Tech Bytes October 23-27

EdCamp GB is just around the corner! Not sure what an EdCamp is? Check out the video included in this issue of Tech Bytes. Hope to see you there!

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ October 23rd

Go Pack Go!!!

Rainbow words the Seesaw way

My kiddos have always loved practicing their sight words using rainbow writing! This week I saw a post on Twitter where a class did their words on Seesaw using the drawing tool to create their rainbow words. 


I was inspired to play around with the idea and tweak it to make it work with our district's sight word list. I also played around with a format that I felt would work well for kindergartener's and 1st graders. 

I ended up creating two sets of words! One set is created with a "trace the dot" font on handwriting lines like you see on the right and the other set other set is done with a solid font on handwriting lines. You can choose what you prefer depending on the amount support your kiddos need or on your preference.


I also debated if I wanted to do each word like this for the entire year or if I wanted to work students towards being more independent, so I also created a blank handwriting line template that can be used with any words. 

I then uploaded these words as png images to my Google Drive where I can easily access them from Seesaw by clicking on:
Add file > Select from Google Drive > Choose the folder and the item and add to the class feed. 
When you add them to Seesaw the original Google file link shows up on the post. If you click on caption, you can delete that information and add whatever you'd like. I added a little note with simple directions.


I have these words organized into folders based on our district grade level expectations, but if you're interested, you're more than welcome to take a peek and make a copy to add to your own Drive of any of the file you'd like for your own use! I have the first 3 lists done which are kindergarten and 1st grade words. I'll be adding on to these in the near future, so feel free to check back for additional resources. Here is the link to get to the folder that has both the trace the dot font and solid font words as well as a blank handwriting image like you see above.

Seesaw Task Cards

Seesaw Task Cards

Have you seen these awesome Seesaw Task cards that were created by Seesaw Ambassador, Becky Barrett? She has cards for Read to Self, Work on Writing, Listen to Reading with Epic Books and a couple of math task cards.

These can be a great way to add accountability to your Daily 5 stations. If you decide to use these, be sure to click File > Make a Copy. She has included images on the last slide so that you can also make your own task cards! Thanks Becky for sharing!!!

Apps for Daily 5 (1st grade)

Daily 5 is a huge part of our day in first grade and is a time that students are working independently while I work with small guided reading groups. As anyone who teaches young children knows, this can be one of the best times of the days for both students and teacher or the most disastrous if your students struggle with independent work habits. 

As mentioned in my previous post, "Creation Apps Are Where It's At", creation apps are a majority of what we use and that holds true for a majority of my Daily 5 rotations as well. Don't get me wrong, as you will see, I do have some skill-based apps in this area as well, as I do believe there is a time and place for skill-based apps.

So, as promised here are the apps that my students utilized for Daily 5 time. 

The first picture below is a look at our main D5 page. As you can see, this page is categorized into folders to help students know which apps fit the Daily 5 area that they chose. I have screenshots below of each of these folders as well so you can better see what was in each one. Like my previous creation apps post, I won't go into specifics of each app. Although this is our D5 page, kiddos also used creation apps from the Creation page such as PicCollage, BookCreator, and Drawing Pad to show their learning at the area they were working at. I should also mention that my students had options for all Daily 5 choices that were not tech based as well. For example, for my Word Work station, we had a set of "Rainbow Drawers" that had a variety of options as well such as building sight words with popsicle sticks or using rubber stampers. This post is simply about sharing the apps that were part of their choices.

Daily 5 main page

Read to Self-
Epic!- Our main go to for Read to Self time (not including our Browsing Boxes of just right books) was Epic! This is a  FANTASTIC, FREE site for educators that offers great quality ebooks. (You can access Epic on iOs, web based-including Chromebooks, Android and Kindle) As a teacher you will set up a classroom profile with each students' name. When kiddos access their profile for the 1st time, they will pick from a variety of interests such as: sports, adventure, mysteries, etc and then Epic will provide recommendations for them based on their likes. Epic also offers Read to Me selections which is great for our early readers who just aren't quite able to read on their own. What a great way for them to have the extra support and feel just like their peers by using the same app. As students read they will earn badges for a variety of reasons (they read on Earth Day, read 5 days in a row, favorited a book and more). As they move up levels they will also unlock a variety of options to customize their avatars ( My kiddos loved getting to Level 21 when they could say they were a "Book Boss"!). My 1st graders were so motivated by the gamification aspects and as a teacher I loved that the gamification did not overshadow the true purpose for using Epic. I truly can't say enough about Epic and the variety of features available to teachers and students. It is DEFINITELY one that you want to investigate. In the future I'll be doing a post about some of the additional features that are AWESOME for teachers such as creating collections. Students were also able to participate in the #EpicPals reading/Padlet board project during their Read to Self time. If you want to know more about that click here

