Mrs. K's Teachable Moments: 2014

Technology Tidbit!

Monday, November 3, 2014

It's amazing how many apps there are for our students nowadays. One of the apps that I find to be most helpful as a classroom teacher is the app Educreations. The best part is that it is free! Basically this is an interactive whiteboard for students which you can add clipart, photos and record voice.

How can you use this app?

There are so many ways to use this.

1.) You can record yourself teaching a lesson. Maybe you thought the math lesson was super hard and when students go home, they may not be able to complete the assignment. You can give parents access to your special educreations class code and parents and students can review the lessons you record. Here's an example of a video I made to review for the math test.

2.) Students can create their own lessons. What I love is students can create their own account and link up to their class page and create their own slideshow videos. It is a great way to access how much they actually grasped from the lesson, a great tool for assessment.

Below is a video from a student who made her own video at home after learning about addition.

3.) If you think you are going to be absent you can even record a video to play and the substitute could access the video with simple login directions.

4.) For students who also struggle with generating ideas for writing or students who have a hard time organizing their thoughts, this app can be very helpful. One student who was struggling remembering what to write used this app and was able to listen back to his voice on headphones and playback parts that he needed to remember. His thoughts were a lot faster then his writing ability. This helped him work at his pace. He went from from nothing on a page to a full story.

What other ways can you use this app for!? Let me know all of your ideas!

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Wonder Wednesday!

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Last year I was inspired by Kristen Ziemke and her book she co-wrote, Comprehension and Technology. I highly recommend this book because it addresses great ideas to engage students in learning through the use of technology. One of the ideas from the book that I have transferred into my classroom is Wonder Wednesdays. This is a fun way to get students to think and engage themselves in meaningful conversations.

We start off by using our Wonder Wednesday Notebooks. I also included a label with prompts to help the children organize their thinking.

Every Wednesday we open up the Wonderopolis website. Every day the website adds new wonders.

I start off differently every time. Sometimes I may leave it open ended and ask the children what are they wondering. They will write it on a post-it and partner share there questions. Other times I may start off by showing them the wonder of the day question and ask them if they are wondering anything else. I also start off by showing them a picture from the gallery of wonders and have them generate questions just by looking at the picture and then we will study the site and try to find the answers to our questions. The site also allows video access to enhance the learning experience. Every wonder has a video that correlates to the wonder. Sometimes this generates more learning and wondering!

Sorry it is sideways!

It's my goal that if the children have unanswered questions that eventually they will independently be able to access the answers to the questions. Maybe when we go to the library we may try to find a book that may answer my questions. Or maybe I can find the answer on the internet. Allow the children to generate their own ideas on where they can access their wonders. I strongly suggest implementing this in your classroom to get your students to engage in higher level thinking that will transcend into all other areas of learning! Next step is introducing a wonder wall! We will then choose a wonder each week to send to Wonderopolis where we wait to get our wonder answered! Pictures to come......

Click Below for Free Wonder Wednesday Notebook Labels (use Avery 15264)

Wonder Wednesday Notebook Cover

Wonder Wednesday Notebook Label (Inside)

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And we're off!

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Hope everyone is having a great school year!

Setting up your classroom is the first important step in getting your classroom ready for your children. Creating an environment that is safe and fun is important. Here are some pictures of my classroom (please excuse some of the scattered things around, it was still a work in progress)!

I used fabric to cover my bulletin boards.

The tree was inspired by Deanna Jump. I used vinyl tablecloths to cover the tables. Easy to clean!

The closet maid bins hold our library books. Red is fiction, blue is non-fiction.

Our word wall and writing center. In this corner is also our "cozy corner" for fun reading and any student that may need a break throughout the day.

We are diving into our writer's workshop unit. We have begun our small moment unit and we have been encouraging those to "catch a small moment." This unit helps the children focus on writing about one topic rather than drifting to multiple topics. We have been using our jungle hats to wear when we catch those moments.

If you would like to have these printables to make your own hat, head over to to First Grade Wow for it and other super fun ideas to implement in your small moment unit!

Stay tuned next time for what we do on "Wonder Wednesday!"

A fun way to get in all those common core critical thinking skills!

Have fun Teaching!

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Group Work!

