GettingSmart.com, a community for news, stories, and leadership on innovations in learning and teaching recently mentioned PS11’s H.O.P. in their article, “Ways Teachers Can Get Parents Involved Beyond Homework.” Pretty neat if you ask me, enjoy!

Then check out Newsela.

Every day Newsela publishes topical, high-interest news articles for kids in grades 2-12; think of it as a New York Times for young readers.  One of its distinguishing features is that all articles are available at five different levels of text complexity.  Newsela sorts the levels using the Lexile Level Measures (you will see them to the right of each article) which are numerical. To learn how Lexile Levels Convert to PS11’s alphabetic levels, check this out.

Newsela also provides writing prompts (which are editable) and quizzes for each article. And as if that weren’t enough, the articles are also available in Spanish.

Our very own Mrs. Griffith learned about a great new app. for all you science lovers out there; it is called iNaturalist.

This site/app is a great place to learn more about nature, but what sets iNaturalist apart, is that it allows you to record your observations, share them with other naturalists, and discuss them with the community!

If you want to learn more, check out their website and this segment from NPR.

Important: This app. allows you to share your location so that others can help you identify species – if you do not want your child’s location to be known, please look into disabling this feature!