Citizenship

Home School Connections screencast

Here are the originals for your daily lesson planning needs. I will be bringing black and white copies in a binder for K-6 families. If you want to print the color version, click on the link below.

If you have any suggestions or requests, post a comment here. I know some of you like to start planning before school is out, so if you are interested in using this next year, let me know. I’ll plan to have next year’s version ready for you in May.

0809 Lesson Planbook for Parents K-6

Welcome families! I’m hoping this blog can be used to build a supportive community and a comfortable place for you to make connections with other homeschool families. Please consider introducing yourself in the “introductions” link. To get there, click to enter the social network. I will keep you informed by posting my newsletters on the blog, along with links and documents to share. Post a comment to tell me your ideas on how I can make this site more useful for you and I’ll do my best customize it to meet your needs.

Welcome fellow teachers! I’m glad to finally have a place to post documents to share, so we don’t reinvent the wheel. I’ll post organizational and educational documents that I’ve used along with updates to projects.

I’m looking forward to another great year of learning.