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Sorry, it has been a busy week and just had time to catch up. Today, I worked with 4th, 6th, and 2nd. Our 4th graders are learning about VECTORS in Paint Shop Pro. Since they are a "work in progress", I told them I would wait to show their creations next week. In 6th grade, we continued to work with BRYCE. One of my favorite lessons is sharing with the students how to create moons. It is a very hard concept, but once learned -- it is an "OH WOW" time. As always, I love when we have "MUSEUM" time and they walk around and look at each others work. (You can view their creations below and notice how they are expanding their artwork with lessons learned in the past weeks-- without any prompting or insistence from me.) Here is the link to the tutorial we used: http://www.clydesight.com/brlitefx/brmoon.html Our 2nd graders were introduced to PIXIE today and we learned about SHADOWS, ROTATION, and OPACITY. (uou can see an example to the left) As always, it is a JOY to see them not only creating but helping each other. We have a "NO HANDS ON MOUSE" policy -- so someone can help someone else by pointing out how to do it, but the person who has the question drives the mouse. Finally, we are using this website -- http://www.online-stopwatch.com/eggtimer-countdown/full-screen/ -- for our typing countdown. It tickled me today when a student came up to get the link. It is always fun to see what captures their interest. It just keeps getting better! Big -- no HUGE - Thanks to Little Bit Studio and the apps they are creating. They are colorful, they are engaging, and they are educational --- and fun too. Their newest -- Bugs and Numbers 2 -- is now my favorite and the students loved it as well. I still am working out exactly how to work with ipads and 24 brand new kindergarteners. So today we tried one large area of the room as free exploration in the app and a smaller kidney shaped table with me and 7 students working on guided learning and also the ability to catch them in case they were not understanding concepts. Again - I don't wish lab time every to be just filler time -- we really need to be (as my admin says) intentional. So having the small group today really helped. And I also am getting to know their names more quickly and give individual personal feedback and assistance. But back to the app --- it is just grand. http://www.littlebitstudio.com/bugsandbuttons2.html The students' favorite game was the RC race game. My personal favorite is Guess What.....love when you trace the shape the water moves. And thank you to Toby Price -- https://twitter.com/jedipadmaster/status/380846864334991360 -- for sharing out the tweet yesterday about this app!! THANK YOU Miss Wagner Started the day with 4th grade. 10 minutes of Type to Learn and then right into Paint Shop Pro. I want my students to be "creators" of artwork rather than just copies of artwork. So over the next few weeks, we will be learning Paint Shop Pro and creating our own images, powerpoint backgrounds, and more! Today they learned about using Fonts, creating a custom color, and adding a drop shadow. A lot to learn in 40 minutes, but they did great. It was especially great to see them "making a color" rather than just choosing from colors already selected. If my students learn nothing else from me this year -- I want them to know how to be creative and not mini-mes! My 6th grade class continues to blow me away with what they are creating. We had a bit of a learning curve today -- but it gave us a chance to remind each other that we are all still learning. So many of them are used to be "great" on their first attempt and I am glad to see that they are realizing that sometimes things do take time. Today we worked on "perspective" and also learned some new editing tools. Again, a lot -- A LOT -- to conquer in 40 minutes.....we had some successes and some still learning....but that is 100% okay. This program is an advanced graphic tool and they are absorbing a lot of tools right away. In the next few weeks, after a few more foundational tools, we will begin our "create a scene based on a movie". Today when I mentioned, I cannot wait until we get to Lord of the Rings and you create "Mordor" -- you could see the lights of "oh, I get it" come on. They are starting to see how each skill each week is preparing them for what is to come. Our main goal today was to create a picture that looked like we were in a cave, perhaps on a kayak, looking out to an island. Below you will see a sampling of all the creations from this week's lesson. Our 2nd grade class was introduced to Type to Learn. I found a nice video at School Tube that I showed them. https://www.schooltube.com/video/72fea4567c54a813de3c/ and then we talked a bit about "practice." They did a great job. This will be our only FULL day of typing. Starting next week, we will have 10 - 15 minutes of typing and then right into another program. Whew, what a day.