The first folder above, the "Read to Self E-J" was a folder that had leveled book apps from Reading A to Z. I had purchased several copies of the level E to J apps and kiddos could access these during read to self time. Here is a list of all of the levels and books in each level. If you click on the colored LAZ Level icon at the top of each list it will redirect you to the app store for each level. There are 10 books in each app, both fiction and nonfiction. The apps are a bit pricey at $6.99 each. BONUS- there is one free book for each level so you can take a peek and see if you feel it's worth spending the money. You can find those at the very bottom of each list. Again, if you click on that Free book, it will take you directly to app store to download. 

Word Work folder:

Word Work folder

Teach Me 1st grade- I've always loved the Teach Me apps. They have several levels including Toddler, Kindergarten, 1st grade through 3rd grade. The Kindergarten app is great for your very low kiddos coming into 1st grade and offers the same great format. Each app has several skills to work on and you can toggle them on and off depending on what you want your students to focus on. If you have shared devices this app is great since you can add up to 40 students. Students earn coins for correct answers and can then use their coins to buy virtual stickers, stretchy bands, etc. Again, a bit of gamification, but it does not overshadow the purpose of the app.

Word Bingo by ABCya- Practice reading and spelling over 300 Dolch sight words by playing 4 different games. My kiddos really enjoyed this and it is leveled by preprimer, primer, 1st grade, etc so kiddos can start on a level that is most appropriate for them. I found that 90% of my kiddos could start with this right at the beginning of the year. 

Making Words- I used this app during my intervention time more than the kiddos used it independently during D5 Word Work time, but it was a still a good choice for students. The app has 50 different word family lessons where students are told a word and then asked to spell it using the provided tiles on the bottom of the screen.

ABC Spelling Magic "ABC1"-This app focuses on learning to spell 3 letter, short vowel words. I found this to be a great beginning of the year app for kiddos.

Spelling Magic 2 "ABC2" This app focuses on learning to spell 4 letter, short vowel words.

Grammar Wonderland

Jumbled Sentences 3 and 5 - You can read more about all 9 of these free apps. I also used this during my intervention time on occasion. It was a great option for helping students to create sentences using correct sentence order. There are 3 levels that offer various amounts of support. 

iSort Words- Again, this is one that I used on occasion with my intervention group. This app offers several different games to help students sort/recognize word families. Speed Sort, Swipe Sort (like Fruit Ninja), and Push Sort.

Reading Ninja- Slice your way through 150 different 3 letter words. Teachers are able to choose the difficulty level from easy to hard.

Magnetic ABC- the link is for the free version which only includes uppercase letter. My class used the paid version which includes upper case, lower case, numbers, and more. My kiddos would use this app to practice building word families or their spelling words and would then save their creation to the camera roll. From there they would add it to Seesaw and record the words that they built. Adding it to Seesaw was a fantastic way to hold them accountable and to give them additional practice reading their words.

Word Wizard- I found this app to be useful during Writer's Workshop in addition to Word Work time. When kiddos weren't sure how to spell a word, I asked them use this app and "Have a go" at the word. 

Tic Tac Toe Phonics - Great partner game to work on various word building activities. My kiddos really enjoyed this one and would even play it during indoor recess.

Lost on Prankster Planet- by the Electric Company. We used this app more as an educational indoor recess choice but it could easily be used during D5 times. This is a collaborative game and can be played with 2-4 players and covers various 1st and 2nd grade literacy and math curriculum.

Handwriting Folder:

Handwriting folder

Letter School- Seriously the most engaging handwriting app I've found. My kiddos LOVED this. Teacher can toggle on the format that their district uses (Handwriting Without Tears, DeNelian, ZanerBloser). This app uses the guided release of responsibility method to have students practice their letters. It's definitely one to check out!

