A Wee Bit 'O Fun with #EpicPals

⬇︎ Scroll down to access this month's Google Doc and Bitmoji classroom ⬇︎

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In an effort to try and keep things simple(and fun!) for our youngest learners, especially in a time when so many of us are teaching virtually, I've created a Bitmoji classroom that will link your students to the Padlet boards by simply clicking on the book cover. You'll find the link to this new feature on the bottom of the EpicPals Google Doc and on the #EpicPals page on the blog! Simply share the link with your students in Seesaw, Google Classroom or in an email and it will open on the web (full screen and without ads)!

This month's EpicPals board and Bitmoji Classroom are now posted on the EpicPals tab! Click here to access these downloads

This year's EpicPals will run the same as it has in the past with just a few small tweaks. This year, just like last, all posts will be moderated for student safety. Please see information below about posting. The other change this year is that there will only be one #EpicPals document created each month with 6 titles each month. The titles chosen each month will be appropriate for 1st through 3rd graders depending upon their reading ability and will always include at one or two read-to-me books so that everyone in your class can participate successfully on some level. I'm also working to incorporate English and Spanish titles when I can.  You'll also find the Epic collection linked at the bottom of the Google Doc. I hope this will make getting the collection out to our students easier.  

Happy Reading Everyone!!!

** Important Information re: Student Posts ~ Please read **

Teachers, please chat with your students about posting responsibly. Please know that ALL posts are moderated. This means your students will not see their posts until I have approved them. Please also know that posts with inappropriate language, .gifs, and links will be deleted.

As always, please encourage your students to read and learn from other students' posts. If they like their post, have them click on the heart at the bottom of the sticky note. Being reflective and having an authentic reason to like something is a great first step towards leaving meaningful and authentic feedback. 

Remote Learning with April's EpicPals 📚🌍

Click the image to access the Google Doc (need pdfs due to remote learning? See below)

The April's EpicPals collections are ready and waiting for you. 
(Please see important note below re: student posts)

Need this month's boards in PDF format so you can easily share with your students?

 Click here for the primary board 
Click here for the intermediate board

** Important Information re: Student Posts ~ Please read **
Due to recent issues of several students leaving inappropriate content in their posts and the fact that many of our students are now learning from home,  Bobbi and I are now fully moderating all posts and will delete ALL posts with inappropriate language, .gifs, and links for students safety. This simply means your students will not see their posts until we have approved them. 

We hope that you and your students will continue to post and enjoy using EpicPals during the coming months of home learning.  

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New to EpicPals? Head over to the #EpicPals page at the top of the blog for additional information to get you started!

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If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Bobbi or myself. You can find both of us on Twitter- @smalchow (primary boards) and @bhopteacher (intermediate boards)

Malchow's Tech Bytes👩🏻‍💻~ December 9th 🎅🏻🎄🦌

'Tis the season... with a late Thanksgiving this year the holidays are truly just around the corner. This week's Tech Bytes has several ideas and activities for you to enjoy and get a jump start on getting ready since we only have 2 weeks before many of us are on holiday break.

Don't forget, this week is 💻 Computer Science Education Week! Be sure to take a peek at last week's Tech Bytes for Hour of Code resources!

Click image above to access the hyperlinks

Malchow's Tech Bytes👩🏻‍💻~ Oct 28th

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ October 28th- click image above for clickable links! 

Malchow's Tech Bytes 👩🏻‍💻~ May 13th

---> Malchow's Tech Bytes ~ May 13th<----

👩🏻‍💻 Malchow's Tech Bytes~ November 12th

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ November 12th

☔️ April Showers Brings #EpicPals Awesomeness! 📱📚

Our April EpicPals primary and intermediate collections

 are ready and waiting for you. 

Check it out~ 

Decorah Eagle Webcam

This month's Read-to-Me Flipgrid/Padlet selection is about Bald Eagles and includes a link to the Decorah, Iowa Eagle webcam. If you've not seen this site before, it's a MUST see. What a great way to bring the outdoors into your classroom!

New this month~  Padlet has some phenomenal updates which will allow your students to draw, take pictures, leave an audio or video post right in the app/online simply by clicking the 3 vertical dots on their post! I encourage you to share one or several of these new upgrades with your students to allow them to take more ownership of their posts. 

Also new this month~  I have also turned on comments this month on the Patterns in the City book in hopes of having students have a more authentic audience. Students will be able to share a picture of a pattern that they found in their classroom and also leave a comment under others' posts about the pattern that they see. I've left a sample on the board for you to share with your students. 

As always, encourage your students to read others' posts and if they like their post, have them click on the heart at the bottom of the sticky note. Being reflective and having an authentic reason to like something is a great first step towards leaving meaningful and authentic feedback. 

We encourage you to have conversations with your students on what constitutes a good post and how to be a good digital citizen when working online. You can find several resources to help you with these conversations on this previous blog post. 

