Once they finish their web correctly, they will open a Power Point I sent to them with the mechanics of the story already created (the links to each page) as it did not work as smoothly as I had anticipated. Detailed instructions for the Power Point can be found here. My pre-made Power Point and a sample story can be found here. After we are finished, we will do a gallery walk so all the students can share their stories and pick their endings!
Showing posts with label First Gr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Gr. Show all posts
Choose Your Ending Story
Once they finish their web correctly, they will open a Power Point I sent to them with the mechanics of the story already created (the links to each page) as it did not work as smoothly as I had anticipated. Detailed instructions for the Power Point can be found here. My pre-made Power Point and a sample story can be found here. After we are finished, we will do a gallery walk so all the students can share their stories and pick their endings!
Collaborative Story Writing
In discussing our upcoming lesson plans, one of our first grade teachers had an idea for a collaborative story where each child wrote a page for a story and they were all combined to create the entire story. After discussing the best way to do this so that she could print it if she wanted to and also send it home to parents, we decided to use Power Point and Flipsnack. She emailed the students a three page Power Point that had the title page, beginning of the story and then a blank page. The students wrote and illustrated their page and saved it.
After all the students finished their page, she copied them all into one large Power Point. We have the ability to pull documents from student files, but if you did not, you could have the student email it back to you, or save it on a flash drive as you walk around the room. If your school has access to Google Docs, a single presentation could be created for all to create their page on.
Her original idea was to have the students rearrange the pages so the story made sense, but in this case she was able to leave them in random order. She only picked one page to precede the ending, which she created. For older students who may write more on a page, allowing them to go through the entire story and rearrange the pages to make sense would be a wonderful exercise. Once the story was completed, we saved it as a PDF and uploaded it to Flipsnack.com to look like a real book. The PDF could be printed as she wished, and the Flipsnack book link could be emailed home to parents. I was really impressed with how it turned out! You can view it here.
Creative Writing Prompts
Technology allows us to find so many creative writing prompts that we were previously unable to access. I especially love the ones that allow for student customization. One of our first grade teachers used just such a site yesterday by having his students make themselves into dancing leprechauns with this website. After creating their leprechaun, he showed them how to do a screen print, insert it into Word and then crop it. Each student then wrote about themselves as a leprechaun. What an engaging activity!Our Elf Exchange
While this post is a bit late for talking about elves, the concept can be used with many other topics so I felt it still worthwhile to share. One of my first grade teachers wanted to do a collaborative, descriptive writing project similar to the Monster Exchange, but on a smaller scale. As it was the end of November, together we came up with the idea for doing an Elf Exchange during December. I contacted @shannonmmiller at Van Meter School in Iowa, who was very excited to be a part of this exchange and invited @mrshureads from Brook Forrest School in Illinois to participate as well.
The general idea was for each student to try and redraw another student's elf using their written description. We ended up with both first grade and second grade classes participating in this project. It was a great lesson in descriptive writing as the students couldn't just tell us about their elf, but had to describe what the elf looked like. Beforehand, the teachers did a min-lesson in descriptive writing to help the students know what to write. After posting their descriptions, the students were very excited to find out what the other student's posted on the Wiki, and at the end were very surprised to see what the original elves looked like! This was a very authentic and engaging lesson to teach the importance of accurate, descriptive writing.
We used a Wiki to organize our elves - each pair of students had their own page. The steps we followed were as follows:
1. Draw your elf.
2. Looking at your drawing, write a detailed description of the elf.
3. Post only the description on your Wiki page.
4. After all schools had a chance to do #1-4, the student's returned to their wiki page.
5. Using the other student's description, draw their elf and post it on the Wiki.
6. After all schools had a chance to do #5, the students posted their original elves for comparison.
The general idea was for each student to try and redraw another student's elf using their written description. We ended up with both first grade and second grade classes participating in this project. It was a great lesson in descriptive writing as the students couldn't just tell us about their elf, but had to describe what the elf looked like. Beforehand, the teachers did a min-lesson in descriptive writing to help the students know what to write. After posting their descriptions, the students were very excited to find out what the other student's posted on the Wiki, and at the end were very surprised to see what the original elves looked like! This was a very authentic and engaging lesson to teach the importance of accurate, descriptive writing.
