Technology in the Classroom

This is my favorite Norman Rockwell picture, adding the ipad makes it even better :)

My school is a technology magnet school, we are always looking for new ways to use technology in the classroom. This year we are using two new sites with the students. I thought I would share them and see what everyone else uses in their classroom.

Each class has a blog from the site Kidblog.  It is great! Teachers can post questions or assignments and students are able to go on post their response. All student post are not made public until you approve them. We just started using the site and I used it to ask an intro question for our Native American Unit in 5th grade. If you have used this site I would love to hear how you use the site with your students. 

The second site I am using this year is Youngzine. This site has current news stories for kids. It is great to use for non-fiction reading text! 

If you have any great sites or ways you use technology in the classroom please share!

Narrative Elements Rap!

I had to share this. We are studying narrative elements for the next two weeks and a teacher on my team found this awesome rap. My students really liked it and were singing along by the end. Enjoy!

Narrative Elements Rap

Back-To-School

Now that school is back in full swing I am going to try and get back to blogging. I am in my second week with the kids and love my classes. We have started off the year with lots off fun activities. Check out all that we have been up to.

Student Pennants

My fifth grade students made personal pennants that we hung. I love how this turned out! The only requirements was no more than two pictures. They were able to color and decorate any way they wanted.

What I Learned this Week....

I created this for Made It Monday! and now you can see it in action. My fourth grade students loved posting about their week. Everyone posted about what they learned in math. Their math teachers are to credit for that :)

Student Tweet Board

This was another Made It Monday! My fifth graders loved this. It was an easy way to see what made an impression on them the first week of school. Most of my students posted about meeting with their kindergarten buddies. 

Sunshine State Reader Board

This is my Sunshine State Reader board. After students pass the book AR test their picture is put on the board and the book is added above. As the year goes on this will become a bar graph.

Update: this is how our board looked by Christmas Break

                                    


Twelve (fill in the blank) Things

 I read Twelve Terrible Things by Marty Kelley to my fifth grade class, it is such a fun book!! We reviewed adjectives and students pair up to create a list of 'Twelve (adjective) Things'. The students decided on an adjective and then created a list for that word. Some of the list they created were 'Twelve Gross Things' and 'Twelve Fantastic Things'. The students loved creating the list and presenting it in creative ways.

I am looking forward to this year and all the possibilities with a new group of students.

5th Grade and Kindergartener Buddies

Today my 5th grade students met with their kindergarten buddies for the first time. We planned a scavenger hunt for the buddies to help the kindergarteners learn where everything was on campus. 

It was amazing! My fifth graders were wonderful with their buddies holding their hand and reminding them to walk on the yellow line. I saw how wonderful buddies were last year for my 5th graders and am still amazed how grown-up the 5th graders are when given a a little person to help.

The kindergarten teacher and I have planned out lots of fun activities for this summer. Our classes will meet every Wednesday for 30 minutes.Below is a list of our planned activities for this year.

Buddies meet on Wednesdays 1:10-1:50

Extended time activities will be from  12:45-1:50

Aug 15^th – GEMS scavenger hunt  *extended time*

Buddies will go to set places on campus and add stickers to their passport.   

This will help kindergarten students learn where things are around campus.

Aug 22^nd – interview and paper dolls

                      5^th grade will interview their buddy so they can write a story about their buddy.

                      Kindergarten will work on paper doll with help of buddy.

Aug 29^th – ‘If You Take a Mouse to School’

After reading ‘If You Take a Mouse to…’ students will write and illustrate a story for the prompt. ‘If You Take a Mouse to School….’

Sept 5^th - read with buddy

                     Kindergarten will go to 5^th grade classroom and read a book with a buddy.

Sept 12^th – make flag

                     Kindergarten will create a flag with partners help after reading book about
                     America. 

Sept 19^th – nursery rhyme play

5^th grade buddy will pick play before meeting with kindergarten. Groups will decide what style of play they will present (puppet or act out)

Sept 26^th – nursery rhyme (rehearsal)

Oct 3^rd – nursery rhyme *extended time*

Students will present plays to parents.  

Oct 10^th – read fall books in the garden (snack)

Oct 17^th – scarecrow glyph

Oct 24^th – fall book with writing activity

Oct 31^st – pumpkin activity *extended time*

We have not completed the calendar for the rest of the year. 

My Last Monday Made It!

My summer is over, I go back to work next Monday :( I am sad to end this relaxing, fun summer with my daughter but looking forward to a new group of kids. Make sure to pop over to 4th Grade Frolic and see the wonderful ideas posted for Monday Made It!

#1 Recipe Book

I created a recipe binder years ago but it was dirty and  unorganized from years of use. I created a new one with the following sections: breakfast, bread and muffins; starters, dips, soups, salads and beverages; sides, pasta and sandwiches; beef and pork; poultry; vegetarian and other; cakes and cupcakes; cookies; other desserts. I use page protectors for the recipes to keep them clean and only put recipes I have tried and like in the book. Any recipes that I want to try go in the front pocket. I made tabs because other tabs were hidden by the page protector.

#2 Pennant Banner

I made a pennant banner for my niece's 1st birthday party. The theme is pink and white pot-a-dots. 

#3 Teacher Toolbox

It only took me all summer but I finally bought and made my teacher toolbox. Better late than never :)

#4 Best Thing I Learned.....

I saw this idea on Pinterest, for my 4th grade class on Friday they will write the best thing they learned that week and put it on the board. I am planning to give students a page protector for their classroom binder, they can place their old sticky note in it when they post a new one. At the end of the year students can look at all they things they learned. I used a full poster board and added fun Duck Tape to dress it up :)

It is a bit blurry :(

#5 Morning Work/Writing Pictures

From National Geographic

I like using pictures and books when teaching and practicing writing with my 4th graders. In a previous post I used pictures from National Geographic to teach Ba-Da-Bing and Ba-Da-Boom sentences. I love the National Geographic photo website, they have great pictures for writing. It is great to have pictures I pull up on my Mimio but I wanted pictures for the students to hold in their hands. My wonderful family has been saving magazines for me and I went through and pulled interesting pictures and create categories for them. I plan to use them as morning work. There will be a picture each group of desk and a prompt on the board. Ex. In 3 or more sentences tell me what the person is thinking?, Describe what you see in 5 or more sentences., If you were standing in this place what do you think it sounds like?, What do you think this taste/smells like?, etc

From National Geographic

For those of you still on summer break enjoy!