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Santa is a Science and Technology Wizard

Raise your hand if you think Santa uses magic to find the just right gift for every boy and girl?  If you thought this, as I did, you will be amazed to learn that there is new santa techevidence to suggest that it looks like magic  but is in fact advanced technology that allows him to create scientific tools to help him get his job done.

Examples of these tools are:  Terahertz wave radiation scanner, metamaterials that allow for lightbending, heads-up display glasses, and much more.   Although some of these gadgets are being tested in labs currently, most of Santa’s tools are hundreds of years more advanced that what we have access to today!

You can listen to Gregory Mone, editor for  Popular Science, share these tools on NPR:  Santa Claus Relies On Robots, Gadgetry Many more examples are shared in Mone’s new book, The Truth About Santa: Wormholes, Robots, and What Really Happens on Christmas Eve.

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‘Twas the week before vacation…

And all through the school, the children were learning and the teachers were cool.

Having used up all my poetic ability in the copy change above, I will now get to the week’s events.  It will be a very busy week, with teachers finishing up units of study, children counting down the days until vacation, holiday parties held Thursday and Friday, and our Holiday Concert Scheduled for Thursday at 7 pm. In addition, we will wrap up our Reading Counts for the first half of this year.

If you are in the building this week, please be sure to check out the lost and found table in the rotunda.  There are snow pants, jackets, sweatshirts, and many pairs of hats–mittens–and gloves.    We would love to get our lost items matched up with their owners before vacation begins.

Here’s to a great week ahead!  Mrs. Reagan

weeks events 12/14

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Our 2nd Snow Day!

snow dayIt is December 10th and we are experiencing our 2nd snow day of the school year!  Use this day to relax and play in the snow…if it warms up!

Have fun!  Mrs. Reagan

PS:  For parents who are wondering about the the snow day POSTPONEMENT of our holiday program, please be aware that the program will be held on December 17th at 7 pm at Resurrection Life Church.  So, same time, same place with a new date.

You can read this post: THE SHOW MUST GO ON

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Practice for 12/09/10 CANCELED

SnowflakesDue to the BLIZZARD warning that will be in effect late this afternoon and tonight, Advanced Basketball and Soccer are canceled.  This will not be on TV.  We have been asked to pass the information along via our blogs.

School will be in session all day with the usual dismissal time of 3:40 pm.

Please pay attention to the news tomorrow morning for information about school delays/closings.  There is a link to the NEWS 8 site on the right side of this blog.

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Helping Families in Need

Our Kids’ Hope Director, Nicole Poolman, has offered to organize food collections for families in need.  Nicole will be working with her own church’s food pantry as well as Fair Haven’s Hand 2 Hand backpack program.

If you know of a family within our school that would benefit from this program, please complete this form:  FOOD DONATIONSlunch

All submissions are anonymous.  If you do not know a family to nominate, but would like to help with this program, there is a spot on this form for you to leave your name and contact information.

Thank you for your support.

Mrs. Reagan and Nicole Poolman

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Edublogs Nominations

I am an ongoing learner no matter what activity I am engaged in!  Since joining this wonderful community of Georgetown, I have been focused on learning all that I can about how to use every tool for learning (including technology) in the best ways possible.  This journey has taken me to the best classrooms via twitter, blogs, nings, jings and webcasts.  Our blogs are sponsored by Edublogs, and they have been key in growing my understanding about how best to communicate with the world.

Edublogs hosts an annual award for best blogs and tweeters and much more.   I would like to share my nominations with all of you:

The Edublog Awards

The Edublog Awards 2009 are open for nomination!

This is our chance to nominate and celebratethe achievements of edubloggers, twitterers, podcasters, video makers, online communities, wiki hosts and other web based users of educational technology.

Here are the categories, I would like to nominate the following individuals:

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Holiday Program Snow Day Plan

winterIt’s official!  Resurrection Life Church has provided us with a snow date for our Holiday ProgramIf we have a snow day on Thursday, December 10, our Holiday Program will be held on Thursday, December 17 at 7 pm.

This contingency plan has been developed to ensure that the projected winter storm MISS our area and allow our program to go on as planned.  However, if the storm does hit our area, our music teachers and students know that all their rehearsal time will still be rewarded the following week.   As theatre veteran Noël Coward once said, “THE SHOW MUST GO ON!”

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Top 10 Educational Videos

Remember the days of video tapes, CD-ROMS, and encyclopedia’s on your shelf?  The world wide web now provides free and accessible information and the London Times has provided the top 10 best educational videos.  I reference these often and hope that you find videothem to be great resources as well.

1 nationalgeographic.com
The American magazine covers a huge range of subjects, from space and the environment to animals and even world music (where you can listen to thousands of artists). What’s shared is a passion for the living world. Inspiring stuff, brilliantly presented.

2 www.nasa.gov
Videos, podcasts, a vast photo archive, 3-D image files and pages for missions where you can view raw data as they stream in, make this a must for anyone with even a fleeting interest in space.

3 howstuffworks.com
Expertly written articles explaining everything under the sun, from how a Taser is put together to the history of the jeep. Hundreds of videos add to the experience.

4 discovery.com
It might be a giant plug for the Discovery Channel’s roster of shows, but the dozens of microsites here are uniformly excellent. Links to the websites of sister channels (Military, Science and more) drive an even bigger wedge between you and any work you might have been thinking of doing.

5 smithsonianmag.com
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington is the world’s largest museum complex, and its magazine is a rival to National Geographic. The associated website is a rich source of eye-opening good reads.

6 bbc.co.uk/nature
Possibly the best BBC microsite — a simple collection of video clips. Choose from 370 animals to see related footage, and scare your friends when they walk in by playing the “what they sound like” widget. (Works better with tigers than rabbits.)

7 ted.com
TED is an organisation that invites inspirational people to an annual conference to share their thoughts on the world, technology, design and more. It videos the results and archives them here. Will keep you hooked for days.

8 arkive.org
Videos and photos that live up to the simple tagline “images of life on earth”. Endangered species are a speciality; the promise is they will live on here if nowhere else.

9 historytoday.com
Once registered for free, you can browse through hundreds of articles culled from the popular magazine. They are sorted into categories and, despite the lofty academic credentials of the authors, are easily readable.

10 pbs.org
PBS is a publicly funded American TV channel with an emphasis on science, the arts and history. Watch entire shows or browse their excellent, richly detailed sites.

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