Letter Reflex- Great app for your students that struggle with b/d, p/q that uses a Tilt It or Flip It activity. I love this app and have found students make gains with their visual perception. I didn't want my kiddos that utilized this app to over do it and become sloppy, so when using this app, they would grab a 3 minute sand timer and work for 1 or 2 flips of the timer. They often would do this after they were done eating their snack while they were waiting for the rest of the class to finish their snacks.

Dexteria- Helps with fine motor skills. Fun, game-based activities. This was developed by OT's to help kiddos with fine motor skills. Letter Reflex above is made by the same company. Both are great quality apps and worth the money for the students that need help in these skills.

Letter/Sound Folder

Letter Sound folder

This folder was used mainly at the very beginning of the year by most and for my most struggling readers for as long as needed as all of the concepts revolved around letter/sound relationships.

ABC Ninja- Letter identification. Students swipe the target letter. Teachers can toggle on/off which letters you want kiddos to focus on. I also used this with my b/d, p/q, n/u reversal kiddos and turned off all letters except for the b/d or whatever letters they needed to focus on. I did this after we had done several activities together that they could scaffold off of so they could be successful. 

ABC Magic 4- Students match pictures to beginning sounds in several different formats.

Sound Sorting- by Lakeshore Learning. I LOVE this app and highly recommend it for the beginning of the year. It is a GREAT complement to Words Their Way alphabetic sorts. Students choose 3 pictures (letters) to start. They are then given 9 different picture balls which they must drag to the correct matching picture. My kiddos really loved this one. I also used this after doing Letter/Sound testing (PALS testing) at the beginning of the year by tracking which sounds students were missing. I would then have a parent helper of one of my parapros work with kiddos on the sounds they struggled with. We would choose 2 sounds that they struggled with and 1 sound that they already were secure. Doing this always gave them built-in success along with working towards securing sounds they didn't know yet.

ABC Magic Phonics 3 "ABC3" In this app only the 'sounds' of the letters are used not the letter names. I found this to be a nice progression for kiddos as we were working through letter sound correspondence.

Work On Writing:
Since you can't put apps in 2 places, we didn't have a Work on Writing folder. The Write About It app was the only Work on Writing app on our D5 page. Many of my students used Book Creator to write their own stories during Work on Writing time. Our Work on Writing station was probably the most popular area to go.

 

Independently done Minecraft story done in Book Creator

during Work on Writing time.

Student chose to independently add on to his plant 

journal during Work on Writing time. 

Write About it- This app gives kiddos a picture along with a writing  prompt. My kiddos often didn't care for the prompts or didn't have enough background knowledge or skill base to write about the prompt provided so I allowed them to  use the picture as their prompt but then write about it how they wanted.

If you have any questions about the apps listed above or need more information on how we used them in class, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me.
I will admit  that it does take a little more time to get your Daily 5 rotations up and going but I found that in the long run I got SO much more out of my kiddos and they were excited and engaged during Daily 5 time which gave me more quality time to read with kiddos during guided reading groups instead of playing police officer.

I'll share apps that we used in math (both creation as well as specific skill-based apps) in an upcoming post

Tis the season to be journaling

iDiary app icon

I'm not sure if I've ever written about this particular app, but it is one of my all time favorites for 1st graders (or 2nd and 3rd graders), it is called, iDiary. It's a $1.99 in the app store but in my opinion, so worth the cost. If you are in a 4-5 iPad classroom, the app will allow you to put up to 6 students on the app. 
From iTunes: " iDiary for kids is a daily journal at its core- kids can express themselves periodically: writing, drawing, decorating entries with stickers. They can easily navigate to their old entries and explore their past musings or post entries for future events through an intuitive calendar navigation system"

I use this app mainly in our Daily 5 Work on Writing time, but on occasion we will use it during our Writer's Workshop time as well.  Today one of my students used the app to tell about Timmy our classroom elf (gosh there's another positive for Timmy- I'm telling you, if you don't have an elf, you definitely want to consider adopting one for next year). The best part was, she was also able to upload (easily I might add) a picture that she took of Timmy to go along with her writing. Once she was done with her entry, she was then able to share it with me via email. Email has been a fabulous tool to give students an authentic audience. After Christmas break, students will also be able to share their writing and projects with their parents via email- talk about motivating, they can't wait!!!

