Favorite Things Linky: Must-Have Picture Books + eBooks

Read Alouds...I. LOVE. THEM. and STUDENTS. LOVE. THEM. You do too, right?! Not only do I love the magic of sharing a book with my kids but I also love listening to others read too! One of my favorite moments of each week is on Friday mornings when my class goes to visit our librarian. We call them Book Talks. Our librarian selects some books and reads a few pages aloud to the class from each book. She does such an amazing job taking on the roles of the characters...using different voices, raising and lowering her voice, slowing and quickening the pace all depending on the context...the students (and myself!) are hooked and excited to explore and check out books that we may not have noticed otherwise. This story leads me to do a Book Talk of my own for you as part of Teaching Trio's Linky Party: A Few of My Favorite Things! Below are a few of my favorite books that I have recently read to my students.

In addition to having a love for picture books and read alouds, I am beginning to become a fan of eBooks as more familiar titles are made available. Check out Storyline Online and Epic! Storyline Online has well-known actors reading aloud popular children's books while Get Epic! has a range of recognizable fiction (think Scaredy Squirrel!) and nonfiction (that's kid friendly for young readers!) ebooks available to be read on the iPad or computer (another tip from our wonderful librarian!). Both are free! 

Happy Reading!

Visit Teaching Trio to link up and/or see more favorite things! 

Do You Kahoot?

What was originally intended for trivia-players at pubs in London has been enthusiastically taken over by students and teachers...do you Kahoot?! When using Kahoot, be prepared for your students to go...well...a LITTLE CRAZY! They will be engaged. They may scream from excitement. Yes, they will be learning!

Kahoot is a game-based formative assessment system that is FREE and can be used on ANY device (desktop computer, laptop, iPad, iPhone, iPod) as long as it has an Internet browser and connection. You basically create a quiz, which you project for the students to see, and then the students' devices become the game controller (think the new and improved clickers).

It gets better...for the students to participate in the Kahoot, they just have to enter a game code at kahoot.it. Then while the students are signing in, you can embed a YouTube video to keep them occupied while they are waiting. Once the Kahoot starts, the questions are timed (to a setting you've selected), students will get feedback immediately following each question (once everyone has submitted their answer), and the top five students with the highest score will be displayed following every question (motivation to the max!). After the Kahoot is completed, you can download the students' results to your desktop or GoogleDrive. For a tutorial on how to make your own Kahoot visit this link. You can also use Kahoots that other people have made available for public use.

To see what Kahoot is all about, take a look at one I created for my 2nd graders on Academic Vocabulary for Adaptations. Before the Kahoot, students and I had a discussion about adaptations and created a class Circle Map about hibernation, migration, camouflage, and dormancy. Then my students did the Kahoot on Academic Vocabulary for Adaptations to give me an idea of who's got it and who doesn't. The Kahoot I created has a song about adaptations playing as the students are signing in and has five questions with pictures. My students get VERY EXCITED so I do a Countdown to Calm ("3-2-1-0 and calm") after each question. It helps. Sometimes. ;)

Happy Kahooting!

Learning Across the Curriculum with Native Americans

Do you ever feel like there are just NOT enough hours in the day? All the time, right?! Well I’ve got a solution for you…integration! I’m talking about making connections across the curriculum, using content meaningfully and authentically, and engaging students in learning in multiple ways. Doesn't that sound great?! Take a look at how our unit on Native Americans was integrated with writing, reading, math, science, and within social studies. 

Writers’ Workshop

During the third quarter, we focus on informational writing...what better way to do that than to have students take on the role of a news reporter for the Powhatan, Lakota, and Pueblo?! Students researched each Native American group and then went through the writing process to write their news. Topics they wrote about ranged from announcements of  contents where a long house was the prize (as in the example above) and the arrival of the English settlers to warnings about tornados and buffalo stampedes. As long as they were informing the "public" about something related to the Native Americans, they could go wherever they liked with it. The final step was to bring their news to life with the free app, Telestory! 

Readers’ Workshop

We were focusing on some TOUGH skills in reading this quarter and using the Native American content was a great way to make inferences, asking questions, and locating information more accessible to all of my students since they all had background knowledge on this content from the work we had done in social studies.