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If you ever have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can find both of us on Twitter- @smalchow (primary boards) and @bhopteacher (intermediate boards)

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New to EpicPals and need some additional information? If so, head on over the the
 #EpicPals page at the top of the blog for additional information.

Peer to Peer Book Recommendations the DoInk Way!

As part of our Core Ready Literacy program, 3rd graders read and create a book recommendation. Last year we used DoInk's Green Screen app and I helped the classes by doing the recording and then students uploaded their finished recommendations to Seesaw for parents to see. It's wonderful to have parents see what their children are doing at school, but I wanted students to have a more authentic audience and more creative ownership of their work so this year, I asked the teachers and their students if they would be willing to take it one step further. 

Here's what we did:

Disregard our rubber banded stand- LOL
It's called ingenuity when your iPad stand
doesn't acomodate a teacher's iPad mini.

First, students read their books and wrote their book reviews. Next, they grabbed a colored piece of 12x18 piece of construction paper (not green) and laid their book off to one side or the other and took a picture. This became the background for their video. Last year, we simply propped the books on a chair, but found that it wasn't as polished looking when we dropped those pics into green screen, plus the kids now get to choose their favorite color (it's a small thing, but sometimes, it's the little things that mean a lot). We had all of the kids take their pictures on the same iPad just to keep things moving along more smoothly for the next step.

Our next step was to record the book recommendations using DoInk. This year I wanted the students to record the videos for each other so I worked with a few students at a time to show them how to import their background image, how to reposition the person speaking to fit on the background, and how to save the recording when they were done. After working with a few students they then became the teachers for the next group. Empowering kids to be the teachers is always a positive in my opinion and the pride they had in being their own videographers was priceless! 

The best part...
Once students uploaded their recommendation to Seesaw, I went onto Seesaw, copied the QR code to their post, and then pasted it onto a Keynote template along with the book's title. These QR codes and their book are now displayed around our library for other students to scan. My hope is that their book recommendations will truly be a recommendation and that it will also encourage other students to want to create a book recommendations throughout the year so we can keep the buzz about books ongoing.

Tech Bytes Dec 11-15

Have you tried the new Seesaw Activities feature? Did you know that you can now share your activities with others simply by sharing the Activity link? Check out two fantastic coding resources that you can add to your Seesaw activity library this week. Just click on the images to see how easy it is!!

Malchow's Tech Bytes ~ Dec 11-15

Collaborative Book Discussions- You Bet!

Click to access the Feb Google doc

Do you want to connect your class to others in a collaborative project that you can manage in whatever way works best for your class with no time zone issues? If so, you'll want to read on to see how easy it is and how you can be a part of this wonderful experience!



Last month LekaDeGroot (@lekadegroot), Terry Stoufer (@firstatbat) and I started a collaborative book project to help meet the needs of our above grade level readers after a conversation we had on Twitter. It started with Leka choosing several books off of the wonderful and free Epic Books site/app that each of our classes were already using. (If you've not heard of or used this wonderful resource I highly encourage you to link over and check it out!) 

A Google doc, like the one you see to the right, was then created with each of the books for the month along with a link and QR code that took our students to a Padlet board for each book. 

Each teacher decided how to best implement this project in their own class. I started out by using this in my guided reading group so I could introduce kids to the format as it was our first time using Padlet independently this year. Leka and Terry both had their kids read the books and use the Padlet fairly independently.

Here's an example of one of the Padlet walls for the story Snow Party. 

Created with Padlet

This was a wonderful way for kiddos to share their knowledge about books. My class really enjoyed reading what others had to say about the books and were just as exited to share their thoughts with the other classes. 

As Leka said in her post, and I couldn't agree more, "I am so thankful to have great teachers in my PLN who are willing to connect their students with the world..."

You can read Leka's reflection on the project on her blog, Growing Apples

If you'd like to join us this month, please do! We'd love for you to give it a try. You can download the GoogleDoc with our book selections here. All of the books are available on Epic although you're welcome to read the paper version if you have it as well. 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me either here or on twitter @smalchow

Tracking Reading Groups

I sent this out to my #1st chat group on Twitter awhile ago but totally forgot to throw it out on the blog. I've been using the Popplet Lite app for awhile now but always with my students. Earlier this year as I was revamping my reading groups for the umpteenth time it dawned on my that using Popplet would be SOOOO much easier as I could move kiddos around with the touch of a finger in addition to being able to color code their groups (I'm a visual learner and color makes me happy) 
Popplet Lite only allows you to create one popple at a time which has always been sufficient for my students as we simply take a screenshot when we are done and then clear our popple for the next time. Personally though, I wanted to be able to create, save, and go back to my popples so I invested in the full version. This has been a wonderful way for me to track my reading groups as my groups are very fluid and change as children's needs change. This has also been a handy tool when attending grade level meetings to discuss student needs.
Seem simple? Yup, it was and I highly recommend giving it a try.