It's the little things like this girls writing and iPad usage that make me smile everyday! I am constantly amazed at what 1st graders really CAN do independently and how technology engages them gets them to work on things that otherwise are considered mundane or hard at times. Writing is not an easy thing for most first graders and is something that requires much practice to be good at, but with the help of apps like iDiary, Bamboo Paper, email, and others, students are excited and sometimes begging for writing time. Technology may not be the end all cure all to learning, but the engagement and time on task that it  brings is a definitely a positive... as the saying goes, Practice makes progress and if kids are willing to practice then progress is right behind!!!

Daily 5 Check-in management

Last year I tried many different ways of having my kiddos check-in for Daily 5. Although many of the ways worked, none of them helped with the management issue nightmare of having only 2 iPads in the room and who got them. After many tweaks I finally found a system that worked for my class. 
Below you will see the SMARTboard document that I created.

I really like the way this document worked and how it gave my kiddoss more ownership of their choices versus me calling their name and them telling me what they were going to do. I also found that having the visual made it easier for them and me, especially when they had multiple options within an area. For example, when they would say they wanted to do Listen to Reading, I would then have to ask them if they planned to use the tape player, CD players or the computer... now, I don't have to waste precious time asking and they can just sign up for their choice. 
Each of the * that you see is for one name. I don't have a limit on the number of kiddos that can choose read to self at any one break-out time so that's why there are no asterisks there.
We do 3 rounds each day. To make our sign up time more efficient, the kids only sign up for round 2 when they come in in the morning. When we come back from recess, they sign up for round 3 as they come into the room and before we head down for lunch. Round 1 is always Read to Self for all as I find many of my highly distracted kiddos need at least 1 round that does not have 5 million different things going on around them.

Daily 5 Pensieve App- COOL!!!

Have you heard the good news? "The Sisters" are releasing an electronic pensieve! They are scheduled to release it early August... considering it's the 11th already, I'm hoping that means SOON! 

I'm totally pumped about the possibility of doing my conferences on my iPad. I have been toying with the idea of using Evernote for this purpose but have been waiting to see what this app will be like 1st seeing as it is set up for the purpose I'm intending it for. 

If you want to take a peek for yourself at some of the information and/or screenshots, check out the following links.

http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/2112.cfm
http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/2367.cfm 
http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/Electronic-Pensieve-Calendar-and-Keeping-Track-Form.cfm

Word Work with a Tech Twist

I am working to embed multiple technologies into our Daily 5 Word Work routine to give students a more hands-on, multiple intelligence approach to learning and practicing our high frequency words and our vocabulary words.

Smartboard games

Currently, students have several options available to them and I hope to add more as they are ready.

One of the current options is to use our SMARTboard to play various games that I have created or modified to go along with our weekly high frequency words and our Words Their Way sorts. I created a folder on my desktop that houses each of the files that my students are allowed to use at this time. When I first introduced this option, I modeled how to get into and out of each document, how to minimize what was currently on the board such as our D5 rotations documents, and how to solve little glitches that come up. My students have done a fantastic job of using this area independently. I only allow 2 kiddos on the board at a time.

using Prezi

 Another option, or rather once a week requirement, is using our iPad to review the week's vocabulary words from our reading series. I introduce the words whole group on the SMARTboard using Prezis that I have created. Students then grab an iPad at some point during the week to review our vocab Prezi at their own pace and then write them in their vocabulary notebooks using the Prezi Viewer app which is free!

The other option that my students have is to use their iTouch to work on various sight word based apps. Currently we are using Teach Me 1st grade and Word Bingo by ABCya. I have several other great apps but am introducing things slowly so that students are comfortable problem solving and are able to work independently so that I am able to meet with my guided reading groups.

At one point, I had given each of my students a Word Work 3 In A Row card which I had laminated. It was their job to X off their choice each day and when they got three in a row, they received a small prize. I strategically place my "have-to" areas (Vocab prezis) on the chart so that they would have to do it to get 3 in a row. I have since abandoned this as it was time consuming for the kiddos to go and get their sheet and X things off prior to starting. Not to mention, it was turning into a nightmare for me to manage. We now are checking in on the SMARTboard and kiddos know that if they choose Word Work that they need to pick one of the above options.