1. Draw your elf.
2. Looking at your drawing, write a detailed description of the elf.
3. Post only the description on your Wiki page.
4. After all schools had a chance to do #1-4, the student's returned to their wiki page.
5. Using the other student's description, draw their elf and post it on the Wiki.
6. After all schools had a chance to do #5, the students posted their original elves for comparison.
Ideas for Integrating Technology in Grades 1-3
For the past two years, I have worked with grades 1-3 as their Technology Teacher, but also helping the teachers integrate technology into their classrooms. Here is a list of some of these ideas that I hope spark some interest in your classroom!Gingerbread Man - Fractured Fairy Tale
For two years now, I have worked with our first grade students to create a fractured fairy tale of the Gingerbread Man story. After reading a few versions of the Gingerbread Man, the students pick one of the three gingerbread men I send them and decorate him/her with clothes in Kidspiration. Then they find three characters to chase him again using the clip art in Kidspiration. Finally, the use SmartNotebook to create their story.
With a title page, narrative text, unique characters and hand drawn scenery, the students create a wonderful masterpiece! This project offers so much creativity, freedom of choice and personalization that they thoroughly enjoy it and are excited to work on it every day.
With a title page, narrative text, unique characters and hand drawn scenery, the students create a wonderful masterpiece! This project offers so much creativity, freedom of choice and personalization that they thoroughly enjoy it and are excited to work on it every day.
Sharing Our Birds
Our first grade classes study all different categories of animals from birds to mammals, reptiles and fish. Many classes actually create their own animal to go along with their learning. Last year and again this year, I worked with one teacher to turn their collection into a movie.
Depending on time and resources, you can have the students take the picture or you can take them. I then put all the pictures into one Photo Story and had each student narrate information on their bird. It was challenging to have them say the word "ornithologist" and despite practice, many read right off their note sheet instead of talking in sentences, but they all enjoyed seeing their creations in a movie! This movie is posted on the teacher's website for parents to see. In fact, she left last year's movie online so this year's parents could get some ideas for helping their child create the bird at home. Enjoy!
Authentic Internet Safety Lessons
Starting out the year with lessons on internet safety is usually a good thing. As we use the internet more and more in our classrooms, it is important to discuss how to stay safe, not be a cyberbully and what digital citizenship means. Last year I spent two class periods on this with my third grade students. They watched a video and created a poster. This year we actually practiced internet safety and cyberbullying in grades one, two and three for almost an entire month. This real life application is what cements learning, not a video and poster.
All five first grade classes set up blogs this year with Kidblog.org. Last year, only two teachers used them in the second half of the year and they were instrumental in bringing the entire first grade on board. We started by learning how to comment appropriately and substantively. We replied to a blog post from another classroom in another state and practiced being positive and writing something worthwhile. No more "Cool!" or "Good job dude!" comments were allowed as we stressed the importance of meaningful replies. They then commented on their teacher's post for individual practice. During the following weeks we learned how to write our own posts, comment on each others and finally add pictures from safe picture websites. I really like morguefile.com and pics4learning.com. Both have safe pictures for young students and fall under creative commons licenses. The blogs are currently set as private to only those who can log in (the students and teacher).
Our second graders took a big step in learning to use a Wiki as I wrote about in my last post. The internet safety skills learned included finding safe pictures from the internet, using an online account, not altering others work that is on the same page as theirs (they really wanted to correct things!) and not using full names on the internet. The wiki is set as private (a nice feature of pbworks.com) so that we can learn in a safe environment.
Finally, our third graders learned to use email appropriately by sending one to their teacher and myself telling us what they learned about internet safety so far. They also learned to use an online account, our school Moodle account. In there, we practiced doing a forum, which is where the students answer my question, and then can comment on each others. This offered us the opportunity to learn substantive, positive comments that add value, along with discussing cyberbullying. They also posted a piece of writing and experienced the joy of sharing their work with each other. One of our lessons that provided additional comments even the next day, was showing them the internet site for the city of Mankato. A very real looking, but almost completely false, website. They couldn't believe it was fake and it provides a great lesson on not believing everything you see on the internet, helping you stay safe.