First we started with poems...I wrote poems for each Native American group where the students had to infer what each line of the poem meant and then infer who the poem was about/what was happening in the poem. Students also used a Prezi I made with authentic Native American photos to make inferences about which Native American group was pictured. They had to use their connections about each tribe's home, transportation, environment, and occupations along with the clues in the pictures to make their inferences. They were making inferences just like a historian!

Pebble Books is an excellent resource for kid-friendly nonfiction books! My kids had been doing a great job generating questions before, during, and after reading but they were not always asking the most accurate questions that reflected what they had read. To help them with this skill, I copied and pasted text from Pebble Books into five paragraphs. Then I generated five different questions that were specific to each paragraph. My students' goal was to match each question to its related paragraph and then highlight key words in the paragraph to prove that the question did indeed relate to that paragraph. I did something similar to help them practice locating information. I again copied and pasted five paragraphs from Pebble Books but this time I generated five questions whose answers could be located in each of the paragraphs. Then students matched each question to the paragraph with that question's answer and highlighted the answer in the paragraph to prove their work. You could do this with any text to help students practice both of these challenging skills!

Math and Science

Google Maps in math?! Yes! Students "traveled" to destinations related to our three Native American groups, illustrated a picture of the environment (connection to habitats in science), and then added their miles as they traveled from place to place. Students got to "visit" long houses in Jamestown, buffalo at the Yellowstone National Park, and multi-story terrace buildings in Albuquerque. This was a great real-world context for the students to experience adding with regrouping as they progressed along their trip AND was so much fun (they especially liked the street view)!

Social Studies

Students mapped the houses, transportation, occupations, and environment of each tribe with specific mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers they are expected to be able to locate in 2nd grade.

Economics beautifully integrates with Native Americans...the different resources, needs and wants, goods and services, bartering, scarcity...it's the perfect opportunity to integrate across social studies objectives. First I gave the students a list of economic academic vocabulary words and we discussed examples of each vocabulary word and how it related to the Native Americans. Students organized this information into a Tree Map (photo above, top left). After that, they used the Tree Map to create a Native American good or service...students made jewelry, buffalo skin, a feather game, bows and arrows, teepees, pottery, etc. The next day they bartered their goods and services in exchange for goods and services from each other. This simulation was a hit! Following the simulation, they completed a reflection on bartering and scarcity and a resource sort. The documents for our economics simulation are available in my TpT store. Enjoy!


Keep in mind that my students did other Native American activities and tasks that did not lend themselves to integration. When it was appropriate and connections were seamless, integration was a great way to supplement this content-based unit. What connections can you see across your curriculum? in other content areas? Give it a try!

Screencasting for the Classroom

When there is only one of you and twenty-seven seven year olds, tutorials on how to use a Web 2.0 Tool or app are a valuable resource! I have noticed that screencast tutorials are especially helpful for those students who need to hear how to do something again when I have already given the directions. It gives them a way to be a problem-solver instead of relying on me or their neighbor to tell them again. Screencasts can also be helpful for parents! The possibilities are endless on what to screencast! There are many different platforms for screencasting but I have stuck with the two tools below. I love them because they are easy to use (really, give it a try!)  and quick to upload on my class website and YouTube. I hope you love them too! 

Screencast Your Computer

My school's technology coach (Sent From My iPad) introduced me to Screenr, a free screencast recording application for the computer. It's super easy to use and can help you make screencasts in a snap! There is a five minute recording limit, which forces me to be concise and anything longer would be too much for my students. I usually upload my screencasts to my class website for my students and parents to access but you can also publish them on YouTube. I have used Screenr to make tutorials for a range of things from showing students how to use their online reading log from showing parents how to navigate our class website. Below is an example for my students' online reading log:

Screencast Your iPhone or iPad

with the newest operating system Yosemite

Another screencast option that I was recently introduced to by Leslie Fisher at the Future of Educational Technology Conference involves using your iPad or iPhone. This is fabulous for making a tutorial on how to use an app. You take the USB cord that is part of your charger to connect your device to your Mac (this may work with other computers but I'm not sure) and voila you're iPad is now mirrored on your computer screen ready for recording! Leslie Fisher provides a fabulous tutorial on how to do this but here is what the finished product looks like...this a screencast I made using my iPhone and QuickTime on my MacBook Air to show my students how to use the app Flipagram:

Happy screencasting!

