Archive of ‘Blogging’ category

Where Can We Find Shapes?

Everywhere, as the first graders discovered!

On a chilly, blustery day we took our iPads out for a shape hunt. To correlate with their math unit the children were searching for circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, triangles, pentagons, hexagons, and octagons. Students could also photograph solid shapes if they wanted.

After two quick reviews – one over shapes and one about taking quality photos, we picked up our iPads and started the search.

IMG_2398FullSizeRender(1)After searching for a bit, we returned to the lab where the students used the Pic Collage app to insert and label their photos.

IMG_2384Next, the students uploaded their collages to their blog. They were asked to reflect on the shape hunt.

  • Was it hard to find all the shapes?
  • Were you surprised at where you found shapes?

FullSizeRender(2)FullSizeRender(3)The students enjoyed their search and were surprised at some of the places where they found shapes!IMG_2434

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Blogging for Peer Feedback

Mrs. Wright, our fourth grade Language Arts teacher, asked how we could incorporate technology into a writing lesson. (Oh, SO many ideas!!)

The students are beginning their pre-writing for a personal narrative. They were to bring in a photo of a special event in their lives. In the past, the children have worked in table groups to give feedback to each other – hearing from only three other students. To maximize the responses, we decided to have the students blog about their topic and then get feedback in the comments section.

Here’s the process:

Using the iPads, each child took a photo of their photo (much easier and quicker than scanning). The students opened the Kidblog app and uploaded their image to a new post.

Taking photos to upload to blog

Taking photos to upload to blog

Because the students were going to write a lot on the blog, and since we had easy access to computers, we moved to the PCs to finish blogging and commenting. Of course, the entire process could be done on the iPad; it was just more practical for our purposes to move to the computers.

The students added a sentence or two that described their picture that would be the basis of their personal narrative. As these were submitted, I quickly approved them so that the commenting could begin!

Mrs. Wright instructed the children to ask three questions after reading a post. They were to leave comments on the blogs of their table mates’ first, then they could ask questions of their other classmates.

Asking questions

Asking questions

The comments flew in faster than we could keep up with approving them! Very thoughtful questions were asked. These will be used to help write the narratives. Knowing some of the questions a reader might ask will help students be more precise and descriptive with their writing.

Here are the links to the blogs:

Mr. d’Auteuil’s Class Blog

Mrs. Malone’s Class Blog

Mrs. Wright’s Class Blog

Gifts from the Heart . . .

from the mouths of first graders!

Last week I asked the first graders to think about what gift they would give family members if they were able to give any gift in the world. We talked about presents that they would have to buy and gifts they could give that didn’t cost a thing. Then I asked if they knew what a “gift from the heart” was. These little children get it! They described all kinds of scenarios for a gift from the heart – but it all boiled down to something that they felt would be very special to the recipient.

Here are a few examples:

Tappan_keeSydney_Orehek
Olivia_KeeJonathan_Kee

Haley_Kee

Cole_Orehek
Blake_KeeTo read more, visit the first graders’ class blogs:

Mrs. Kee’s Class Blog

Mrs. Hutchinson’s Class Blog

Mrs. Orehek’s Class Blog

Enjoying Book Talks

The first graders visited the lab yesterday to listen to book talks from their third grade reading buddies. The third graders had posted their videos to their blogs. (Click here to read about the process of making the videos.)

The students logged into their KidBlog account, clicked on the third grade blog link, then found their buddy. They were to listen to the book talk then leave a comment. I won’t say the process went smoothly – I guess when you try to watch 22 videos at one time, things won’t proceed without hiccups. But we survived and all first graders were able to hear at least one book talk and leave a comment for their buddies.

Prior to turning them loose, we discussed what they could say after listening to the video. I introduced the terms “penny” and “dollar” comments and we brainstormed examples of each. (Penny comments are not worth much; they don’t provide good information to the author. Dollar comments give details, compliments, share information.) The students had some very sweet comments – it was obvious that they adore their older buddies!

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Besides connecting with their reading buddies in class, blogging is a fabulous way for students to share with each other!

