Friday Fun and Learning

Hi, my name is Carol, and I used to be a blogger!  Despite my good intentions, my blogging has been pretty much nonexistent this school year. But I just had to share my kids' latest work!

To accommodate field day schedules we were left without specials yesterday afternoon.  Usually this is a nightmare with students (and teachers!) who are used to having a break in the afternoon.  But my little firsties made the most of the extra time.

Their assignment was to watch a BrainpopJr. video about landforms and then create a PicCollage with pictures and descriptions of 4 landforms.  I use our district's  Canvas Learning Management System to assign these projects.  Students can access the video and instructions for completing the project from our class page.  Canvas is a wonderful tool for blended learning!  Here's a screenshot showing our landforms assignment.

Working in pairs, students viewed the video on an iPad to learn about the various landforms. 

They also had access to a Sciencesaurus, one of our science curriculum resources, for more information.  (I don't use this wonderful resource nearly enough- great information and the kids love them!)

After viewing the video, each pair chose 4 landforms and created a PicCollage to share their learning.  We used a district provided resource Britannica Image Quest to find pictures, but a Google image search would work as well.  My students have been creating PicCollages all year so they are old pros by now!

The most surprising part of this activity was how engaged they were considering it was Friday afternoon.  My class is, well, just a bit challenging this year and can get off task quite easily.  Not this time!  They worked for over an hour and a half, and except for dealing with an occasional technical glitch and one case of "the sillies," my presence was hardly necessary!  I was truly just a "guide on the side!"

After creating their PicCollages, students uploaded them into their SeeSaw Learning Journal.  I cannot recommend this app  highly enough!  It has made it so much easier for me to document all of the wonderful work my students have created using the iPads this year.  They can also create products from within the app.  New updates have added the ability to create folders so, for example, all of our landforms creations can be viewed at one time.  The developers have also been adding features to allow products from apps like PicCollage to be directly added to SeeSaw.  Before SeeSaw, students would have to email their products to me and then I would have to add them to a folder.  Now I just login to my SeeSaw account and I can see all of their wonderful creations in their digital portfolios! Parents also have access so they can see their child's work as well. If you use iPads at all you need to have this free app! 

Check out SeeSaw here!

Here are a few of our creations:

I can't wait to see their next projects!  

Padlet and iPads and Spiders...Oh My!

I can't tell you how excited I am about using the iPads as tools to support our learning.  Yesterday we used Padlet to share our schema as we kicked off our Spider Week.  If you are not familiar with Padlet, here is a short video from their website.



 I have used Padlet before but never with the iPads.  So yesterday at 5 o'clock in the morning I had a brainstorm- I think I do some of my best thinking during the wee hours of the morning!- and created a wall for my kids to share what they know about spiders. I was worried about them typing in the URL, but luckily Padlet generates a QR code to use for sharing the wall so I just made copies of that.
I loved watching my little friends' excitement as the QR code "magically" took them to Padlet and as they shared their knowledge about spiders.  Typing is still difficult for many of them, but they perservered and we have our schema wall!

On another exciting note, our Donor Choose goodies have started to arrive!

iPad Love!

I could start this post by offering excuses for why I haven't blogged in 3 months, but rather than getting into discussing the "challenges" presented by my class or changes that are keeping me at school later than ever, I'm just going to go on and discuss what's good about this year so far!

Thanks to the generosity of our PTA and a grant that I received, I now have 6 iPad minis in my classroom.  This has allowed me to have a couple of iPads available for independent activities during Daily 5 and math workshop while the others can be utilized by my small groups.  I really want to see my students doing more than playing games on the devices, so my goal this year is to show them how the iPads can be used to share their learning with others.  I've started slow and introduced 3 tools so far.

First I introduced using the camera and PicCollage. We have used PicCollage to show combinations of numbers and for story retellings so far.

Next we used Popplet Lite. Popplet is a great tool for organizing information.  We used it to share the steps for making applesauce during our apple unit.

I introduced Educreations this week.  One of my math groups used it along with Make a Scene: Farmyard to model subtraction stories.  I love using these 2 apps for demonstrating math concepts or documenting students' work in math!


Friday was an especially productive day!  Because some of my students attend a GT class on Fridays (and unfortunately I had a couple students home sick)  I was able to pair up my students and, by using my own personal iPad, each partner group had an iPad to use.  We had time for each group to freely explore some of these apps, and I was able to observe and guide as necessary.  It was incredible to watch as they encouraged each other and solved problems together!

Then my day got even better when I received an email informing me that Chevron had donated to my Donors Choose project, and it was now fully funded!  So in a few weeks I will have the materials to set up a STEM station in my classroom complete with building materials and another iPad.  Now I have to get busy planning exactly how the station is going to look and what I want my little scientists and engineers to accomplish!

I'll be back soon to talk about our next big iPad experience- learning to code!

Reflecting on the Year So Far

I am finally returning to the blogging world after a very long absence.  It's been kind of a rough school year so far. It seems like it has taken much longer than normal to get things going this year.  We've had some changes at school- a new lesson plan system, new curriculum and of course,more paperwork- that have taken some getting used to. In addition to this and  a few behavior problems in my class, I also have a student with special needs (both academic and behavior) who is not yet identified.  Although he's getting some support through RTI, I'm the one who is dealing with him most of the time. And I'm tired!  I've even started to ask myself if it's time to retire. (My husband says it's not!)
So I decided this weekend to stop wallowing in self-pity and focus on what is going right in the classroom and spend some time taking care of ME!  My craft room is covered with school projects, but I put aside my laminator and centers, pulled out my crochet hooks and some thread, and made some Christmas ornaments.

I also took some time to reflect on what is good in my classroom this year.  Reading groups and Daily 5 are finally up and running.  I even added Listen to Reading this year!  I've avoided it for the past few years because I hate dealing with tapes/CDs, headphones and players.  But now I am using my computers- much easier!  We are using Tumblebooks right now and the kids love it!  I'm looking into other sources for online books; please share if you have any to recommend!
I love my math workshop this year!  I finally have a system that allows me to pull guided math groups on a regular basis.  My kids rotate through 10 work stations during a 2 week period, working with a partner.  I pull 2 groups/day, 3 days per week.  Monday is a whole group lesson, usually introducing a new concept or skill, with guided practice.  On Thursdays we usually do a whole group problem solving lesson and worksheet or other activity for assessment.  As with reading, I am finally learning to utilize my 3 classroom computers more efficiently and have them set up as one of the math stations.
Our wonderful PTA purchased a mini iPad for every classroom this year so we have been using it during our guided math groups.  On Friday, we experimented with Educreations to show our work.  Here's one of my friends showing how she solved a subtraction problem.



(I've enjoyed having the iPad so much I wrote a Donors Choose project for 2 more!  Click here to view my project.)

Now I'm off to have fun with bats, spiders and all things Halloween!  Have a great week!