Blended Learning in Readers’ Workshop

What if I told you that every one of my 27 2nd graders were on-task (yes, EVEN the student who is usually bouncing around the room and can usually only focus for about two seconds), actively engaged, and exclaiming “This is so fun!”. What would you think I’m describing? Recess, maybe? I’m talking about reading! My readers’ workshop has been transformed with the implementation of 1:1 Chromebooks (a laptop with only Internet). 

Before the use of Chromebooks, I always felt like I was having to rearrange our reading block every six weeks…the kids would get antsy, more off-task behaviors would be happening…some kind of oomph was missing. Have you ever had the feeling? I needed and wanted readers’ workshop to be a time of the day that my students and I looked forward to and were excited about. I was constantly trying to find a way to make readers’ workshop work for us, for it to be worthwhile. Then our administration and PTA granted us a class set of Chromebooks. I knew that if I could find a way to have the students use the Chromebooks during readers’ workshop, the workshop that I imagined may come to life! 

After some trial and error, I now have the beginnings of a blended learning environment for readers’ workshop and my students and I LOVE it! I still do mini-lessons and model with read alouds but now when my students are working on using strategies in their leveled book, they are doing it on the Internet. Thanks to Edmodo (a free facebook-like platform for education), Reading A-Z, and other e-book sources, my students are collaborating with one another, reading for extended periods of time, actively responding to their reading, receiving immediate feedback, and having fun! 

What does this look like in the classroom? What exactly are my students doing?

Take a peek at this tutorial I created for my students and you’ll see how they use Edmodo and Reading A-Z:

The following are screenshots of the work they produced on Edmodo for generating questions before reading with a nonfiction text. 

As for me, I’m doing mostly the same things that I did before…pulling small groups, meeting with individual students, observing, etc. However, I can now give immediate feedback to the students who remain at their seat…through my teacher account view, I can approve their posts, rate it with a range of smiley faces, and even pull impromptu groups based on what I see them posting at that moment. Isn’t that fabulous?! What do you think?!

Students As Authors: Writers' Workshop Part III

What do writers write?! Each quarter we focus on a different type of writing (narrative, persuasive/opinion, informational, and back to narrative), and I pick a topic that is related to one of our current units of study in science or social studies for their writing pieces. Integration = Connections = DEEP LEARNING! Then when all is said and done, I offer the students activities that extend upon their writing, which often involves technology or art. 

My ultimate favorite writing unit we have done is Who Should be Mayor of Pickle City? for persuasive writing. During this writing unit, the students are simultaneously learning about the elected leaders and responsibilities of local government in social studies. To hook the students, I created two fictional mayoral candidates of the fictional Pickle City. 

Meet…Kate Ketchup and Pete Pizza! 

I presented each candidate’s platform to the students with Voki (a free tech tool used to make talking avatars). They loved it and thought it was hilarious. Then we summarized each candidate’s platform and discussed pros and cons for each point. Following this overview of the candidates, students decided who they wanted to side with. Who would make the best mayor for Pickle City? 

During the Planning stage, they used a flow map from Read, Write, Think (I printed the blank map) and brainstormed introductions and recorded the main points of their candidate’s platform. Then they caucused with their like-minded group through an inner/outer circle format to develop arguments for each of their points. This worked out so fabulously! They collaborated with many different people and gained great information from each other. 

After they had developed a strong argument for their candidate, they developed counterclaims. We started by having a VERY guided debate (debate inspiration from professional development by our county’s language arts supervisor). I asked the students, “Why do you think Kate Ketchup or Pete Pizza should be mayor?” A student would offer an opinion about Kate Ketchup’s platform and then another student would offer their thoughts about Pete Pizza. I continued switching between both sides recording their arguments on chart paper. 

