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?

Writer's Eye

Ok, this isn't high tech, but I am totally loving the start of my writing bulletin board this year. I can't remember where I saw the original idea, but one of my favorite blogs, The First Grade Parade, shared her printables for this bulletin board which I absolutely loved. You can find her printables here. I have many more things/anchor charts that will be added to this wall over the course of the year as it will be a work in progress as needed. I can't wait to create the writer's eyes that will actually go above the bulletin board as the eye catching pop (no pun intended) to grab students' attention.

iPods abound

Anyone that teaches 1st grade well knows why I haven't blogged lately... just toooooo busy! WoW!! We may be working on building stamina for Read to Self, but I need to build stamina for spending a day with 6 year olds! Whew! Love it, but wow have I been wiped this week!!

Last week we got the iPod touches out for the 1st time. We talked a lot about my expectations for how they should unhook them from the cart, carry them, and use them. We learned about the home button and that each little picture is called an app. Today just to get everyone use to how they work we used the note app and wrote our names, words we knew, etc. Some of the kiddos even started to write notes to each other. It was great to see the excitement and you could have heard a pin drop with the exception of the sharing of sentences. Some of the kiddos even figured out how to get their screens to flip horizontally. I'm excited to see what the future will bring with these wonderful tools in our classroom. The best part is, as of right now, we have 15 students and 15 iPods, so everyone has their own!

From a management standpoint, at this time I have a sticker on the back of each one which correlates to each of my students' math tool kit numbers. My plan is to have a jpeg image with each number as the screen saver but just haven't had the time as of yet. I also found out in a hurry that when having the kiddos put the iPods back into the cart to have them lay them in their corresponding numbered slot facing forward with the home button touching the number on the cart. This puts the iPods in perfect position to plug them in for charging and syncing. At this time, I am plugging them in but plan to eventually have a "Tech specialist" classroom job to help with that task.

I've found several great FREE apps already, including one called, Alphabet Tracing which is a great app for tracing letters.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alphabet-tracing/id374493089?mt=8  

My kiddos have had no problem maneuvering around the app including changing the color/texture that they wrote in.

This has been a great extension to our handwriting practice and although it may not promote good handwriting witih a pencil, as writing with your finger is a bit different, it certainly helps reinforce the proper formation of the letters, particularly top to bottom.

I'm looking forward to sharing more with you over the coming months! I am so blessed to have this opportunity and my class is all over this with excitement!

Beginning of the Year Scavenger Hunt

The beginning of the school year is just around the corner and as my room is beginning take shape, (notice I didn't say it was done ~ is a room ever done?),  I am starting to shift my thinking over to curriculum and first day activities.

One of the things that I have done with my kiddos the past several years is a classroom scavenger hunt. The kids really seem to enjoy this and I have found it to be much more beneficial for helping kids remember where things are located than if I just say, "Here is our recycle bin..." This has also been a great quick assessment tool for me as well. After I've set the expectations and gone over the list with the kiddos, I send them on their way. I am then able to roam the room and observe their interactions with peers, their time on task, and their basic problem solving skills.

This summer with Vistaprint's great 4th of July sale, I put my scavenger hunt on oversized postcards for the kids. They turned out fantastic! To help kiddos tell their parents about their day, I added "homework" to the backside to give students/parents a springboard for conversation. I'm really excited to use the new cards with the kids on Thursday!

Computer login cards

This year all students in our district will have computer usernames and passwords. (Last year K/1 used a universal, generic login and password) To help my 1sties make the transition and help them remember their "secret" password, I created login cards for each of them on Vistaprint using the postcard template. On the backside I plan to

Vistaprint, for those of you who don't know,  is an online marketing site where you can create everything from address labels, to postcards, to banners and more and you can customize them to your liking. They often run deals where you can get items for free~ yes, I did say FREE, and you only have to pay shipping which is usually pretty reasonable depending on what you purchase. Once you place an order, you will recieve emails several times a week with bigger and better deals.

If you'd like to see more of what I've made for my classroom click here.

If you're interested in starting a VistaPrint addiction of your own, click on the link below for more information

Save up to 80% on custom printed products at Vistaprint. Order today!

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