Paper Blogging: Learning About Quality Posts and Comments

This is not my original idea but it is a powerful way to review the blogging process!

The following resources introduced me to paper blogging.

What always amazes me is how involved the students become with paper blogging! Not one person asks about getting on the computers! Our students have blogged since first grade but I always like to include this activity – just to make sure students refocus on the intent of our blogs: To share their learning in a positive and meaningful way.

Taking the food idea from Leonard Low’s Workshop Activity: Paper Blogs, I asked students to raise their hand if they liked to eat. Of course, that brought an enthusiastic response! I told them that they would be writing a blog post on paper and the following day would be spent writing comments using sticky notes.

The instructions were to write about a favorite food – it could be from a restaurant or something made by parents, relatives, or anyone else. They needed to write something that would paint a picture for the reader – use details! Pictures always spruce up a post so illustrations were strongly encouraged.

The paper was distributed and we worked together to include the basics of a post:

  • First name at the top (good place to talk about keeping personal information private; no last names)
  • Tags – This was a good review for students. What is your post about? Everyone could add “food” as a tag. As you write, you’ll think of other tags to add that would help readers find all posts about specific subjects . . .
  • Title – every post needs a title!

Then the students scattered in the small room to find a space to write. At first there were murmurings about their topic and how delicious their chosen food was (and how hungry they were becoming just thinking about it . . .), but soon all you could hear were pencils and pens scratching across the paper.

photo 4The next day, students came in to find four sticky notes on top of their post. We discussed penny comments versus dollar (and up) comments. There were some puzzled looks when I mentioned a penny comment but I asked how much they could buy with a penny. “Nothing” was the general consensus. We compared that to a “nothing” comment – a word or two that didn’t add anything to the conversation. But a dollar comment would include details, ask questions, make connections. Of course, the competitive nature of children meant that each wanted to beat a dollar comment – $5, $10, and up were certainly better than just $1!

I had the students stand at their seats with a pencil in hand. Instructions were to read the post and write a comment, including their first name. I had them count four chairs clockwise. At that point they stopped, read the post and wrote a comment. When finished we repeated the process. This time they could comment on the blog OR respond to the comment. We did this a total of four times, going clockwise or counter-clockwise (just to keep everyone guessing!).

photo 2

photo 2After the last round, the students returned to their seats to read their comments. We then discussed the following, sharing examples:

  • Anonymous comments – it was decided that we prefer to know who the writer is
  • Irrelevant comments – those that had nothing to do with the post
  • Penny comments – Students offered to read what they thought were penny comments without giving the author. The funny thing was that, even though the reader gave no clues as to who the author was, the student in question generally confessed, “That was me. I know I should have written more.” (Yea! They are getting it!)
  • Dollar comments – Lots of hands went up to share. We really had some strong, quality comments – possibly because the children wanted to impress each other.

I had one student who, shall we say, is not always into the lessons. He surprised me by writing some amazing comments and was always the one we were waiting on to finish the comments! When we debriefed, his name came up several times when we shared the dollar comments.

I can’t wait to read their online blogs!

Celebrating Picture Book Month!

Did you know that November is Picture Book Month? Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. Hebert, our librarians, issued a challenge to the Lower School to read picture books in an effort to beat last year’s goal of 4,370.

For the past several weeks, we’ve been discussing blogging when the students come to the lab. To correlate with blogging and the library’s challenge, I asked the third graders to bring a picture book to the lab. They were to produce a book talk and upload it to their blog.

We started class by taking a picture of their book cover.

0 book cover photo

The next step was to read the book.

6 readingWriting isn’t always a favored part of a third grader’s life but the students did understand that this step is important to organizing thoughts and really makes the recording go much more smoothly.

