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

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

Ahhhh! End of the Year Chaos!

Wow!  It has been a couple of weeks since I have posted!  We were sorting out a family emergency and it has sure been a whirlwind couple of weeks.  It is a crazy time of year.  As the year is winding down, i am always overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork and meetings and other things that come up at the end of a school year.  I have decided that I am going to spend the next couple of posts talking about technology that helps me try to stay on top of all this craziness! I am by no means an expert and I would also love to hear from others about what they use to help manage their chaos. :)

This week I want to talk about Evernote.  I just started using this program a couple months ago and I absolutely LOVE it.  I have it downloaded on my home computer,  my android phone, and on my school computer (YES.... it wasn't blocked by our filter!)  With evernote,  I am able to create all sorts of notes and categorize them.  For example... I have created folders for each subject at school.  I also have created tags for each student.  Let's say that Joey has done poorly on an addition math recording sheet in math stations.  He was supposed to use manipulatives to act out a subtraction problem then he was supposed to draw a picture of his manipulatives and record the subtraction number sentence that describes picture.  Instead,  Joey recorded an addition number sentence rather than subtraction.  Clearly Joey needs some small group or one on one reteaching.  In the past,  I would have either kept his recording sheet OR I would have to run to the copy machine, make a copy, send the original home, blah,blah, blah...  Not now!  with evernote, I take out my phone, snap a picture of the recording sheet, create a note, tag it with Joey's name and file it in the math folder.  Now I can search on any device that I have evernote on and my note with pictures and annotations will be available.  I can also add the reteaching evidence to the note when I am finished!  Super easy and convenient for paper phobic people like me!  I have used evernote to bring evidence to ARDs, planning meetings, and to make to do lists!  I absolutely love it and I hope to become more and more paperless.

www.evernote.com