Caucus with Like-Minded Group                                                                                                                  Guided Debate

THEN came the counterclaim. I explained that it’s important to see both sides. and that politely refuting another’s idea can make for a stronger argument. I proceeded by asking the students to look at the arguments documented on the chart paper for the opposition and think of a reason as to why it’s not a good idea and what your candidate could do that would be better. Following this direction, the students developed at least one counterclaim with the following sentence frame: 

"Some may argue that…however… "

What the students wrote was unbelievable! They had become expert persuaders! I wish I had a student example to share with you but from what I can remember, they wrote things like, "Some may argue that more cars equals more pollution however Pete Pizza will offer cars that run on electricity."

After our debate, students completed their planning by adding a conclusion. They wrote things like, "Obviously Kate Ketchup is the best choice for mayor," and, "In my opinion you should vote for Pete Pizza." Then they proceeded through the stages of the writing process. When they reached the Publishing stage, they composed their final draft as a letter to the citizens of Pickle City. And when all was said and done, our classroom was covered with campaign posters, voting booths, and ticket ballots. 

Technology Integration First Year Recap

Love me some technology!! Here are a few highlights of how I integrate technology to engage students and enrich their learning. Enjoy!

1. Unit Reviews with Jeopardy

Who doesn't love a good ol' round of Jeopardy? This isn't your typical PowerPoint Jeopardy...have you heard of JeopardyLabs? It's free and looks so authentic! I started creating these as test reviews but then thought, silly me, I should have the students make these! So they did. :) But they only did it once because it was rather time consuming for them to create their own. However they got so into Jeopardy that they were making them at home with the categories as different members of their family!  Two other students created a Jeopardy about Greek Gods and Goddesses for fun too. Here are the links to a few we used in class: Ancient Egypt and China, Fractions, Estimation, Tables, and Calendar, Matter, Measurement, and Probability.

2. Research, Writing, and Egypt with Puppet Pals

Click Photo to View Movie

This may be my favorite project from this past year because it was FUN and integrated reading, writing, and social studies. When I discovered the Puppet Pals app I couldn't wait to use it in the classroom. The students created videos where they acted like a tour guide in ancient Egypt. Here's a description of the app from iTunes:

"Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later."

First I had the students research ancient Egypt. This opportunity gave the students practice locating information in a nonfiction text (our social studies textbook), which is a comprehension skill they struggled with. I created a research guide using the essential questions from our state's curriculum. The students recorded their research in a tree map.

Then the students used their research to write a five paragraph script as a tour guide. The students got really creative and into their role as a tour guide! I recall some of them writing in their introduction things like "I hope you had a safe plane ride!" and "I hope you brought lots of water because it's going to be hot in the desert!"

After they finished writing their script, they were ready to begin using Puppet Pals. First they selected their backdrops from Google Images (photos of pyramids, the Nile River, the desert, etc.). Then I took their photo so they could upload themselves into Puppet Pals. I also permitted them to use two to three other characters as people on their tour. In the video above, the student chose Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin as participants in her tour. Too funny! Finally, they would record their script! As a result of this project, EVERY STUDENT became an expert on ancient Egypt! I look forward to doing this project again next year!

3. Word Study Tests with Spelling City

I absolutely love using Spelling City to give word study assessments! Spelling City makes administering different word study tests for differentiated groups SO EASY. Once you create your own lists, they'll be available for future use, which equals working smarter, not harder! I included Spelling City as a center during our rotations on Fridays.

4. Economics Vocabulary with Motivational Posters

You know those Motivational Posters? Well there's an app to create your own! Our awesome ITRT shared this app with us at one of our monthly staff technology trainings! The students used our classroom costumes and props to illustrate/demonstrate an academic vocabulary word. I love their angry faces in this poster! I'm always on the lookout for other exciting ways to incorporate academic vocabulary...any ideas?!

Stay tuned for my next post on gifts for students and parents!

Need a resource for instructional technology? I know just the person!

Wow, this weekend has flown by!! I'm excited to share my projects with you tomorrow for Tara's Monday Made It Linky Party but for today I'd like to thank Mrs. Christy at Leaping Loopers, Jenny at Teacher and a Mom, and Carrie from The Common Core Classroom for nominating me for the Versatile Blogger award.

   

I'd also like to thank Cathy from C is for Cookies, Cakes, Children, Classroom and Crafts and Steph at Stay Tuned for nominating me for the Liebster Blog award.

Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness! I have already received both awards (you can read about my nominations here) but would like to tell you about one new blogger- Nikki at Sent From My iPad. She is one of my new friends from school. She is also one of my mentors...aren't I lucky to have her?! Nikki is making the transition from first grade teacher to Instructional Technology Resource Teacher (ITRT) this school year.

Let me give you a little background: During my job search process I had been researching different schools when I stumbled upon a school's website that really stood out to me. Everything about the school seemed to match up with my teaching values and seemed like the kind of community I wanted to be a part of. I took a look at some of the teachers' classroom pages, and one teacher had videos of her students explaining and showing how they use iPods and iPads in the classroom. I was so impressed and thought, "I want to work with THIS teacher!"  

Lo and behold at my first interview with this school, guess who is on the interviewing panel...THAT teacher! After the interview, I had the opportunity to visit with Nikki in her classroom. AND after I accepted a job position at the school, I got to observe Nikki's class. Not only was I amazed by her classroom management (the class ran itself!) but I saw how creative she was with integrating technology in the classroom.

I'm so excited for her new position as the ITRT because now I really do get to work with her! I'm also excited to share her blog with you (I hope she doesn't mind ;) ) because she is a great resource. So I am nominating Nikki for the Versatile Blogger award and the Liebster Blogger award.



The rules for the Versatile Blogger award are as follows:
1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Include a link to their site.
3. Include the award image in your post.
4. Give 7 random facts about you.
5. Present 15 other bloggers with the award by commenting on their blog.
6. When nominating, include a link to their site.





The rules for the Liebster award are as follows:
1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link to their site.
2. Present 5 other bloggers who have less than 200 followers the award by commenting on their blog and link to their site.


Happy Sunday!! :) and go visit Nikki at Sent from My iPad!

LOVE THIS iPad Case

 

Thank you to the following awesome teachers:

 

Rachel

Ms. G 

  

Juli and Heather

Jenny

Julie

for nominating me for the One Lovely Blog Award! 

I appreciate your thoughtfulness! :)

I nominate the following bloggers for this award:

1. Ashley from That's So Second Grade

2. Steph from Stay Tuned!

3. Meghan from First Grade with a Cherry on Top

4. Cynthia from 2nd Grade Pad

5. Kate from To The Square Inch

6. Erin from Adventures in Third Grade

7. Rikki from The Hive

8. Mrs. Santana from The Learning Tree

9. Melissa from The Dalton Gang

10. Karyn from A Is For Apple B Is For Blog

11. Leslie from The Groovy Teacher

12. Heather from Super Sweet Second Grade

13. The Differentiation Destination

14. Dianne from Hopelessly Devoted to Teaching

15. Critters in the Classroom

Please, visit these lovely blogs!

The rules for this award are as follows:

1. Follow the person who gave you the award.

2. Link back to the person who gave you the award. 

3. Pass the award to 15 new bloggers.

**My Google Reader is having issues and won't let me follow any blogs. :(



If you missed Thursday's post, then let me tell you how much I love receiving mail (a lot!)!! I had been searching for months for just the right iPad case. I wanted one that was like a hardback book and one that was practical and cute. FINALLY I stumbled upon what I had been looking for and it came in the mail yesterday! I LOVE IT.

I purchased it from The Preppy Ladybug (click her button below to go to her store) on Etsy. She has many different patterns, colors, fonts, and frames to choose from. I actually asked if she would be willing to use a font that she didn't have offered, and she did! I love Kimberly Geswein's Janda Safe and Sound font (it's free).

Happy Saturday!! Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

p.s. Does anyone know of a good iPad case for kids?

Parent Communication

I can hardly wait until the season finale of the Bachelorette tomorrow night!! Will it be Jef or Arie?! I'd give the rose to Jef! Kristin at A Teeny Tiny Teacher always posts the most hilarious reviews on her series Talk About it Tuesday following every episode of the Bachelorette and the Bachelor.

So since it's not time for the Bachelorette yet I'm going to share about parent communication. During student teaching I attended a workshop on parent and school relationships where the presenter recommended a great resource - Beyond the Bake Sale, a book on establishing and maintaining a partnership between families and schools. When Borders (I MISS BORDERS!! but am now a regular Amazon customer and by regular I mean a wwwaaayyyyy too frequent customer) was having their going-out-of-business sale last fall I spotted Beyond the Bake Sale and figured it would come in handy later so I bought it.

