Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Practicing Numbers in the Teens

We have been busy this week (in between snow/ice days) practicing numbers in the teens.  Most of my students had a pretty good grasp on rote counting but I quickly discovered that they did not truly understand the order of the numbers or have a good handle on which numbers were larger and smaller.  They struggle with counting forward and backward from a number other than a benchmark number and they cannot explain why one number is larger or smaller than another.  One game that we are going to use to practice numerical order (and some logic skills) is Nearby Teens.  I found this game on k-5 math teaching resources and since I have a smart board as one of my digital math stations,  I adapted it to use there.  I love how it turned out with the cute monsters!  Hop on over to my TPT store to check it out!

Cheers!

Ellen

Saturday, January 25, 2014

The Gruffalo & Animoto

My techno-babies absolutely LOVED the book The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson!  I used this book to work with them on the skill of visualizing the character & setting, using describing words,  and making character maps.  First I read the book but stopped short of the part where the mouse actually sees the gruffalo.  We discussed, drew, and charted (using shared writing) and used the text to prove what we knew about the gruffalo.  We then continued reading to confirm our thinking.  The kids were absolutely amazed with how close we came to the actual revealed creature!  Next we each made a cut out gruffalo and watched the video.  When their artwork was finished,  they took pictures of them, uploaded them to animoto.  Then,  I made a bulleting board of their work and  I compiled them into a short video to share them with parents. Easy Peasy.  If you haven't tried,  animoto.  I highly encourage you to give it a try.  
Enjoy, Ellen

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Frog & Toad Animated Storytelling

My kindergarten students used their i-pads with the face talk app and i-movie to animate their puppets from Frog & Toad.  They did all the work!  We read the story several times,  Made the puppets and practiced a reader's theater play based on the story. They then used the cameras, animated the mouths,  & recorded the voices all on their own!  I only compiled them into one movie.  Gotta love those techno-babies!