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Teacher Quote of the Month...
"I just started using your software, but I absolutely love it. As a kindergarten teacher, I have never had such a powerful data analysis tool. I am very interested in sharing it with other teachers, in fact I am already promoting it to the 1st and 2nd grade teachers at my school site. I believe in the effectiveness of this easy-to-use product!"
~Frances Alegre,
Kindergarten Teacher
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Remind Password:
With all of the services offered on the internet, it can be difficult to remember your usernames and passwords for the many websites. ESGI has a "Remind Password" link right below the "Login" button on our site. If you forget your password, or username, you can enter the e-mail address you used to sign-up for your ESGI account, and our system will e-mail you your username and password. If you use this feature, and do not receive an email, be sure to check your spam filter to make sure it didn't get caught. As always, if you have any problems or questions, feel free to contact us by clicking on the "Contact Us" button at the top of our site.
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"Last year, I was team teaching Pre-K. One of our little boys opens the door of the bathroom during circle time and started yelling, "Teacher, teacher! There's pee in the garbage, there's pee in the garbage!" Trying to keep my momentum of circle time going, I proceeded to ignore him as did the other adult in the room. He would not accept being ignored so he continued yelling that there was pee in the garbage. I told him it was okay, just don't touch it, we would take care of it later. He insisted that we see it. Without any warning, he brought the garbage bucket out of the bathroom and reached into and said "Teacher no really, there's pee in the garbage!" He pulled out the alphabet letter "P" that fell into the bucket as I proceeded to fall off my chair laughing. Circle time was then over..."
-D.B. Jupiter, FL
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Contains many links to resources and games, all FREE!
FREE clip art, ideas, grants, classroom designer, award maker, and more!
Great site for Thanksgiving ideas!
Links to documents for teachers and parents on how to help kids with different literacy skills.
Interactive site for students to practice spelling words.
*Be patient, may load slowly
Do you know of a website with great resources you could not live without? Send us a link at info@esgisoftware.com.
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Thankful for More Than Turkey
Ask your students what Thanksgiving is all about and chances are their first response will be an excited "Turkey!" (with some pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes on the side.) Sadly, Thanksgiving has become somewhat of a lost holiday, sandwiched between the candy and costumes of Halloween and the lights and presents of Christmas. But Thanksgiving is a perfect time to count our blessings and focus on helping your students develop an "attitude of gratitude."
Gratitude is defined as a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation. "Thank you"  probably ranks among the first phrases children are taught. Why? Not only because it is polite, but also because we all want to feel appreciated. Thankful people are just more pleasant to be around.
We, here at ESGI, want to take this opportunity to say, "THANK YOU!" to you, our users. We appreciate your business this season and throughout the year. More importantly, we are thankful that dedicated teachers like you are shaping our youth. We have been in the classroom, so we understand the challenges that you face every day. Teaching can be a thankless job, but it is among the most important professions of our culture. We are thankful that you chose to be teachers. Know that we are committed to do all we can to help you!
Many thanks,
~The ESGI Crew
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| Animoto
Your students will call you Mr. / Mrs. "Spielberg" when they see the slick classroom videos you create with Animoto.  The web program takes your pictures, mixes in audio, and creates a video slideshow. You can then burn it to a DVD or watch it online. A link to the video will be created, so you can send it to whomever you like.
There are lots of ways you can use Animoto in the classroom. Animoto is a great way to get students interested in subjects such as history, literature or science. Creating a class video with student photos is also a fun way to thank classroom volunteers and parents.
Short films are simple to make. Animoto walks you through everything from photo selection to the addition of music. It also provides a variety of tunes for use in your video.
Short films (30 seconds) are free, and full-length videos cost only $3 per video, or you can pay $30 for unlimited full-length videos for 1 year. Thanks to ESGI user Donna Glynn for sending us her referral code, which will give you $5 off. Click the button at the bottom of this article to sign-up for the free portion. Then, if you decide to purchase, you will pay only $25 for the year.
Here is a video we created as a sample parent helper gift. (short 20 sec.) Sample Animoto Video
Remember, 30 second videos are free and can be extended into full length videos for parent helper gifts at the end of the year. Be sure to take lots of photos of students, so you have plenty to choose from when creating your Animoto video. Some teachers tell us they offer these class videos for purchase; a creative fundraiser that helps pay for their ESGI subscription or other classroom tools. Family videos also make nice holiday gifts for Grandma and Grandpa, or long distance relatives.
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| Coming soon to a conference near you! |
Upcoming Conferences:
The Johnny Cash song, "I've been everywhere" comes to mind as we examine our 'Upcoming Conferences Calendar' for  ESGI. "Of travel we will have our share," the lyrics go. Our purpose is to take ESGI across the country to as many teachers as possible. The ESGI crew looks forward to exploring portions of the Midwest and the South that are ready and waiting for our one-on-one assessment program. Look for ESGI in the following cities:
November
Conference for Michigan Kindergarten Teachers
East Lansing, MI, Nov. 17-18
Ohio Literacy Conference for K-3 Teachers
Columbus, OH, Nov. 20-21
December
California Kindergarten Conference
Buena Park, CA, Dec. 3-4
Conference for Georgia Kindergarten Teachers
Atlanta, GA, Dec. 4-5
Conference for California Kindergarten Teachers
Palm Springs, CA, Dec. 11-12
January
California Kindergarten Conference
Santa Clara, CA, Jan. 17-18
February
Southern California Kindergarten Conference
Pasadena, CA Feb. 27-28
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