Learning how to Take Great Photos

In my kindergarten and first grade classes, students have been investigating what makes a good photo. Students identified 3 qualities of a very good photo:

1. Fill the screen with what is important
2. Make sure it is clear
3. Photo should be right-side up

Here a few examples of photos that some students took during this lesson.

Creation Stations - Surpassing my Expectations

I was prepping stations for my first kindergarten class at The LOFT - Creation Stations and a colleague saw me pull out the Popsicle Airplane engineering station.  He asked if I was sure I wanted to use that station with 5 year olds.  I did agree that it seemed ambitious and could end in a total flop, but decided I was more interested to see what they could build by simply looking at an image of a bi-plane.  I could only use the image as most of these students can't even read yet.  

Needless to say, I was flabbergasted at how quickly the three boys took to this station, investigating the materials and seeing how they could be attached together to design a bi-plane.  After all three students were able to use a clothespin as the body of the plane and a popsicle stick as the front wings, two of the boys felt they had accomplished their goal and engaged in dramatic play with their newly created bi-plane.  That is, until the other student continued to study the image and went on to add a paperclip for the horizontal stabilizer.  After that, he broke a popsicle stick into half and used one half of it for the vertical rudder.  Of course, his classmates who were originally content with their planes began looking at his and thinking, "I want to add that to mine too!", which meant they went back to designing as well. The other student was still so engrossed with his bi-plane, that he added broken bamboo skewers as struts and as a way to attach buttons to the plane for the wheels.  Lastly, he glued another button as the rear wheel directly to the body of the plane and finished his design off with a pipe cleaner propeller.

I was absolutely impressed at how this 5 year old student had shown character and critical thinking skills to create his very own bi-plane model with only certain materials available based on a simple diagram.  I will never underestimate our youngest learners at school again!

Rules for my School iPad

This year, for both my initial kindergarten and first grade ipad lessons I took a different approach to our digital citizenship agreement.  Instead of just sharing with students what the school rules for ipads were, I engaged the students in a discussion on what kind of rules they have with devices at home.  I was super impressed at how quickly children shared rules about time limits, only using ipads on Saturdays, not being able to download apps, not knowing their parents' passwords, having to ask permission to use the device, certain apps (YouTube and "war games") were off limits, etc...  We then agreed upon which of those rules should pertain to school.  Below is an example of the school ipad agreements for one class.

The SAS Elementary School's Top 10 Apps List

Teachers for each grade level independently completed a survey identifying their top 10 apps, the apps that they used most frequently in the classroom.  The graphic below shows the compiled data.

Lego WEDO 2.0 Rover Races

Students in Ms. Anderson's class had a blast building, programming, and racing their Lego WEDO 2.0 rovers.  

Discovering 'Makey Makeys'

A few students in Miss Kumar's class decided to undertake a Makey Makey exploration for their scheduled time at Creation Stations.  They began simply by opening the box, connecting the Makey Makey to a desktop computer, and following the directions on the How to page on the Makey Makey website (http://makeymakey.com/how-to/classic/). Step 5, 'Play some Makey Makey drums!' required collaborative problem solving as the students Makey Makey seemed to only work some of the time.  They discovered that they drums wouldn't play if they didn't have the Makey Makey grounded. Once they solved that problem the drum sounds were abundant.  

After that, these two students designed their own drum controllers using small cardboard rectangles, tin foil, and glue.  Their were so excited about their accomplishments that several other students from the class were intrigued to learn what they had discovered.  

They quickly crowded around the computer for a short 'show-and-tell' about the station.  I look forward to seeing how many different students will be interested in this Makey Makey station when Miss Kumar's class arrives again next week.

Discovery Time Sewing

Ms. Analu's class has been diligently working on their passion projects for months.  Some students have successfully completed 1-2 cycles of the personal time inquiry while the sewing group has persevered with completing their first cycle of learning over this four month period.   Today, several of this group's members accomplished their goal of sewing a stuffed toy!  They were so excited to have a finished stuffed animal that they made all by themselves.  I was so proud of the students' ability to work hard and to not give up even when they observed classmates tasting success with their projects and moving on to other discoveries.