10 writing book reviewThe next step was to choose an app. I gave the option of Tellagami (free; available on App Store and Google Play) and ChatterPix Kids (free from App Store). Both have a limit of 30 seconds so students needed to be concise in what they said. Both also allow the user to import photos from the camera roll. With Tellagami, the students created an avatar that “spoke” their recorded message. With ChatterPix, a “mouth” line is drawn and that moves to the narration. The students enjoyed creating a mouth on their book cover.Tellagami and chatterpixThe students recorded, made sure they were satisfied with the sound, saved to photos, then emailed the video to me. Once students completed the process, I put them to work helping others.

recording and saving

Finally, the children uploaded their video to the KidBlog app. Next week their first grade buddies will be listening to the book talks and making comments on their buddies’ posts. I also posted all the book talks on TVS TechnoWizards.

Class Blogs:

Below is a visual of the apps we used for the project.

app smashing with book talks

 

 

 

 

We Know the Water Cycle!

Mrs. Cooper’s second graders were asked to show their understanding of the water cycle and to do this we decided to have the students add something to their blog. However, a visual is extremely helpful in understanding so we chose to have the children draw a picture in the Drawing Box app, import it into Explain Everything where it would be recorded, save it to the camera roll, then upload it to their post on KidBlog. All of this was accomplished on our iPad minis!

Process from Drawing Box to KidBlog

Process from Drawing Box to KidBlog

A lot to do for second graders but they were up for the challenge!

Water Cycle created in Drawing Box app

Water Cycle created in Drawing Box app

Here are the steps the students went through:

  • Draw in the Drawing Box app > Save to photos
  • Import picture to Explain Everything > set as background
  • Record in Explain Everything > save as movie to photo roll
  • Open KidBlog > create new post > upload video from photo roll
photo(8)

Checking the recordings

The students would love for you to visit their blog and leave comments!

Mrs. Cooper’s Class Blog

Things I Learned:

  • Plan at least a couple of hour-long sessions to draw, record, and upload to the blog.
  • Don’t forget to explain how to use the “highlighting/arrow” tools for Explain Everything. I did and was really annoyed at myself for doing so! Those are powerful tools when using a screen casting app. We will definitely use these in an upcoming project.
  • I highly recommend the paid version of Drawing Box. It has a better collection of drawing tools. All of our student iPads have this version but Mrs. Cooper had the free app and she was disappointed not to have more options.
  • The students are quick learners and did extremely well with the project. Part of the objective of this was for them to become familiar with the app so that they could easily use it in the future.

The students enjoyed working with Explain Everything and I look forward to see how they use it with other subjects.

Creating Fact Families

To check student understanding of fact families, we introduced the students to the Draw & Tell app by Duck, Duck, Moose. This is an amazing screen casting app for younger children! It is extremely intuitive and the app tells the user what to do each step of the way.

duck duck moose

All work is automatically saved – very helpful for the little ones! The recorded videos can be saved to the photo roll where they can be shared in a variety of ways.

Our goal was to check understanding of fact families and then have the students post the video to their blog. I gave basic instructions about the tools, then told the students that we needed to prepare the canvas before we did the recording.

  • Choose a plain backdrop so that the number sentences can easily be seen.
  • Write your name and then write the fact family sentences.
  • Choose stickers to represent the fact family.
  • Record (I showed them how to move the stickers and how to use the “laser” pointer.)

Some students wanted (and were ready) to write larger fact families (100 + 30 = 130). What they quickly discovered was that the amount of stickers needed would take a long time AND they didn’t fit on the small screen area! (We have iPad minis.)

1st grade_Draw and Tell

As the students began writing number sentences and recording, we were quickly able to see who didn’t quite get the fact family concept. That gave us a chance to reteach and help the students with writing the correct number sentences.

After the videos were created, I showed the students how to save to Photos; an easy process. Again, the app tells the students exactly what to do.

draw and tell 1

draw and tell 2

draw and tell 3

Next time the students come to me, they will upload the videos to their KidBlog page.

Below are a couple examples from the students:

This is a visual of the process of the project > from creating to publishing to KidBlog:

1st app smashing

The only technical issue we experienced was that a few students did NOT tap OK when prompted to allow microphone to access the app. Some recorded in vain! Nothing was picked up! Of course, once the settings were changed, recording worked just fine.

