Thank You So Much!

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The video presented to me today of your children is the best gift I have ever received as a teacher! I can’t thank you enough for all of the thought and love your children put into their messages to me. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I told Mrs. Hamka that I can’t watch it without getting teary. I miss seeing, talking to and teaching your children very, very much. I will cherish this!

I am sharing it here in case you have not seen it. Hopefully the size of the video won’t prevent you from opening it. If you can’t view it, let me know and I will figure out how to sent it to you on a different platform.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18LxgS-QHclCTv1C8Js61etfZ0xoIrFZw/view?ts=5eb19006


Week Of May 4th

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Welcome to another week of virtual learning! I hope you are all doing well and enjoyed this beautiful sunny weekend. I TRULY APPRECIATE all you are doing to encourage and nurture your child’s education. I know it isn’t easy, but we will all come out of this with new skills and a new appreciation for face to face learning!! 🙂

I can’t even describe how much I miss your children. I’m also very saddened that the district has chosen to suspend Google Meets at the elementary level. The platform they are providing us with for online meets is through ilearn with a program called big blue button. This is not a platform that we use in the elementary schools (it is used in middle and high school) Therefore neither myself or the students have been trained in using this. Trust me when I say we (elementary teachers) have made our displeasure at having lost Google Meets known to administration but they are not budging from their decision.

That being said, I will continue to communicate with your children through my comments and suggestions on their Google Classroom assignments. I am sharing access to their assignments with you via an email invitation. Unfortunately, I can only attach one parent email. If you would like me to use a different email than the one I chose, please let me know.

With this access you will receive regular, automatic email summaries for your child. You can choose the frequency of the emails—daily or weekly—and can unsubscribe at any time.

The summaries include:

  • Missing work—Work that’s late at the time the email was sent
  • Upcoming work—Work that’s due today and tomorrow (for daily emails) or work that’s due in the upcoming week (for weekly emails)
  • Class activity—Announcements, assignments, and questions recently posted by teachers

I hope this helps us have better communication between what is being completed and the “grade” that is being given. It is based on percentages- each assignment is worth 100%- which will then turn into an effort/participation grade.

Finally, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOUR CHILD WATCH the Great Minds Math videos before attempting the problem set (we are now using ASSISTments for our problem sets). It seems that many children were finding the math challenging because they were skipping the video lesson. That would be like attempting the homework, but not coming to class :0

Thank you again, I am very grateful for your support!


Assignment Calendar

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Hello everyone, I hope this post finds you well!

I want to make sure that everyone understands that it is very important that your child follow the lessons posted to the ONLINE LEARNING CALENDAR. If they are just going to Google Classroom and looking for assignments they will be missing A LOT of information/assignments and links. The learning calendar is on a tab at the top of this blog, but is also pasted into Google Classroom. Please make sure your child is opening that calendar daily.

I know that some of you have had difficulty opening the links on the calendar. The Tech Department has assured us that this problem has been remedied. Fingers crossed! I am truly sorry for any frustration this has caused you or your child.

I miss seeing them and I miss talking to them!!


Please Check Your Emails

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Parents,

In my last blog post I asked if you could please enroll your child in the Epic Reading program. An invite was sent to your email on Friday, but I also resent the email tonight to those of you who did not enroll. I am asking that you please check your email again and enroll your child. Your child WILL need to be enrolled in this program for this week’s reading assignment.

The new assignment calendar is posted in Google Classroom and also on this blog post under the online Calendar tab.

If you did NOT get an email about Epic from me, please email me at martinh@dearbornschools.org with a valid email that I can sent the invite to (I may have an old or non-working email for you)

Thank you so much for your support!


Epic Reading

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Parents,

Ramadan Mubarak to those of you celebrating this occasion! I promise to keep this post short! Firstly, I still have not heard when we will be allowed to schedule Google Meets again. I will let you know as soon as I hear.

Secondly, you should have received an invitation from me today for EPIC Books. We 3rd grader teachers would like to use this resource with your child next week and in the weeks to come. It is an amazing resource and is usually quite costly, but is being provided to us at no cost during this pandemic. The only thing we need you to do is accept the invite and set up an account for your child by entering the email that I sent the link to you and creating a password for your child to use. We cannot do this part on our end. (If you do NOT want to use the email I sent the invite to, please provide me with another email ASAP)

I am including a power point on this blog to help you with this process. Pay close attention to slides 22-24. 🙂 Your child’s assignments with this site will start on Monday.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gniZMmSL0az4hV_jZ4-jbF6-tMGp3VavBJsdI8JXK6U/edit#slide=id.g716cc277b6_0_53

Finally, Howard School is having another Chromebook distribution on April 28th. If you need an additional chromebook for your family in order for your children to do their online work, please email me at martinh@dearbornschools.org and I will make sure Mrs. Sabbagh sends you the information to pick one up on the 28th.

Your children are doing a phenomenal job with the learning links on the calendar! I AM SO proud of them!