Sunday, June 1, 2014

So in my search for a good summer read, I stumbled upon Kristen Ziemke's Website She is one of the coauthors of Connecting Comprehension and Technology.

This book has a wealth of information for including technology into your literacy program. While it's pricey, I highly recommend it. It will be your go-to book for incorporating new ideas into your teaching. It even has QR codes where you can just click and it will take you to direct videos to demonstrate what the authors are implying.

So this is definitely my summer read! But back to Kristen's website, I was connected to her twitter feed, which they emphasize in the book that twitter can be used for education and engaging students in conversations about literature and math. But for now, I was browsing through her pictures in her twitter feed and stumbled upon this video.

Video Here

I was inspired by the group work that the children were in and how it worked so well with the younger students. So I decided to try it out as one of my introductory lessons for insects and it was a success! The children worked together and gathered information for our insect unit.

Here's some samples:

Enjoy!

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Making Number Stories!

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

In Kindergarten we read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons! We love Pete the Cat and using him to learn is even better.

The song is accessible through www.harpercollinschildrens.com/petethecat

After we read, we wrote our own number stories to follow. They had two choices.

I found this cute printable here: http://makinglearningfun.com/images/photos/PetetheCat-Buttons-ClassBook-in.jpg

I enlarged it to make it bigger and cut each one out. I then gave them construction paper squares which we "cut off the corners" to make into circles.

The children are getting much better with cutting by using this technique.

Here are the finished projects!

Enjoy!

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Community Helpers!

Monday, April 21, 2014

I recently wrote a new book in order to enhance the learning of community helpers. Using riddles allows children to use their close reading skills to guess what each community helper is in the description. Children must identify what helper it is and use evidence from the riddle that helped them clue in to what the answer was. You can use this file on your interactive white board and highlight all the clues, key words, sight words etc. You can print this out smaller for use in guided reading groups, or print out and bind the pages together to make a class book.

This book includes eight different community helpers: doctor, teacher, crossing guard, dentist, librarian, chef, construction worker and postal worker. I'm in the process of making book two which will include another set of eight helpers. I will also add to this close reading activities. But for now it is on sale on Teachers Pay Teachers!

ENJOY!

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New York City!

Friday, April 18, 2014

We started our social studies unit and have been studying New York City. We looked at pictures of NYC and made connections about what we know. We read this book on BOOKFLIX as a class.

http://bkflix.grolier.com/b/node-33980/bk0050pr

This sparked up many conversations and questions as well. We turned and talked to our partners to discuss each part of NYC.

We then displayed our learning by constructing our own cities with different shapes of construction paper and wrote in what New York city has and what can you see. The children enjoyed this hands-on activity and were very independent in this task as they we showcasing their new learning! It's important to design and create activities that represent areas of creativity and independence; especially in Kindergarten. It really allows you to see as a teacher what levels the children are working at.

After we finished, we placed all our work on display and did a quick "museum walk" to discuss each others findings. We sat in a circle to discuss what we learned again, to see how much of the information was retained throughout.

ENJOY!

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Moon Cookies!

Sunday, March 30, 2014

As an extension of our study about the moon, we made moon cookies inspired by the Chalktalk blog.

First we read about the moon using BookFlix.

We also asked questions about the moon by giving them the prompt.. I wonder.....

Then we wrote about our learning with these two options.

We then made moon cookies to enhance our learning and inspire and engage all learners! It also shows how well they can follow procedural text. They had to follow these directions. You can find the visuals HERE.

You can also get the assessment pieces of the moon writing I created for free HERE.

Enjoy!!

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Learning about the Moon

Sunday, March 16, 2014

In first grade we are learning about the moon. I used April's packet from ChalkTalk at teacherspayteachers. She has some useful ideas for learning about the moon. We started our study by learning about the phases of the moon. We began by watching a Brain Pop Jr. video about the moon. I read the section of moon phases in the book Moon by Gail Gibbons.

Then we discussed the phases of the moon and created them together. Some children were asked to label the phases, others were asked to write them down.

Enjoy!

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What Animal Skin Are You In?

Saturday, March 8, 2014

In Kindergarten we are working on animals. We recently learned about animal coverings and how all animals have different types. We started out by reading this simple book I made.