I have read parts of the book here and there...the authors have an amazing vision of what they think a family and school partnership can look like. Research shows that families + community + schools = high student achievement. They give many suggestions and ways by which to create this partnership. The biggest theme I've gathered from the parts I've read is to keep parents informed.

The following pictures are of the documents I created for my Parent Communication binder. I took photos of the documents with my iPad, used the app Penultimate to write notes about how to use the documents, and took screenshots to show you!

One way I'm going to keep parents informed is to contact them regularly with positive news. I've created a positive note record (below) so I can balance the communication I initiate between all the students.

 In each students' section I created a communication log (inspired by the Clutter-Free Classroom) to cover my bases for any issues that may arise.

I also created a conference record that I will use to show our collaboration on a student's social and academic progress. I love using the terms "glows" and "grows".

Click the document below to access all the files from my Parent Communication binder in Google Docs. Hope you can use them or find inspiration from them!

How do you keep parents informed? How do you (or your school) establish and maintain a partnership between families and teachers/schools?

App Happy Linky Party

I'm so excited that Hope King at 2nd Grade Shenanigans is having an App Happy Linky Party (love the Book Retriever app she posted about!) because over this past weekend I was searching for apps to use with my iPad in the classroom. Click Hope's button to check out other apps that make teachers happy!

Here are a few apps I want to try out in the classroom and thoughts on how to use them:

1. Evernote (free): You can create files of digital notebooks for anything and everything. I want to create a digital notebook for each student and have the notebook serve as an e-portfolio. You can upload pictures of student work, use the audio feature to record a student reading, etc. Wouldn't this be great to show parents at conferences? Soaring Through Second Grade wrote a great post on using Evernote too.

2. Penultimate ($0.99): An amazing handwriting app (the best on the market I've heard)! You can use your finger or stylus to write notes or draw pictures. Penultimate is owned by the Evernote people so for example, if you write anecdotal notes about a student, you can easily send it to that student's notebook in Evernote. I also want to use this app in place of an easel during small group work. If I didn't have this app, I would only be able to type any kind of notes, and I'd rather be able to write them.

3. Show Me (free): An interactive whiteboard app. You can create (and watch) tutorials on anything! The app has a record-voice over feature too so for example, you could (or even the students could!) make a tutorial on how to do double digit addition with step-by-step visuals while also giving an explanation. This could be used as a student assessment. Or you could post your Show Me on your class website for students to review material at home.

4. Puppet Pals (free): A super fun animated movie app (it's won an award too)! I learned about this app at a conference in June from a third grade teacher. In his classroom, he had the students take stories they had written and turn them into short animated movies. He said his students' writing improved dramatically...their stories became more interesting because when creating the movies they needed to have included dialogue and more details in their writing. This app also helped with fluency because students were reading aloud and using expression to, again, be more interesting. You can upgrade to Puppet Pals Director's Pass ($2.99) for a lot more characters and features. I can't wait to experiment with Puppet Pals with my second graders!

I'd love to hear any other ideas you have with using these apps! :)

Action Research

Hi, Friends!
Sorry that I've been missing in action! We've been on spring break this past week. While I wish I'd been on a beach somewhere tropical, I've been analyzing and writing up my action research on virtual field trips as an enriching educational tool. Throughout the semester, I organized five virtual field trips in first grade:

1. The students performed Readers' Theater for another class in New York.
2. The students met with a storyteller at Mount Vernon.
3. The students met Stuart J. Murphy, author of the MathStart series, in Boston.
4. The students met with a former Peace Corp volunteer and learned all about Morocco. They even learned some words in Arabic!
5. The students made a butterfly marionette with the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta.

We used the TANDBERG, a videoconferencing system, for the trips but you could also use Skype (we did use Skype for one of the programs). You can schedule the programs through the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration. Some of the programs cost money, some of the programs are free.

This is Addison, the former Peace Corp volunteer, on the TANDBERG. He volunteered in Morocco so he wore the Moroccan attire for us! 

If you'd like more information about virtual field trips, you can view my presentation on Prezi.

Have you used video-calling in the classroom? If so, how?