We have been enjoying lots of time off from school, so this newsletter will cover what's been going on in the lab since November 19th. ☺
First Grade
In first grade lately, we have been finishing up our temperature maps. Be sure to check out the students' hard work on Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. Raymer's class pages!
Second Grade
I am so excited to announce that in second grade, we have started a new project using the online tool, Storybird. I learned about this Storybird at the iSummit technology conference at Greater Atlanta Christian School in July of 2012. So far, Mrs. MacEwen and Mrs. Smith's classes have begun this project. Storybird enables students to make beautiful, polished-looking online books using pieces of art created by artists all around the world. In fact, artists can make royalty money through Storybird! For a writer, using Storybird is a challenge: the children begin the writing process differently than how they are used to--by selecting art that speaks to them and uncovering the story hidden inside that art! Storybird requires a username and password for use, but I have created "classes" (or groups) using my teacher account and set up secure usernames for the children. If your child is interested in building a Storybird at home, please feel free to contact me for his or her login information. Additionally, when the Storybirds are published, the children's actual names will not visible to the public, and if you prefer, I can set your child's book to be private. One of my favorite Storybird features is that the children's books are available for purchase (download - $1.99, softcover- $13.95, $25.95 and up - hardcover, $29.95 and up - premium hardcover).
You can learn more about Storybird here. By scrolling down on this page, you can actually search for Storybirds created by other users that are categorized by the age groups for whom they are most appropriate. I encourage you to take a look!
Stay tuned!
You can learn more about Storybird here. By scrolling down on this page, you can actually search for Storybirds created by other users that are categorized by the age groups for whom they are most appropriate. I encourage you to take a look!
Stay tuned!
Third Grade
In third grade we have begun a lesson on becoming a super Web searcher. My hope with this lesson (and subsequent lessons) is to teach the children how to use the Web for research in an efficient manner. We will no longer be typing entire questions (i.e. "Why can I see my breath on cold days?") into the search bar! To begin this lesson, I shared this visual with the children (adapted from Common Sense Media):
I used this visual to show the children the steps I followed to conduct a search for a delicious dessert when it came time to make my Thanksgiving menu. My step one: I decided on the topic "dessert." The keywords that went with my topic were "chocolate, cake, delicious, cookies, brownies, recipes, easy, food, and yummy." My purpose in throwing in terms like "delicious" and "yummy" was to teach the children to differentiate between useful keywords and words that we would not use in a Web search. From that long list of keywords, I circled the most powerful ones and use them to create a search query for a kids' safe search engine called Kidrex.org. I settled on "chocolate cake recipes" and also taught the children to use the minus key on the keyboard for a further specialized search (-nuts, -coconut; two ingredients I knew I did not want in my Thanksgiving dessert!) Finally, I showed the children how to examine search results for what might be the best hit. We talked about looking closely at the web addresses of search results as a way to determine if the information on the site will be useful to the researcher. Our finished visual:
The next step was to encourage the children to follow the same series of steps to conduct their own Web searches, also using Kidrex.org. They were broken into partnerships and encouraged to record their search progress using a Google Form that I embedded into the third grade page (see it by scrolling down this page). I was impressed by how well the children did with this activity! Most of the partnerships were able to find useful information from the top hit of their search, and if not, they took steps back and figured out how to modify their search so they could try again. Way to go, third grade!