Kids Teaching Teachers

Last week Monday started out a little different than any other. 

We participated in a Google Hangout with Mrs. White in Indiana again, but this time we didn't chat with her students, we chatted with about 20 of her colleagues from various grade levels. Mrs. White had asked if our class would be willing to join their professional development day and talk with them about the Hangouts that we have done. We thought it was pretty special that we, as kids could teach teachers about using Google Hangouts! 

We have started a new ongoing project using the BookCreator app. We are using the app to create a digital learning journal of our Google Hangout experiences. With each connection, students are documenting something they learned or found interesting as well as inserting a map and locating our state and the state of each classroom. This will be a great way for us to practice our map skills in an authentic way in addition to creating an informational text that others can read and enjoy. 

Mystery number Skype

We had a great time participating in our 1st mystery number Skype with our buddies in Canada. We've been planning this for awhile but have had various technology glitches that have pushed the date back. Yes, technology glitches happen in my room too. You have to learn to roll with the punches and always have a back-up plan.
Mrs. Draper made this wonderful Mystery Number anchor chart to help our students. This proved to be a great visual for us as we practiced playing the game.

Each class then picked their mystery number. We were only able to play one game on this particular day due to our tech glitches eating up half of our time. We let Mrs. Draper's class go first so they worked to try and guess our number. They had some fantastic questions and as they worked to guess our number, my class used a 100 grid on their iPads to x out the numbers that their clues used. 

You can see a small clip of one of the questions below. This is definitely an activity that I will do again as it ties in very nicely with so many of our math skills- place value, odd/even, number grid patterns, etc. in addition to promoting collaboration with an authentic audience!
Thanks Mrs. Draper and class! We love when we are able to get together to learn with each other!

Lucky Charms Graphing

Another wonderful year of participating in the St. Patrick's Day LUcky Charms graphing project hosted by Projects by Jen.

We worked hard to find out how many marshmallows were in a box of Lucky Charms. We made predictions and shared them with a Mrs. DeGroot's class (@mrsdegrootclass) class in Iowa via our Twitter feed. We then began sorting, counting, and graphing our results. When we finished we added up the total for each of the marshmallow shapes and were quite surprised by our results. Our original job was to find out if there were more hats (clovers) than any other marshmallow in the box. We not only found that to be true, but were surprised at how few we had of some of the other shapes that were in a our box. (We had an XL Sam's Club sized box)

These were our results from our box
of Lucky Charms

Later in the afternoon, we participated in a Google Hangout with Mrs. DeGroot's class to share and compare our results with theirs. Mrs. DeGroot was not able to find the same size box as we had so she bought 2 small boxes to equal the same size as our box. Would you believe that they had more marshmallows in almost every single category and that they had 200 more marshmallows all together?? We had a pretty interesting discussion after our Google Hangout about why this might be. 

We also thought we should write to General Mills to tell them about our results and ask them why the same size boxes (technically) would have such a discrepency in the number of marshmallows. My class decided that they want to buy their Lucky Charms in Iowa from now on. 

Mrs. DeGroot tweeted about our
Google Hangout call on Twitter

St Patrick's Day Tech-ified

Today we participated in the St Patrick's Day Lucky Charms graphing project from Projects By Jen. This is my 2nd year participating in this project. It's a wonderful project that is easy to implement, doesn't take much time but has a lot of bang for the buck (predicting, counting, graphing, and comparing/ contrasting, in addition to a technology integration piece if you feel so inclined) Our goal this year was to prove that there were more green clovers than any other shape.

Our class started by making our own predictions on which marshmallow shape we felt would be represented the most in our box. Each student then tweeted their prediction to our partner class for this project, Mrs DeGroot's class in IA. My kids were so excited to see Mrs. DeGroot's class' predictions come through on our class Twitter feed. What an engaging and simple way for us to connect.

In the afternoon we opened our box, sorted, graphed and ate the results. We had a great discussion about which had the most, the least etc.
Later in the afternoon we made a Skype call to Mrs. DeGroot's class in IA and shared and compared our results with theirs. We recorded their results for more discussion later but as we compared each class had to decide if they had more or less than the other class and then put their hands on their head if they had more or hands on their shoulders if they had less. It was a quick and easy way to have the whole class involved in the comparing and an easy way for kids to see each other.

When we were done Skyping, we spent a bit of time locating our buddy class on the map and discussing their location in relation to ours. Just another great integration piece.

Overall, the project was a great success and I would highly recommend to others to participate in the Projects by Jen activities . Adding the technology component truly was the highlight and really made the project come to life. I will definitely take the time to add that piece again next year as the learning and collaborating that came out of that piece was far more powerful than the graphing alone.