Looking at all the authentic experiences the students had to practice internet safety and digital citizenship this year, I feel they understand it much better than last year's video and poster. As they continue to use blogs, wikis and Moodle throughout the year, these lessons will be reinforced over and over again until they hopefully become habits. Wouldn't that be nice!
All five first grade classes set up blogs this year with Kidblog.org. Last year, only two teachers used them in the second half of the year and they were instrumental in bringing the entire first grade on board. We started by learning how to comment appropriately and substantively. We replied to a blog post from another classroom in another state and practiced being positive and writing something worthwhile. No more "Cool!" or "Good job dude!" comments were allowed as we stressed the importance of meaningful replies. They then commented on their teacher's post for individual practice. During the following weeks we learned how to write our own posts, comment on each others and finally add pictures from safe picture websites. I really like morguefile.com and pics4learning.com. Both have safe pictures for young students and fall under creative commons licenses. The blogs are currently set as private to only those who can log in (the students and teacher).
Our second graders took a big step in learning to use a Wiki as I wrote about in my last post. The internet safety skills learned included finding safe pictures from the internet, using an online account, not altering others work that is on the same page as theirs (they really wanted to correct things!) and not using full names on the internet. The wiki is set as private (a nice feature of pbworks.com) so that we can learn in a safe environment.
Finally, our third graders learned to use email appropriately by sending one to their teacher and myself telling us what they learned about internet safety so far. They also learned to use an online account, our school Moodle account. In there, we practiced doing a forum, which is where the students answer my question, and then can comment on each others. This offered us the opportunity to learn substantive, positive comments that add value, along with discussing cyberbullying. They also posted a piece of writing and experienced the joy of sharing their work with each other. One of our lessons that provided additional comments even the next day, was showing them the internet site for the city of Mankato. A very real looking, but almost completely false, website. They couldn't believe it was fake and it provides a great lesson on not believing everything you see on the internet, helping you stay safe.
Looking at all the authentic experiences the students had to practice internet safety and digital citizenship this year, I feel they understand it much better than last year's video and poster. As they continue to use blogs, wikis and Moodle throughout the year, these lessons will be reinforced over and over again until they hopefully become habits. Wouldn't that be nice!
Comic Book New Endings
One day on Twitter I saw that @techieang had just co-planned a literacy lesson with another teacher at her school. I thought that was a great idea and after connecting with her, we co-planned a "virtual" lesson for our students. Since she teaches a 2/3 grade split and I was looking for something that would also work for one of my 1st grade classes, we came upon the comic books at Professor Garfield Toon Book Reader. Not only could we read the same online stories, but there were four different ability levels to choose from.
We planned our lesson around the elements of comic books and how they help us read them. Next the students read one, thought about the choices the character made, and came up with a new ending, or for her older students, changed the story in the middle. While we had some technical difficulties with getting the website to work on her iPads, and the text was blurry on some stories, both classes were able to complete and share their new endings.
As it was the end of the year, I asked my first graders to tell me all the different ways they could create a comic with the software programs we have at school. They came up with using Kidspiration, SmartNotebook software and Microsoft Publisher. Some of them even remembered that we could take pictures from one software and paste it in another. Below is a movie compilation of some of their pictures. I am very proud of their ability to use different software to fit their needs and the effort that they put forth in this project. They had to read the story twice, complete a planning form, create the picture and then post the picture and their explanations on their blogs. With help from their classroom teacher, we were able to finish in time to share with the other class.
We planned our lesson around the elements of comic books and how they help us read them. Next the students read one, thought about the choices the character made, and came up with a new ending, or for her older students, changed the story in the middle. While we had some technical difficulties with getting the website to work on her iPads, and the text was blurry on some stories, both classes were able to complete and share their new endings.
As it was the end of the year, I asked my first graders to tell me all the different ways they could create a comic with the software programs we have at school. They came up with using Kidspiration, SmartNotebook software and Microsoft Publisher. Some of them even remembered that we could take pictures from one software and paste it in another. Below is a movie compilation of some of their pictures. I am very proud of their ability to use different software to fit their needs and the effort that they put forth in this project. They had to read the story twice, complete a planning form, create the picture and then post the picture and their explanations on their blogs. With help from their classroom teacher, we were able to finish in time to share with the other class.