As glad as I am to be done with the wonderful idea, I do think that it had its benefits at the beginning of the year in giving my students a visual of all their choices. Will I use these again next year? Hmmm... ask me in the fall... still pondering that one or how I can tweak it just a tad to make it more manageable.

Apps, apps, and more apps

I think I am going app crazy, yes, I DID mean to say APP crazy!  Since getting my new iTunes acct 3 weeks ago, I have been using every spare minute I can find, which is usually around midnight when I finally crawl into bed, to look for apps that will coordinate with my 1st grade curriculum or will help me to modify where needed for some of my outlying students.
I have found some great apps, and at this point, everthing I've downloaded has been FREE!!!! I' hesitant to spend my little nest egg all out one time. Trying to be very frugal to make my money stretch as far as I can. 

Some of my favorites so far are:

DoodleBuddy- I am constantly thinking of new ways to embed this app which is simply a drawing app. My original thought was to have my kiddos use it during their Word Work Daily 5 rotation to practice their spelling words.
Today it dawned on me that I could use then in place of my mini whiteboards for my daily review/mental math. The only drawback would be that we are use iPod Touches which gives us a small writing/drawing area compared to the size of the iPad.

My next fave, is not an app, but rather an app developer called GrasshopperApps. They have a phenomenal library of mostly free apps including books and learning games. I am especially in love with their books. The reader has the option to either read the book alone or to have the book read to them as the words are read and highlighted. I am planning to embed these into my Daily 5 rotation as well but am still pondering my main objective for this app to determine if they would better fit into my Read To Self rotation or my Listen to Reading rotation. Maybe I'm thinking too much about that decision..... I'll have to think about that.... LOL
I'm sure I'll be discussing these apps quite a bit over the year as they offer such a great variety of topics that are so appropriate for the youngest learners. I also love, but have not experimented with this yet, that you can customize their apps including using your own voice, removing and adding pictures, etc. What a great way to tailor an app to your specific curriculum pieces (sight words, spelling words, etc) More on that in a future post.

My biggest dilemna that is still out there in front of me at this point is: how do I want to organize all of these apps on my mobile devices now so that kiddos will be able to quickly and easily find the apps I want them to focus on. Right now I don't see this being a huge problem, but as the number of apps increases along with the number of pages, I foresee needing a system.

I am also toying with the idea of how to organize these apps in an effective manner for me to best utilize them for a specific kiddos specific needs. I want to create some sort of a spreadsheet that will allow me to quickly find which app will best fit a certain learning target. I am especially seeing this with apps that cover multiple learning targets. I started to create file that correlated with our math report card goals, but have quickly realized that this format has a lot of limitations in that it will only categorize apps for secure, end-of-the-year goals.
APPS for 1st Grade Report Card Math Goals

Any thoughts from anyone that has used multiple apps with multiple devices?

Daily 5- Listen to reading

I love Daily 5 and the structure and independence it allows my kiddos to have in their learning. During our Listen to Reading time, my kids currently have access to a wide variety of books on tape and CD. I have one tape player and 4 personal CD players (thank God for rechargeable batteries!) I also let my kiddos use the Tumblebooks apps I have on my iPod Touch. These are all wonderful but obviously cost money to purchase and maintain. With so many great free online resources, I began a quest to find free, online resources for books for my students to enjoy.

In a previous post I mentioned an awesome site called Sqworl. The more I use this site, the more I love it and the more uses I find for it. It has definitely become an organizational addiction. Sqworl was the perfect tool for the resources I found and over the past couple of weeks I created a new Sqworl for my firsties to use during our Daily 5 Listen to Reading rotation. Feel free to check it out by clicking on the image to the right. 

My plan is to save the Sqworl link on my desktop so my kiddos will have easy access to the site. There are some great resources here but I am especially excited about the nonfiction selections that National Geographic Young Explorer offers.

If you have a Sqworl account and you're interested in accessing this Sqworl instead of creating your own, you can add it to your group page by simply scrolling to the bottom of the page, locating the gray box, and clicking on the heart. This will add the Listen to Reading group to the bottom of your group listings page.