IXL Math - Practice Math Skills at Home

If you are looking for a good resource to help your student fine tune their math skills, you might consider IXL Math.  Kingman Elementary introduced this resource this past school year with the Technology Rich Classroom grant in 4th and 5th grade.  The teachers participating in this grant highly recommended IXL.  The students like IXL because it is quick to load and they get rewarded for their accomplishments.  Teachers like it because it is aligned with state standards and they can assign specific skills.

As a parent, I purchased a license to IXL Math for my 3rd grader to help with his math skills.  I was surprised by the wide variety of practice skills available.  Over 200 for third grade alone.  IXL Math has practice skills for Pre-K through 8th grade, covering everything from basic math to consumer math to geometry and linear functions.  Repetition is a great way to learn math skills and IXL provides a good environment for your child to practice a skill repeatedly if needed.  You can visit the site and preview the question categories.

The site advertises that they will provide content for grades 9-12 soon.  The cost for one license per year is $79.  With the wide variety of skills available for us to practice, it is a tool that I plan on using at home with my kids for the foreseeable future.

Paying Fees Through the Campus Portal

USD 331 has implemented a new system for paying fees online.  The online payment system can be accessed through the Campus Portal which can be accessed through a link on any district website.  If you do not have an account to log into the Campus Portal, contact your school office and an account will be created for you.

1. Log into the Campus Portal.
2. Click on the Payments link under the Family menu.
3. You can add a payment method by clicking the Register your credit cards and banking information link.
4. In the payment window you will see your children listed with their food service balance.  In the Payment column you can add a specific amount for each child or click the Select estimated amount button.
5. Once you are satisfied with the payments, click the Continue button.
6. Select the payment method you wish to use and click Continue.
7. If the payments are correct, click the Make Payment button.

You will receive a Payment Receipt email detailing the transaction.  You can click on the Food Service link on the left menu to see an updated balance for each account.

Access Report Cards Through the Campus Portal

Grade cards will be mailed out soon but you can view your child's report card now through the Campus Portal.  The Campus Portal can be accessed through a link on any district webpage.  If you do not have an account to log into the Campus Portal, contact your school office and an account will be created for you.

Once you log into the Campus Portal, you will see your child's name on the left side of the page.  Under your child's name, click on the Reports link.  Find the report card that corresponds with your child's grade and click on it.  The report card will open in a new window.

Receive Daily School Event Updates in Your Email Inbox

Keeping up with events at USD 331 Schools is as easy as creating an account at your school website.

1. Go to your school website by clicking the links below, find the Create Web Account link, and create your account.
2. Once your account has been created, scroll down below the calendar and click the My Personal Settings link.
3. In the My Personal Settings page, select the Notifcations tab and click the Setup Daily Digests link.
4. In the Setup Event Digest window, you can have a daily digest (email) sent the day of or the day before.

Once you configure the daily digest settings, you will begin receiving emails detailing the days events at your school.

School websites links:

Kingman Elementary School - Create KES Account

Kingman High School - Create KHS Account

Norwich School - Create Norwich Account

Keeping Track of Your Students With the Campus Portal

Having trouble getting feedback from your child about how they are doing in school?  Would you like to know if your child has been absent or tardy to class, look at your child's report card at any time, check their lunch account balance, or pay their lunch fees online?  The USD 331 Campus Portal will assist you with all of these issues.

You can access the Campus Portal by going to any district website, www.knusd331.com, and clicking the Campus Portal link on the left side menu.  If you don't have a login for the Campus Portal, please call your school office and it will be provided to you.

Checking Grades

You can check your student's grades by clicking on your student's schedule.  Once in the schedule you will notice your students classes broken down by quarter.  Each class that has a grade will have a icon of a notepad and pen.  Click on that to view your student's grades.

Attendance

You can check attendance by clicking the Attendance link.  Absences and tardies are detailed here by each class period of the day.

View Report Card

You can view your student's past report cards at any time.  You can also view the online report card almost a week before it is mailed to you at the end of each quarter.  To view your student's report card, go to Reports and click on the appropriate grade report card.

Lunch Account Balance

You can check all of your students' lunch account balances in one place by clicking on the Food Service link.  Select your student in the "Show Transactions for" drop down menu and click "Go."

Pay Lunch and Other Fees

You can pay lunch fees and other school fees by clicking the Payments link.

Emergency Notification Preferences

School cancellations and other important announcements are sent out directly via phone.  If you want to change the number that we reach you at, you can do so by clicking the "Change Contact Info" link.  Make sure the appropriate numbers are checked for "High Priority" in case of emergency or school cancellations.  General notifications will go to your phone if you have "General" checked.  If you don't see your phone number in the list, please contact your school office to get it changed.

Expanding Learning Opportunities With 1:1 Laptops

The use of computers has become pervasive throughout our lives at home and at work.  That pervasiveness also exists in education as new tools continue to be made available to us for use in the classroom.


The model we utilized for years consisted of computer labs able to accommodate entire classes.  Each school had at least two of these labs to provide computer access to many classrooms.  While this model provided computer access, it was not easily or frequently accessible to our staff and students.  As a result many teachers did not have the opportunity to properly utilize the increasing number of educational Internet applications available.


A strong push was made just prior to the 2009-10 school year to greatly expand student access to computers.  With the introduction of cost effective netbooks, we felt that this was the time to introduce our 1:1 netbook program at our middle schools.  A year later this program was introduced at our high schools and we currently have approximately 560 students in USD 331 with access to 1:1 computing in grades 6-12.


The resources we can now provide to our students via the Internet alone have exponentially increased over the last two years due to the implementation of our 1:1 program.  New online classroom management systems such as Moodle allow teachers to easily deliver content to a large number of students year after year.  Students now have the ability to easily communicate with teachers via email.  These are only a few of the many new tools at our disposal.  We are excited to be offering these opportunities to our students and feel this is an exciting time to be a part of USD 331 Kingman-Norwich.