Allowing Creativity and Student Choice
Today our first graders brought in their homemade wagons for their wagon parade. It was the culminating activity for their motion and balance unit. There was only one rule, it had to be a wagon that would carry a stuffed animal. Because there was only one rule, the students were allowed the freedom to create anything they wanted to. We had around 80 first graders participating and therefore had 80 different, unique and very creative wagons!
As teachers, how often do we require every student to produce the same project, following the same rules and therefore looking the same. I always think of this when I walk down the hallway and see 20 projects on the wall that are almost identical. When each student is given an open ended task, with few restrictions, they must use creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and communication skills to come up with an end product - all the 21st Century Skills we desire our students to develop. Our wagon parade was a perfect example of what can happen when we have less requirements instead of more.
As teachers, how often do we require every student to produce the same project, following the same rules and therefore looking the same. I always think of this when I walk down the hallway and see 20 projects on the wall that are almost identical. When each student is given an open ended task, with few restrictions, they must use creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and communication skills to come up with an end product - all the 21st Century Skills we desire our students to develop. Our wagon parade was a perfect example of what can happen when we have less requirements instead of more.
Math "From Canada"
The other day I had the privilege to participate in a Skype conference call with Sheryl NussbaumBeach (@snbeach). The topic of discussion was Project Based Learning, however we also talked about the use of social media. This was not the first conversation I have participated in about the use of social media in the classroom, but for some reason it got me thinking about my own lesson plans for the month and how I could incorporate social media. Once I started thinking, the ideas started flowing and I realized how much room there was for improvement in my lessons!
While checking Twitter that night, I came across a tweet from Aviva Dunsiger, @Grade1, whom I follow and admire for her creative uses of technology in her classroom. The minute I read her Smartie Math problem blog post, I knew I wanted to participate. My lesson plans for the month involve the use of data, spreadsheets and graphs. The math problem presented in the blog post not only involves those subjects, it adds in the social media aspect. Thus, I presented to my first grade class our math problem "from Canada!" They couldn't believe that we would be doing math from Canada! "How can we do that?" they asked.
After looking at a map to find Ancaster, Ontario in relationship to Wisconsin, we began by reviewing the slide show on Aviva's blog post and discussing what data we needed to know. We focused on the slide with the buckets of candy and I asked them what information I should write on the board. All they wanted me to write was the question "How can we make the buckets equal?" We then discussed what tools we have available to solve this problem. Since I am the computer teacher, we focused on different software programs that we have learned to use throughout the year. As anticipated their ideas were to use Smart Notebook software to draw solutions, or draw shapes as manipulatives. We have also used Kidspiration which has many objects we could use for manipulatives, so some students suggested that as well.
The students returned to their computers and paired up with the person they sat next to, a random mix based on an alphabetical seating chart. For the next half hour, the students were totally engaged in trying to solve the math problem. Some of them started by recreating the picture of the buckets. Others also drew two buckets, but went to the board and counted the number of red and white candy to sort right away as they drew them in the buckets. The students who drew the mixed candy then moved them to also be sorted one color in each bucket. Finally, all groups who had a chance to finish moved the sorted candy so there was an equal amount of each color in each bucket.
At the end of class, we took time to write a comment on Aviva's blog post about how we solved the math problem. The students were really excited for this part and were also excited that she wrote back to them! Overall, this was a very successful activity. It was relevant (sorting candy fairly), global (from Canada), collaborative (they worked with partners) and involved communication (commenting on a blog and getting a response). Finally, students were problem solvers using their choice of tools available to them (critical thinking). Thank you Aviva!
First Grade's New Netbooks
Last week we finally finished imaging the new first grade netbooks, putting them in a cart and giving the first grade teachers a quick demo of them. So the question is: What would you do with a netbook for each of your students? Every time I walked by one first grade teacher's room, he had come up with really authentic, engaging activities for his students to do with the new netbooks. Afterward, I asked him how we can get the rest of our teachers to do these kind of activities. His first answer was to share with them what he has done and how. So I am now sharing these ideas!
The very first activity the students worked on was to do their daily journal entry in Word. This was an activity they were completely comfortable doing independently (having done journaling every day in their class and having used Word in computer class a few times.) This allowed the teacher to help them with the logistics of using the new netbooks. When I walked in, every student was deeply engrossed in their writing.
