What a wonderful, generous community we have at St. Mary's!  Thank you so much for all the special candies, cookies, treats and gifts.  I've tried to thank each and every student and family, but I have one student who has not received a personal thank you.  I stepped out of the computer lab on Tuesday, and when I returned, I had a  yummy eggnog mix with a lovely whisk was on my desk.  It had a tag on it from Hannah.  Well, there are many Hannah's in St. Mary's so I'm not sure which Hannah to thank.  Therefore, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Hannah and her family - whoever they may be - for remembering me at Christmas.  Grazie e Mille!  Danke! 

Jr. High Musical

Due to the number of students out sick before Christmas Break, it has been decided that final auditions will take place on Friday, January 4th from 2:20 - 4:30.  You will be asked to sing a well known American song, and you may be asked to read and participate in some improvisation exercises. If you participated in December's auditions you do not need to attend these auditions.  Cast assignments will be posted on Monday, January 7th.

Grade Level Notes

Kindergarten:

What is a mouse?  What does the picture of the house mean?  How do I go back to the game I was just playing?  What is a pop up?  We'll be answering these and many more questions as we explore the internet tools in kindergarten.  Check out some of the cool kindergarten games we'll be visiting in class!

Vocabulary: Back, Home, Surfing, Pop-up, Cyber Safety

  1^st Grade:

The computer is more than a game box!  We'll be talking about how we use the computer everyday.  Then we'll explore some fun Christmas websites and create some Christmas bookmarks.

Vocabulary: Pop-up, Browser, Fill Tool, Navigate, Cyber-Safety, Remote Capture Technology

2^nd Grade:

Templates and toolboxes will be explored as we take some of our word processing skills and use Microsoft Publisher to create some Christmas Magic!

Vocabulary: Template, Resize, Text box, Tools

3^rd Grade:

Do you know the meaning of Christmas?  3rd grade will be creating Christmas Acrostics using some intermediate level skills on our word processing applications

Vocabulary: Text Box, Format, Group, Import

4^th Grade:

Now that we've created our questions and polled our populace, we're going to collate our data and create some pretty snazzy graphs.  We'll then begin our Microsoft Publisher exploration.

Vocabulary: Bar Graph, Pie Chart, Collate, Sort, Template

5^th Grade:

Internet safety and computer publishing will bring us to the end of the year in 5th grade.  I won't give away the surprise, but we'll be using the computer for more than a typewriter!

Vocabulary: Templates, grouping, importing, text wrapping, rotation tool

6^th Grade:

Sixth grade is using Microsoft Publisher to create newsletters.  Each student is researching the Christmas Traditions of a different country and reporting on how that country celebrates the holidays.  We'll then use our skills we learned in publisher to create beautiful holiday projects.

Vocabulary: Templates, Borders, Shading, Format Menus

7^th Grade:

Is the computer more than a typwriter?  Yes!  We'll have some fun creating Christmas Symbols trifolds using Microsoft Publisher.  Then we'll use our publisher skills to create beautiful holiday projects.

Vocabulary: Templates, grouping, importing, graphics tools

8^th Grade:

Can you follow directions? We'll be trying to create projects using written instructions.  Then we'll have some fun personalizing Christmas computer crafts.

Vocabulary: templates, download, import, export