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!  

All About a Number Freebie

I was home sick today and spent most of my time reading blogs and working on school stuff! I created a task card for strengthening number sense that utilizes one of our favorite apps.  We've been using PicCollage a lot in language arts so last week I had one of my math groups use it to show different ways to describe a number.  They enjoyed making their number collages so I thought I would make it an independent workstation this week.  I use Donna's (from The Math Coach's Corner) wonderful themed number cards (find them here) and put several cards, a set of base ten blocks and an iPad in the tub.  Simple to set up and easy to differentiate by choosing different cards for each group.

An example of Donna's cards.  This month I am using her penguin set!

Here's the task card if you'd like to try it!

Click here to download

That's it for tonight.  If you're in the path of the blizzard, stay warm and safe! (No chance of a blizzard here in Texas!)

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!