The second activity spawned off the first and they wrote letters to the superintendent thanking him for the new netbooks. They have done letter writing before, so after a quick review they were off working. What an authentic task that involved language arts and communication skills!
Branching into more authentic communication skills, another activity was to send emails to their classmates, teacher and parents. Letter writing skills were reinforced again and when I came in the room, they were so eager to show me what they were doing! We had a few problems with correcting some inaccurate email addresses and navigating some message boxes that popped up, but they were thrilled to be doing this activity! They learned how to respond to their classmates emails and they also received responses from their parents. What positive reinforcement! Think of all the language arts and communication skills they were developing during this. Yes, they used kid spelling but that in no way inhibited their ability to communicate with each other through a written medium.
An activity I didn't get to see was when the teacher had them use Smart Notebook software (again something they were familiar with using) to create math review worksheets. They were given the choice of topics and the worksheets were completed by classmates. Math curriculum and creativity were definitely reinforced!
This particular first grade teacher is pretty technologically savvy, but he is also willing to take risks. He had no idea how it would work sending out emails, but he was willing to try. He is also very supportive of student choice and allowing for movement in his classroom (as the students help each other and show off their work to each other.) Not all teachers are willing to take such risks, but as he said, once an activity is successfully accomplished, share the experience!
The very first activity the students worked on was to do their daily journal entry in Word. This was an activity they were completely comfortable doing independently (having done journaling every day in their class and having used Word in computer class a few times.) This allowed the teacher to help them with the logistics of using the new netbooks. When I walked in, every student was deeply engrossed in their writing.
The second activity spawned off the first and they wrote letters to the superintendent thanking him for the new netbooks. They have done letter writing before, so after a quick review they were off working. What an authentic task that involved language arts and communication skills!
Branching into more authentic communication skills, another activity was to send emails to their classmates, teacher and parents. Letter writing skills were reinforced again and when I came in the room, they were so eager to show me what they were doing! We had a few problems with correcting some inaccurate email addresses and navigating some message boxes that popped up, but they were thrilled to be doing this activity! They learned how to respond to their classmates emails and they also received responses from their parents. What positive reinforcement! Think of all the language arts and communication skills they were developing during this. Yes, they used kid spelling but that in no way inhibited their ability to communicate with each other through a written medium.
An activity I didn't get to see was when the teacher had them use Smart Notebook software (again something they were familiar with using) to create math review worksheets. They were given the choice of topics and the worksheets were completed by classmates. Math curriculum and creativity were definitely reinforced!
This particular first grade teacher is pretty technologically savvy, but he is also willing to take risks. He had no idea how it would work sending out emails, but he was willing to try. He is also very supportive of student choice and allowing for movement in his classroom (as the students help each other and show off their work to each other.) Not all teachers are willing to take such risks, but as he said, once an activity is successfully accomplished, share the experience!
Supporting Emerging Writers with Technology
Our first graders have had one month of school under their belt and we are eager to support their academic curriculum in our technology classes. An important skill to learn in first grade is reading and writing sentences. To create an engaging, motivating lesson in this skill, we developed an "All About Me" lesson using Power Point and clip art.
To promote both reading and writing skills, we made sentence starter cards for the students to use. These cards focused on about six sentences structured different ways. For example, one card might say "My favorite animal is _______."; while another card might say "_________ is my favorite animal." Student choice was a very large factor of our lesson as they not only chose which sentence to use, but also in what order they would like to put the sentences in their Power Point. Additionally, all of this provided movement around the room.
They were taught the basic skills of completing a title slide, inserting a new slide and inserting clip art. Because clip art searches only work with accurately spelled words, we provided picture dictionaries for the students to use when completing their sentence. This also provided movement around the room, and student choice of which clip art picture to use.
The students were so enthused to be able to pick their own sentences, and were very motivated to write a sentence because they could then find clip art to go with it. Once they had four slides completed, we printed them out in handout format. The lesson lasted two days and the engagement lasted right down to printing the slides and taking them with them, definitely a success!
This lesson supports the 21st Century Skills of creating a product, problem solving the use of Power Point and clip art, allowing for student choice, and collaboration by asking their neighbors for help. It helped support emerging readers and writers in an engaging way.
"Laptop" by lmorowski 5/2010
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