We just finished our 1st One Book Blitz and absolutely loved reading Charlotte's Web as a school! Not only that, our whole community of three school systems got involved. All students K-5 in Blount County got a copy of the book and read along at home and at school. What book will we read next year?
I work with some of the BEST people!
We just finished our 1st One Book Blitz and absolutely loved reading Charlotte's Web as a school! Not only that, our whole community of three school systems got involved. All students K-5 in Blount County got a copy of the book and read along at home and at school. What book will we read next year?
0 Comments
The first story in our reading curriculum is What is a Pal? Students read about friends while practicing the short a sound. I developed an extension to this story by pairing it with Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend. A story about a popular, funny character who makes an unlikely friend. My students are then paired with a new friend. They both conduct an interview using this recording sheet the draw or write their findings. www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/New-Friend-Interview-2744891
They then use this digital piece in Notability to record some of their research and plan a gift for their friend. Using their new friend's answers, students plan a bead bracelet for their friend. Each bead represents a friend's favorite or a connection to their life. For example: a yellow bead may represent a friend's favorite food of mac & cheese or an orange bead for playing basketball. www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/My-Almost-Perfect-Friend-2744865 By the end of the week, students introduce their new friend to the class, present their bracelet, and share information about about their friend. They learn to defend their choices by justifying each bead while learning about their classmate. I love this start to our year as students think about others instead of themselves! Building relationships to grow our classroom connections! Have you tried this app or website? "Prodigy has content from all major topics and will seamlessly cover Grades 1 - 8 to help ensure your students are ready for standardized testing." We are using this for math connected to Common Core standards. The teacher assigns lessons connected to what has been taught in the classroom and students answer questions while playing a video-like game. They LOVE it. It has been slightly glitchy on our older model ipads, but they don't mind logging back in! I have only tried the free account. Has anyone tried the paid version? Do you think it is worth it?
My students entered two items into their digital portfolio on Friday. They added a screenshot from Doodle Buddy and a drawing with voice recording within Seesaw. We sent home parent sign up handouts and have already had parents access the site. Setting up a teacher account and adding students was a breeze! I'm giving this one two thumbs up so far! I've heard about a new app that I am excited to use next year. Who has tried Seesaw? It looks like this app would eliminate emailing to parents (but still give them access to student work), multiple emails for grading, and fewer applications for the completion of assignments. I'd love to hear your thoughts, successes, or struggles!
One thing I've definitely learned through STEM infusion is not to underestimate your students. They can do far more than you expect if given the chance. This week, we researched American symbols using padlet and several books from the library. This connected to our story of the week titled A New Friend and the related text entitled Symbols of Our Country. Students collected information and responded to questions to further thinking. Then, students chose pictures from the devices camera roll I had added for safe searching. There were several options of each of the monuments and symbols we had learned about. They had to include at least 3 symbols, excite an audience, and give some details about each US symbol. Check out what my first graders were able to create in 30 minutes! http://youtu.be/a_dfgLCMcNc http://youtu.be/6f2VVxkU7h4 http://youtu.be/gRVeVnVkpjo http://youtu.be/0cHc01ETnRI http://youtu.be/umPg5NhkfEA This is a basic list of the STEM challenges I have incorporated into our basal curriculum connected to our weekly stories. This list includes a brief and sometimes vague description of each task. If you would like more details for any of these activities, please contact me. I have flipcharts for several. I also have rough supply lists, pacing guides following the engineering design process and an essential question for each week's challenges. I hope you find this useful and have fun with your students!
Today, I had the opportunity to share our STEM experiences with some of the elementary teachers in Clinton, TN. Thank you to all the participants for your willingness to create shells and robo arms with a positive attitude. I hope you found the information useful. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am attaching the powerpoint with the two hands-on activities and the links for the two prezis with additional ideas. Check back for a later post with a list of more challenges we have done with the Journeys series!
http://prezi.com/rorf5hdud7aa/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy http://prezi.com/s__3dloyj6qi/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy Tap Tap Blocks is a great app to use when working with 3D shapes. Students have to use solid figures to create new shapes. Using linking cubes and this app, students are engaged and excited. They worked with a partner. One student built something with cubes and the partner used the iPad to build the same design on the app. The app allows them to manipulate colors, size, and movement of the blocks. Check out more pictures on our blog. This week, my class completed a lesson planned for a community presentation for our 1:1 initiative in July. I was very excited to see this lesson come to life in my classroom. I am posting 4 examples of our student product. My students were presented with a problem...Bears from the Smoky Mountains were invading our campus. They did research to find out why. We discovered open trash bins were the issue. We then researched solutions. You will notice our discovery in these projects. My class was then challenged to produce an Adobe Voice convincing our superintendent to upgrade our trash cans at SHE. We are eager to hear his response!
Research was conducted through books and videos posted to a padlet wall and an article in the app Subtext. Photographs for the Adobe Voice were accessed through a different padlet wall where students learned to save images to their camera roll and upload in Adobe. We are very familiar with padlet and Adobe but learned new tech skills accessing Subtext and moving pictures to our device. Proud moments this week in 1st grade! We have also been practicing opinion and informative writing. There were no guidelines on how long the project needed to be, simply that they needed to have an introduction, state the problem and defend the issue, present a solution, and have a closing. Check these out... http://voice.adobe.com/v/4DGT76ro3-k http://voice.adobe.com/v/66DqG6SomIj http://voice.adobe.com/v/DswIYLhbdrd http://voice.adobe.com/v/KbwR4F_BPCI |
Dee Dulin1st grade teacher infusing STEM, PBL, and 1:1 mini-ipads Archives
February 2017
Categories |