Here are the results from all the classes as of 3/19. We didn't prove our hypothesis at this point, but what a great discussion to have with kiddos on the scientific process and their rational for why things turned out the way they did.

Results as of March 19, 2014
Classrooms	235
Students	4,481
Marshmallows Counted	106,279
Hypothesis Correct	NO
As a GROUP -- we will be trying to prove that there are more GREEN CLOVERS than any other shape

Want to "Hangout"?!

Yikes! I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted. I am so sorry! I'm sure we can all relate to how busy things get at the end of the year, but oh.my.goodness! I 'm working on backtracking with several things that have happened since April and then I'll be getting my butt back into blogging gear.

My class had a unique opportunity back in April to connect virtually with our State Superintendent, Tony Evers. The intent of our conversation was to talk about how technology has changed how we learn. We started out by using our iPads to write, "Morning, Mr. Evers!" Each child was responsible for one letter and used the Max Doodle app to create the letter. That was the simple part- the hard part was getting everyone in order AND squished together enough for him to see the whole message. 

We used Google Hangout and spent about 20 minutes telling and showing him what we have been doing. The kids were unusually quiet, but eventually warmed up. They did a great job of telling him about some of the apps we use and how they help us learn and also even showed him some of the apps. 
One of my little cherubs was so cute.. she went up to show him XtraMath and told him that she couldn't tell him her password because passwords have to say secret, but then she proceeded to say it out loud while keying it in! All of the adults in the room were rolling on the floor. Oh the things kids do!

Skype projects-part 2

Who says collaboration can't happen across states? As I've mentioned before, my class had several wonderful Skype partners this year, but Mrs. Christian and I definitely found a special relationship (are you blushing yet my friend??) From all of our collaborations came an opportunity for Mrs. C to present at a technology conference for her district on the topic of Skype. Needless to say, I will be joining her on this adventure to talk about our collaborations. Unfortunately, I do not have a plane ticket to Texas (can't say I didn't try) and so I will be joining her via Skype tomorrow morning. I am very excited to share our very special adventure with those that attend and hope that it will spark the imaginations of others to venture out and find a global connection.

I blogged last time about a Skype project that I recently did with our high school pre-calc class. Today I'd like to tell you a bit about the project... warning... this will likely turn into a novel. Skype Money Match is what we called our project and this is how it worked. The objective of this project was to give my students additional practice creating money amounts using coins.

First, each of my 1st grade students received a money bag with the following coins... 1 quarter, 4 nickels, 2 dimes, and 4 pennies. Prior to our Skype call I wrote down several amounts that could be made with the coins that we had. 

The rules of the game were simple...  both groups were told the amount of money they needed to make. My students used their coins to create the amount in any way they could. A correct answer earned them a small Starburst candy. The high school math students also had to create the amount, however, they did not have coins to use nor did they know which coins or how many of each coin we had.  After my students were done creating the amount, one of the high school students share with us how they chose to create the amount. For each 1st grader that made it the same way, the high school student earned a small Starburst candy. I have 15 children in my class so the high school students had the potential of earning 15 pieces. My kiddos caught on quickly and soon realized that when making 25cents, a quarter would be too easy for our buddies to figure out and so they began to get more and more creative with how they built their amounts. This was a great way to get my students to challenge themselves. Our buddies also began to rise to the challenge and after several amounts began to realize that they needed to be more creative with the way they were putting their amounts together as well. As an added incentive, our buddy teacher, Mr. J, showed us his large bucket of Starburst candies and told us that whatever his students didn't win, he would send over to us. In the end we outsmarted our buddies and ended up getting a large bowl of additional candies which we then used as part of our fraction lesson for the day. 
Overall it was a wonderful experience that totally met the objective that I had for my kiddos and created a wonderful global learning experience for both groups of students. 
Want to know more? Feel free to contact me for specifics.

Skype Projects

What a great year of Skype'ing (not sure if that's a word, but for the purpose of this post it's going to be)  My class has been very fortunate this year to have made several contacts throughout the year. Our main contact was with Mrs. Christian's 1st grade class in Texas. I still giggle at the way our meeting came to be through a connection from this blog (Mrs. C- I'm so glad that you sent that original email!) From that initial contact a friendship grew and a Skype opportunity arose. Our classes Skype'd on the average once every week or every other week. We shared what we were learning, read our writing to each other and even attempted to hatch chicks via Skype. We even sent a couple of projects via Snail Mail. It was a wonderful experience and one which my kiddos and I thoroughly enjoyed. It was amazing how fast my kiddos could move if they heard the Skype tones ringing!