IMPORTANT

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I was just sent this email from our Executive Directors 🙁 🙁

Good Evening,We have had many incidents of hacking into google meet meetings by students who were given URLs or codes by their friends. In some instances, inappropriate language, music, etc. were used.  While we are looking into the issues and coming up with a solution, we are asking that your teachers stop using “google meet” live for the next two days and rely on recorded hangouts.FYI: Google meet is temporarily suspended for students.
Sincerely,Executive Cabinet

Therefore, I won’t be allowed to have my Google Meet tomorrow morning with your children. I am very sad. I miss them and was really looking forward to seeing their faces! Please make sure they know this and that It is not my choice to cancel.

I asked Mrs. Sabbagh if I can reschedule for Monday morning and am waiting to hear back from her. You will be the first to know when I do!

I am going to post a solution for the Lesson 25 Math problem in Google Classroom- (If I can fgure out how to use Google Recording LOL) I found that many kids had trouble with this problem and I want to make sure to go over it with them. I was going to do that at our Google Meet. 🙁

Take Care!


Link To Our Weekly Google Meets

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Parents,

Tomorrow we have our Weekly google meet at 10 a.m. In order to access the meet go to the online calendar (I’ve linked it here) Scroll to the bottom and find the link on the bottom left- you may want to have your child read the Google Meet Etiquette before we meet 😉

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RdOW-sUslizm55M8uf5WtxWeBke_vTyKJYsjLPI4Lls/edit

Once they click on the link, they will type the word Martin to access the meet. 🙂

See you then!!


Clarification

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Just a quick clarification: Students ONLY have to turn in google docs that are in google classroom. Anything that says answer questions in your notes (a lot of the social studies and science are this way) needs to be done in a notebook or on paper at home. This work is not submitted to the teacher. It is there to help the student’s learning and to use when it comes time to do the task that needs to be turned in.

I know this can be confusing. But there is not need to submit any of this weeks work to my email. The only things that need to be submitted are the assignments attached to a GOOGLE DOC in their google classroom.

I hope this helps 🙂 Thank you for everything you are doing to support your child’s learning!


Week Of April 20th

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Dear Parents,

As we start this week of online learning, I am hoping to give you as much information as possible to help your stress and anxiety but also at the same time not overwhelm you! It is very important that you read this blog post carefully in order to understand your child’s learning expectations.

We (teachers) spent much of last week in meetings with administration and with our fellow teachers learning about the state of Michigan’s directive for online learning. We then had to learn what the district submitted to the county for approval- our Continuity Of Learning Plan. We were told that this plan had been emailed to parents, but I’d like to outline just a few things for clarification:

The district expects that all children will be doing the coursework posted weekly in their Google Classrooms to the best of their ability. Completion of assignments and participation in the Google Meets will be used as evidence of student involvement. Learning will continue until June 11th, whereupon the student will receive a report card graded as the following:

Meeting- Student regularly submits work, has high participation and attends most Google Meets.

Progressing- Student submits most assignments and attends some Google Meets.

Limited- Student has little or no submitted assignments and little or no participation in Google Meets.

That being said, we (the 3rd Grade Teachers) will post weekly assignments on our online learning calendar every Sunday for the following week. The learning calendar can be found at the top of this blog post under the calendar tab. We have also decided to post it each week in your child’s google classroom assignment page so that your children do not have to have access to this blog post in order to find the assignments. We hope that this makes things easier for you. 🙂 Please let your child know that they can find the calendar there now.

The only things your child will need to turn in to the teacher are assignments connected in their google classroom. Any notes done in notebooks or taken on paper do not need to be turned in.

We will have one Google Meet per week. Ours will be on Friday at 10 a.m. this week. I had to move off of Wednesday because the special area teachers needed that time frame. Please follow the directions on the interactive calendar to access the Google Meet.

I will start “grading” your child’s work and commenting on the work they turn in. This will be done throughout the week. They will have access to my comments and grades in Google Classroom. If your child gets behind in assignments I will send an email to you (the parent). However, please do not worry if they are a little late turning in assignments. We are trying to post just enough in order to keep them learning, but are not trying to overwhelm them with too much work! Please click on this link to see a schedule of how you can potentially structure your child’s day.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rxvclRaACiEA9Eyc25hDUmqJS_LwYJ5x8KBFDNXtIH0/edit?ts=5e977491

Finally, I will have “office hours” where I will be available to answer emails, questions or trouble shoot technology issues everyday between 9 and 11 am. If you ask questions outside of this time frame, I will do my best to respond, but your questions may not get answered until the following day.

I truly hope this blog post was helpful and NOT overwhelming. I am here for your child!! I wish with all my heart we could be back in school.


Happiness!

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Parents,

I want to thank you SO VERY MUCH for helping your children get on our Google Meet this morning. I know that technology can be uncooperative and so that makes your efforts all the more appreciated!

It absolutely MADE MY DAY seeing so many of their sweet faces and being able to talk with them. I have been smiling all day!! :):)

You should be able to click on the link I will post on our online calendar EVERY WEDNESDAY at 11 a.m. and get right into the meet. I know that some of you had a bit more difficulty, so I will send the code to your email next week as well.

Have a peaceful night.