In the coming weeks, BCS students have the opportunity to have their own stories published in a hardback book for free.  In order to make this happen, we need to offer parents the chance to purchase additional copies if they are interested.  You are under no obligation, and your child will still receive their own published book for free even if you don't order, so there is no pressure at all.

Please make sure to find the order form tonight, fill it out, and return it tomorrow.  Even if you don't want to purchase any books, we still need you to check "No, I am not interested..."

If you would like more details, check out askaboutmybook.com.

Thank you!

.

There will be complete information coming out in another week or two, but I just wanted everyone to be able to update their calendars since we will be going to Hovander Park in Ferndale on Thursday, May 12th for a Civil War education day.  It's a great day, and many of your kids may have already gone with Ms. Montes in 4th grade so they might have an idea of what they are in for.  We will need parent chaperons, and you'll have an opportunity to let me know you're interested when the permission slips come out at the beginning of May.

As you write your short stories for publication, use this blog post to help you use appearance, clothes, actions,. speech and environment to show your character's personality.

Just before Spring Break, I said I was going to post all the videos of the students' skits... and then I didn't.  So, here are three more skits for you to check out.  The final skit is still on its way.  

The password is the same one we always use.  Your kids know it if you don't.

Just before you were born, when someone had a research assignment to do for school, how did they get their information?  Instead of using the internet, they had to go to the library to find resources.  The bad part about the library was that there weren't as many resources there as there are on the internet.  The good part of going to the library was that everything someone would find had been placed there by a librarian who has already decided if the material is reliable or not.

With the internet, we get a huge amount of information, but since anyone can post it, it's now up to each individual user to decide if a resource is reliable or not.

Today, you're going to get some tips on how to figure out if you can trust a website.

Pick one of the websites you are using and do the following:
1. Go to the checklist for evaluating websites.
    What do you think?  Does this website seem reliable?

2. Go to Alexa.com to see what other sites linked to your website.  
    Have you heard of any of these sites?  How many are there?

3.  Don't forget that you can use search engines like Sweet Search, that have tried to narrow the results down to reliable websites before you even begin your search.

The Praise Band will be playing with Jon Bauer tonight at 7:00 at Northlake Church.  They also performed with him this morning for the school and they were simply amazing.  If you're on the fence, I highly recommend checking them out.  You won't be disappointed.

Check out this video from Common Craft on how to find what you want on the internet efficiently.

Here are some search tips:

• Don't search with questions; search with keywords.
  
• Imagine what words will be on the site you would like to find.
  
• You probably want to ignore the advertised sites at the top.  They paid to be there.
• Words like of, the, a, and in are usually left out of your query.
  
• Use quotation marks to search for phrases.  For example, searching for sand sharks will look for those two words in any order in any places on a website, but "sand sharks" searches for that exact phrase in that exact order any place on a website.
  
• Sort your Google search results by reading level.
• Use a search engine that automatically gives you reliable results like Sweet Search.

We just started reading The Hiding Place this week in class.  It's written for an adult audience and it's written very well.  I highly recommend it if you haven't already experienced it.  You won't be disappointed.  It encourages and challenges me every year to think about what it means to live a Christian life.

Also, since it deals with some difficult subject matter like the Holocaust, you may want to be reading along with your child so that you can help them to understand what they are reading.