This is a fantastic app for students to explain their learning/thought processes. There are enough tools for students to be creative but not so many that they are overwhelmed.

Be sure to visit the students’ blogs on Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 5. Their videos will be published by then and they will welcome comments!

Mrs. Hutchinson’s Class Blog
Mrs. Kee’s Class Blog
Mrs. Orehek’s Class Blog

Update on Feb. 5 > All videos are uploaded!

Uploading the video

Uploading the video

 

From the Mouths (and Hearts) of First Graders

During the holiday season, we talk so much about what gifts WE want and we often neglect to think about others. So this year, I posted the following on the students’ class blog:

It’s the season of giving. What gift would you like to give someone? Who would receive this gift?

As the students reflected on the questions, I gave a bit more information:

  • The gift could be to anyone – parents, siblings, cousins, friends, grandparents, etc
  • It did not have to be something bought.

This was the first time the students had logged into their blog so we spent a bit of time just getting on. I explained that I had written the post and they were responding by writing a comment.

I asked if they knew how to spell every single word they might need and the response was a resounding NO! So, what would they do when they came across a word they couldn’t spell? A few said they would ask the teacher but I pointed out that there were only 2 teachers and 20 students so we might not be available when they needed a word spelled. The students concluded that the best thing to do was to sound it out.

Below are some of their responses (written in 1st grade spelling with “adult” spelling in parentheses if needed to make sense of the thought).

  • from Greyson: I am gowing to giv my mom a quite time love greyson.
  • from Riley: I Wud Like To Giv Mom a nis Worm Kise! (I would like to give Mom a nice warm kiss!)
  • from Ruthie: I would give a doll to one of my nextdoor neighbors. Her name is Charlotte.She is two years old.I would give her older sisster, Jainie a coloring book.She is four years old.
  • from Zoe: I would give to you Mrs Kee a vacation .
  • from Benton: i would give the gif of love and cinednis. (I would give the gift of love and kindness.)
  • from Mary Blair: what i wunt to give my mommy and daddy for crismas is a odamit to hang on the crismas tree and breckfist in bed. and to wish evreone to have a merry crismas. (What I want to give my mommy and daddy for Christmas is an ornament to hang on the Christmas tree and breakfast in bed. And to wish everyone a Merry  Christmas.)
  • from Toby: I wold give a present to my Granparets the present wold be a BIBLE .
  • from Ruby: I will give my mom a little puppy and I will give my dad a big kiss on the chek (cheek).

If you would like to read more responses, visit the class blogs listed below:

Writing for our Blogging Buddies

This year is the first time we have participated in the Primary Blogging Community, a fantastic group blogging opportunity set up by Kristen Wideen. We have 4 teachers involved this year. From second grade we have Mrs. Cooper, Mrs. Garcia, and Mrs. Shapard. Mrs. Weth, one of our third grade teachers, is also participating.

Each teacher is placed in a group of three other classrooms. Our students will be communicating with children from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, other areas of the United States. We are thrilled to learn about life in other parts of the US and the world!

The first month is spent focusing on one classroom each week. The “focus” class blogs as a class and the others leave comments. It’s a wonderful way for teachers to model how to write quality posts and comments with student input. The second month is when the children actually do the posting and commenting themselves. Again, one class is the “focus” group so they write posts while the others share comments.

This week, both Mrs. Shapard (2nd grade) and Mrs. Weth (3rd grade) are the focus classes. The teachers guided their children to write an introductory paragraph then they asked the groups to brainstorm what they would like to share. In Mrs. Shapard’s class, each group shared one or two sentences that were added to the post. Click on the link below to view her students discussing what to share.

Shapard_deciding what to post

Mrs. Weth asked her students to jot down several ideas on a white board. Then they decided on their first choice for sharing. The first group that spoke decided to tell about the school and the co-curricular classes they attend each week. The children added so many details that their ideas became the first post! The other groups will hold onto their thoughts to share in a later post!

Using a white board to brainstorm ideas

Using a white board to brainstorm ideas

Already both classes have received comments and questions from the other schools. All are excited to “meet” their blogging buddies!

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