Began the day with 3rd Graders......we worked on our Type to Learn for 10 minutes and then jumped right into creating Trading Cards using the Trading Card App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/trading-cards/id555742821?mt=8 They were super talkative today -- so this lesson will overlap into next week. 5th Grade showed up next and we worked through some imovie plans and then journeyed outside to take pictures. They learned that they needed to have "planned shots" in order to visit certain areas....IE: preschool playground, etc. And I also commented in class about how pleased I was to see students setting up shots in advance. A little positive reinforcement set others into thinking ahead for next time. We are about 3 weeks away from finishing their movies. CANNOT WAIT!! Then onto 1st grade. We used the app FELT BOARD: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/felt-board/id492342753?mt=8 (what an awesome app) I had the screen already set to the 4 square (you will see below) and we started with a Miss Wagner demonstration BEFORE we jumped into learning. First we worked with putting 1 object into the 1 box, 2 into the 2, etc. We did this several times. Each time, making sure students saw many options. We also discussed squeezing and stretching the items to resize. Then we removed the 1 - 4 and added ABCD and had students find shapes that began with that same letter. You could see the "light bulbs" just sparking away. Once I saw that they had the concept of resizing, finding, etc....we moved onto the scene with the mountain, water, sky -- and they placed items in each area. We were running out of time, so we will continue this next week. Lots of learning today! If you don't see the video below -- please follow this link: http://animoto.com/play/QLsYsW1kw19xxIASwazMeA Today was our last day with dots -- and what a terrific day it was. Started off with our 4th graders -- and I had tweeted out just before class asking for people to visit this website -- and when they saw dots appear on our map, I thought I was going to lose them. SUCH EXCITEMENT!! Thank you Michigan, Massachusetts, Canada, Connecticut, & More! They were thrilled. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical of how DOT DAY was going to work with the 6th graders -- but our computer mom assured me that they would love it....so we proceeded forward. AND I am so happy we did. Because they took the colAR app to a level I could not have planned or anticipated. One group ran over and said -- "Miss Wagner -- look we combined 2 together". And then the MATH began .... They halved dots, and quartered dots, and overlapped dots -- and so on and so on. It was beyond wonderful to see how they were working together -- "collaborating is one of our expectations" -- and just have a great time learning. I am a wee bit ashamed at myself that I had been skeptical of their enjoyment -- but they had a blast. Ended the day with 2nd graders -- who are learning to work together and truly taking time to help each other and appreciate each others work. And on top of all this, I open my email at the end of the day -- and there is a NOTE from a parent saying how much her child is loving computer. WHAT A WONDERFUL WEEK! Enjoy some pictures from our 3rd day with DOTS!! Having a great time with DOT WEEK. Students are very much enjoying the book being read by Peter H. Reynolds. It is especially fun with the older students when Peter says "The Dot written by ..... Me". It is fun to hear their laughter as they hear this. Yesterday, as we looked at the count of participants and the countries -- we all went "wow" -- I then showed them our blog and how we have 17 countries who have visited our blog....and they are seeing what an influence they are having with sharing out classroom. Yesterday went pretty much like Monday -- lots of smiles, lots of fun, lots of sharing! Please enjoy a few pictures! Our first graders are doing a GREAT job with remembering to hold the ipads with 2 hands. Our older students are doing a GREAT job with figuring out new ways to use the ipads and then sharing these discoveries with their fellow students....and me! We started our dot week out with a blast. I had third grade, then fifth grade, then first grade. We first talked about INTERNATIONAL DOT DAY -- and then I showed them (3rd and 5th) the first 8"ish" minutes of the DEN 2012 Dot Day with Peter Reynolds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKKVDaHiM4E We used Safe Share TV: http://safeshare.tv/ -- so no other videos on youtube were on display. After we watched the video, I passed out "THE DOT" colAR pdf document and let the students create their own unique dot. Then we opened the colAR app and they got to see their "DOT" come to life. For the first grade class, I had them sit down first on the floor and we talked about the DOT DAY. We talked about how special dots are and we read the book "PUT ME IN THE ZOO" by Robert Lopshire: http://www.amazon.com/Put-Bright-Early-Board-Books/dp/0375812156 This set the tone for DOTS! I then told the first graders that a very special friend from Boston was going to read to them a book he had written about DOTS and then we would all color our own dots and then watch them dance. Needless to say, first grade was a bit chaotic....but we all had a great time. I had also created some dice cards so all grades today could play a dot game using the website: http://www.curriculumbits.com/prodimages/details/maths/mat0005.html -- but as usual, I over planned and can save this activity for another day. Besides our "locker shelves" not being tall enough to really work well with the colAR app -- everything else went off beautifully! |
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November 2015
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