Yesterday, I took out many math supplies and put them all over the classroom. I asked the students to pick a number between 4 and 12. Then, I challenged them to use the supplies, or anything else they found around the room, to build that number or represent it. As they made the number, they captured it in the app Pic Collage by taking a picture. After taking many pictures of their number in different ways, they created a collage of ways to represent that number. It was cool to see how creative the students got with the materials. We had a great time with this project and I was able to see how well students understood both building numbers and how to use math tools.
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Over the summer, my husband and I stumbled upon this app called Storybook Reader. I immediately thought it would be a wonderful app to use in the classroom with my students. In this app, you take pictures of pages in a book. Then, you record yourself reading each page. It takes a video of you reading the book, so your little face appears on each page. Once the book is done, it puts it to soft music and is a very nice example of how fluent a student is able to read the pages in a book. I thought it would be neat to have a collection of books the students feel really confident reading throughout the year. In theory, this was a great idea. I tried the app and created my own book and it worked great. Then, I taught it to the students and my example project also worked great. But when all the students started to use the app, we had many issues and problems creating their books. It was not the students' faults. They were doing everything right. The app has a lot of bug issues and was acting funny. A few kids were able to make their books successfully, but unfortunately, some were not because the app wouldn't let them delete or record without giving them problems. Because I was able to use this app successfully several times, I still recommend it because you can make two books for free. However, I am going to find an alternative way to do a similar project. Sprague now subscribes to an online program called Storia school edition. Storia is a scholastic program. It changed just recently and now you need to subscribe. Our students all have a username and password to get into Storia school edition. The program has wonderful features. Teachers can make collections of books for the students to read based on level or interest. They can also group based on books that can be listened to or books that can be read on their own. There are quizzes that go along with the books, too. Students can build their own bookshelf of books they have read. I showed the students how to log in and use this app for listening to reading, but there are still a few issues and that is why I haven't sent home the logins yet. Many of the books are not available to be read yet. And we had a problem with the internet connection. So, although this program has a ton of potential and I hope to use it often, we are still working out some things and I will send home the login information soon. This week was our first week practicing word study. The students have been assessed and next week will be moving into groups that are just right for them. But this week was a practice week. We learned how to sort, cut, and glue our words into our word study journals. And we also learned how to use a website called Spelling City. Each of the students has a log in, which I sent home earlier this week. Spelling city allows the students to practice their word study words using many games and activities. I am able to see how long the students are spending on each game and what percent of the words they are spelling correctly. I can also assign them activities to do. This is a great website because it can be used both at school and at home. Thinglink is a website that has an app. I created a class on the website and each student logged in using their own username and password. Thinglink is neat because it brings photographs to life. We used it for our orange splot projects. After reading the book The Orange Splot, the students had a chance to design their own dream homes. Then, they took a picture of their homes in the app. The app then allows the students to either type or take videos where they can describe different features of their house. They have little spots all of their pictures now where they added text or videos giving more information about that part of their house. We had a great time working on this exciting extension of the project and I look forward to finding other ways to use the thinglink app. Find sums is an app we used this week during our math center rotation. We are getting used to working independently and one of our opportunities was to practice working with ten frames. This app has two different activities. One is to pick one number of apples to put in the frame and then the other number that makes ten. The other is practicing part part whole a similar way but without pictures. The students were able to pick the activity that was just right for them. The students in our class continue to impress me. They noticed that I was timing them while building our independent reading stamina using the timer in the clock app on the ipad. They asked if they could time themselves building their own stamina right away in the morning when they are done with their morning routines. What a motivating way to work on our reading strategies and focus on our books! Setting our own goals and building our own stamina before doing it as a class has been a great way to begin the day. What better way to get to know each other's stuffed animals then to make a pic collage! Pic collage is an app we will be using often because it has great features. Today, the students took a picture of their stuffed animal. Then, they were able to trace around the animal and cut out the extra from the picture. They chose a background and learned how to type within the app. They typed things about their stuffed animal, like its name, where they got it, and anything else they wanted to share. The collages came out great and we learned a lot about their stuffed animals. We have already been practicing our handwriting by drawing our own letters in Absolute Board, but the app Letter School is all about handwriting practice. We introduced this app today. Letter School allows the students to trace, and then write the letters on their own. It's great because it will not let you go on until you write the letter correctly. It also keeps track of which letters have been practiced and mastered. If you are looking for an additional way for your child to practice handwriting at home and you have an iPad or iPhone, this would be a good app to download. Being a bucket filler is an important part of our classroom. The students had many ideas to share about how they were going to be bucket fillers this year. After we brainstormed some ideas, each student took a video of themselves saying what they were going to do to be a bucket filler. They recorded their videos using the video camera in the iPad. The students and I used air drop to send me their videos. I then made each video into a QR code and printed the codes for each student. They decorated paper buckets and attached their QR code to their bucket. When someone uses a QR code reader, such as I nigma, they will then see the video of the student explaining how they are going to be a bucket filler this year. I was curious to see if practicing handwriting on the iPads would be more efficient than practicing with small chalkboards. In the past, I have used chalkboards, pieces of chalk, and wet sponges. I have to gather all of the supplies, pass them out, and wet the sponges. Often times the students complained because their boards were still wet when it was time to write a new letter. So, we tried doing the exact same handwriting practice using an app called Absolute Board. It turned out that not only did we practice more letters in one session, but the students were actually able to trace over their letters several times using different colors. I really like this app for drawing and writing because you can save the work you do right in the app. I also think it has the best color options and is very easy to use. We will definitely continue to practice our handwriting using Absolute Board. The first project we did was making class books using the app Book Creator. This is an awesome app that we will be using a lot this year. The students only needed a short lesson and off they went! I used air drop to get each student a copy of the book they were going to make. They accepted the book and then were able to design the pages themselves. This book was focused on getting to know our classmates. There were pictures of things on each page, such as pets or pizza and the students had to find people who had or liked these things. They took a picture of them and labeled it with their name. Students who worked quickly were able to change the colors of the backgrounds and even add their voices to their books. Book creator has many great features the students will learn how to use. |
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