Thank you to PTO for the donation of 10 USB powered speaker sets for TES. The speakers have been placed in the computer lab, music room, and with projectors on carts. 14 staff members also purchased their own speakers for use with their laptops in the classroom. Teachers will now be able to use DVDs, CDs, TumbleBooks, and interactive websites with sound that the whole class can hear.

Below please find a collection of useful web resources for teachers and students grades K-5.

TumbleBooks is an online subscription of books that reinforce the joy of reading. Students have unlimited access from school and home, accommodating emergent, developing and accomplished readers. The TumbleBook Library is a collection of animated, talking picture books, puzzles, and quizzes, as well as resources for teachers. TumbleBooks are created from existing picture books which are licensed from children's book publishers and converted to an interactive format. Teachers can use the Tumble search to locate books by “Reading level manual”. There are also foreign language books!

"I use it in my classroom almost daily within Reading centers. This allows for differentiated levels for reading and comprehension..." - TES Second Grade Teacher

From the January Neighbor to Neighbor:

As we begin the new calendar year, we take great comfort in knowing that there are many community groups, businesses and individuals who through extraordinary effort support our public school programs. Please allow us to highlight some of these groups that support our academic programs. We will focus on groups that support our extracurricular programs at another time.

Students and parents are invited to explore TumbleBooks - an online source for K-5 eBooks. This is a great resource with lots of eBooks for K-5 students with built in supports such as text-highlighting, visual cues, and audio that students and parents can access both at school and at home. Each title has an accompanying TumbleQuiz: a fun, flash animated, multiple choice quiz that each student can take right online after reading a book in order to test reading comprehension. The Language Learning Section includes a growing selection of books in Spanish and French.

Last week, the Lowell Sun visited Mr. Chaple's 8th grade classroom to learn about a few of the many technologies used in the district to improve student learning. Read all about their visit in the September 13th issue of the Lowell Sun in the article "Classroom of tomorrow arrives today" by Rachel R. Briere.

Over the last several years, the annual Hanek-Wall Grant has helped the Tyngsborough Public Schools improve our technology equipment. This year's beneficiaries of the Hanek-Wall family's generosity are five classroom teachers at the Tyngsborough Middle School who have had presentation systems including data projectors and interactive whiteboards installed in their classrooms this summer. Resarch has show that these systems lead to increased student engagement and measurable improvements in achievement. Thank you to the Hanek-Wall family for their ongoing generosity!