We're back for February, with a big announcement! We've just finished the complete revision and update to the "Cookie Jar Mystery," with changes in both the content and overall look! Thanks to all of you who gave us great insights and ideas on making this course even better! Beyond the new look and better ease of use, the new "Cookie Jar Mystery" includes a tighter integration with the "Cookie Jar Case: A Role-Play Mock Trial" for sites that may be considering that in the future. Also in this issue, we'd like to expound on the resources available in "Training Tips" for each course kit title. We know that vocabulary in these enrichment areas can be challenging when kids are first exposed to new terminology like "chromatography" or "cubism." Linda Johnson has included more information on what kind of support is now available in our "vocabulary extensions" area.

And lastly, there has so much talk about STEM education lately, as we touched on in our blog last week, we wanted to pass along an great idea that'll help you jump start a STEM project in your program. If you have access to computers, Google has just announced the first ever online science fair, that really hits all STEM disciplines in one fell swoop. Take a look at their video, it's pretty interesting and surely will inspire your kids. So enjoy and as always if you have any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to contact me. Sincerely,

Mike DeBritz mdebritz@CommLearning.com 1-877-347-0461

WELCOME

New slet ter -February 2011

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I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :

Cookie Jar Mystery—NEW 1

Crosswords & Match-Ups 2

STEM Project 2

N E W A N D I M P R O V E D C O O K I E J A R M Y S T E R Y So what's new? We gave the "Cookie Jar Mystery: A Study in Forensic Science" a full tune-up with updates and additional material throughout. First, we beefed up the "Notes for the Instructor" to give your teachers more background about each lesson and activity.

Second, we added more vocabulary and vocabulary extensions to help teachers introduce these new terms confidently. And last, we placed the "Notes for the Students" directly in the student books so kids can follow along and have their version of all the forensic background at the end of the course. Continued →

This is our customer map in green, we’re working hard to fill in the rest. If you know anyone in the other states let us know!

There were also a number of improvements in the Instructor's Guide like more page references and clear heading names for activities. This includes a page-within-a-page at the end of each lesson so teachers can easily direct and guide students to the associated pages in their activity books. If you'd like to preview the books, go to http://www.commlearning.com/CookieJarMystery_NEW.html. You’ll find pages from both the Instructor's Guide and Student book. Take a look at this slide show, to look at the new crime scene photos.... How can you get your copy of the new

books? There are a of couple ways; if you purchase a Re-Supply Kit you will automatically get new student activity books and we'll throw in two new Instructor's Guides for no extra charge! If you’d just like to upgrade both your Instructor and Student books, get the new photos and other supporting documents - you can upgrade your kit for $149. We've had many sites call and request small things like hair samples or pollen they ran out of, so if you need anything small we can include that in the upgrade also. In addition, if you decide to move on to the "Cookie Jar Case," the lessons that students would utilize in their arguments are exhibits and are labeled directly in the student books. This provides nice visual clues for the context and references back to each lesson, when students are developing their case for trial.

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Crosswords, Match-Ups and more! We're always seeking to improve our products. We want to make it as easy as possible for instructors who are using our course kits to make the experience successful, productive and fun for their students. So we asked..."What would be helpful?" Most of the teachers responded that the Vocabulary is often the most difficult area with a new topic. We are now pleased to provide Vocabulary Extensions for our course kits. They can be found online as PDF files on our website under the "Tools for Teaching" section of each course. There are a variety of types of puzzles including crosswords, word searches, cryptograms, and matching. Each puzzle reviews the terms used in a lesson or combination of lessons in a given course such as the "Missing Money Mystery." Simply download your choice of puzzle for specific lesson(s) and print to introduce or review the vocabulary used. We're eager to continually expand and enhance our resources and services for you. Please let us know of any other ideas you may have or used that we can share with all of our instructors. Please contact me at ljohnson@commlearning.com or via toll free telephone at 877-347-0461.

You don't have to look far to infuse STEM into your after school program. Google just announced the first ever online Science Fair on January 11th...with the first prize being a $50,000 scholarship for the best project! Don't worry, the window for submission runs until April 4th 2011, so you'll have plenty of time to help get your students organized. The online project works much like the traditional science fair. Students come up with an area they're interested in pursuing along these categories:

1. Computer Science & Math 2. Earth & Environmental Sciences 3. Behavioral & Social Sciences 4. Flora & Fauna 5. Energy & Space 6. Inventions & Innovation

7. Physics 8. Biology (could include forensics) 9. Chemistry (could include forensics) 10. Food Science 11. Electricity & Electronics

By the way, just the fact that you enter this contest should get you a long way with the "T" or technology part in STEM; Google's technology will be the vehicle to submit your entry. Each contestant will need to create a website for the project on Google Sites and each project will require up to a 2-minute video or a 20 slide Google presentation. To learn more, check out their introductory Rube Goldberg video at http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/index.html — it's well done. Hopefully you've been inspired and get started today!