Thursday, August 2, 2012

Flipping Kindergarten

Hi friends! Well,  I am back from a wonderful month of vacation and I am super excited about school starting up soon!  I have been into my room and have the furniture out and arranged. (Actually, I made my teenage sons arrange it!  heehee)  Now I am thinking about where and how to go from here.  Over the past year, I have really been contemplating the idea of flipped classrooms.  I am really jazzed about the idea and have been trying to think of ways to accomplish that goal in kindergarten.  Last year, I assigned reading homework via edmodo.  This year,  I think I am going to try some at home letter/sound instruction videos. Every year my team sends home handwriting homework and asks the kids to find/think of things for a particular letter and draw a picture.  We also always have questions from parents asking about the "No More Letter of the Week" letter sound poems. It is difficult to explain the poems to the parents without giving a mini-workshop so, with that said,  I decided that if they could see me demonstrate, it might help. Basically, I just used my webcam to record the video and then uploaded it to you tube.  I know it is not the most technologically advanced production and it is really weird and embarrassing to see myself on the video but if it helps the digital natives...I will get over it!  I have uploaded one letter video as an example and I hope you enjoy it.  If you have any other ideas for flipping K,  I would love to hear about them!

Ellen