Another opportunity arose from a student in my class whose dad is a math teacher at our high school. She wanted to Skype with her dad but I wanted to be sure we had a purpose to our contact. Her dad contacted me about a problem-based learning unit he was doing with his pre-calc class and asked if we would like to be a part of it. Our job was to measure the length, width, and height the box in centimeters and then to report our information via Skype to his class. It was a great way for us to practice our measuring skills and to make the initial contact. Notice I said initial, from here, everything spiraled into a 4th quarter friendship. My student wrote a thank you to her dad's class, in turn a few of his kids wrote back to her which then turned into his whole class wanting to write to my class. Needless to say our one-time only Skype session turned into so much more. Our classes were writing letters back and forth to each other, we got to meet each other in person and do math together, and Mr. J and I were working to figure out new ways to connect our classes via Skype. Two of the projects we came up with were: Skype Money Match and Polygon Pictionary. The Money Match game was thought up after his students walked down to meet us in person (our schools are just a few blocks away from each other) and on their way back they (all juniors and seniors) were discussing what their buddies were good at and what they felt they needed more help with. 
Seeing as it's getting late, I will write about the projects and how they worked in my next post tomorrow night.

21st Century Learners

The post below is part of a presentation that I will be giving to new teachers in my district showing some of the ways in which I integrate technology and 21st century learning skills into my classroom and how it enhances teaching and learning.

"If a child can't learn the way we teach,

maybe we should teach the way they learn." ~Ignacio Estrada

21st century learning skills and technology enhance teaching and learning in even the youngest of learners!!

Engaging!

Motivating!

Problem

 solving! 

SMARTboards are  WONDERFUL tools! 

Students are:

-Engaged

- Independent

- Collaborative

-Problem solving

-Critical thinking

The sky's the limit...

Photo from Jessica Meacham's website

* Math lessons

* Word Sorts/ spelling activities

* Attendance/lunch

* Daily 5 check-in

* Calendar Activities

* Handwriting practice

* Student-led conferences 

* Great for substitute teachers- lessons can be preplanned

Click here for more SMARTboard files from Jessica Meacham

It's not all about the tools~

you can implement 21st century learning into your rooms with little to no technology.



Learning about life cycles we experienced
real-time integration!

Last year, my students only had access to a SMARTboard, my teacher workstation and my personal iPod touch. We also had access twice a week to our school's computer lab. 

Students used my iPod touch for fluency checks.

* Active learning
* Student-centered
* Media used for learning and assessment
* Self assessment- Huge!!!
* Able to address student diversity

 
 

 


Click image to find out more about how we integrated
technology into our groundhog study

 

Click image to see how we used this picture

to practice our paragraph format.





Our classroom blog has made our classroom walls transparent for parents but has also been a wonderful tool to integrate 21st century skills into the curriculum with not a whole lot of technology!

Click on image to find out more about our animal research



Our animal research was a fantastic culmination to our year!

It promoted:

* Collaboration

* Information and media literacy

* Creativity

* Active learning

* Student centered learning

* Problem Solving

There are TONS of wonderful, FREE

web 2.0 tools to use

This was part of a project-based writing unit.

Students used the writing process to create their paragraph and then used Microsoft Word to publish their piece. We learned how to change the size, font and color of our writing in addition to printing and saving.

We used digital cameras to take pictures of each other and our projects and made a slideshow to show which we embedded onto our class blog for our family and friends to view.

We also embedded a Wallwisher board (an online board maker) to have others share with us what they would do if they had a shiny red nose like Rudolph's. (*UPDATE- Wallwisher is now Padlet

This project utilized the following skills:

* Collaboration

* Effective communication

* Information and media literacy

* Globally connected

* Authentic writing/ audience

Click here for more ideas on how to use Wallwisher in the classroom.  



Wordle/ Abcya Word Clouds

Skype is another fantastic tool!

We have had buddy classes from Virginia, Iowa, and Kansas. We connected once a month or so and shared information about our cities, our interests, what we were learning at school (both classes used Everyday Math), read books together, shared our research projects and more.

It was a fantastic experience which helped both classes to become:

* effective communicators and collaborators

* globally connected to areas and issues

To find out more about how to connect with a class click go to http://www.skypeforeductors.com/ or the Skype in Schools wiki.



To find out more about this project click on the image

Digital Cameras

We used the cameras after our study of 3D shapes. Students went on a 3D shape hunt with a partner. The pictures were used as part of my assessement of their learning.





To find out more click the image



We also gave our Read Across America door decorating contest a technology twist by using the digital cameras.

Check with your LMS to see what else is available to you on a checkout basis. We were able to check out digital cameras, COWS (computers on wheels), webcams, and microphones to make other project-based learning come to life.



Remember- you have a lot on your plates for this year... choose one thing to start with~ explore and have fun with what you choose!

'There is no risk-less way to the future, we must choose which set of risks we wish to run.'

~Jay Ogilvy