A New Take on an Old Idea

Plenty of teachers have either heard of or tried having a stuffed classroom pet that travels home with students and asking children to write about the animal's adventure away from school.  Some commonly used ideas that tie in with class read-alouds are: Flat Stanley, Tacky the Penguin, or The World According to Humphrey.  Mrs. Woody has put a 21st century spin on a journal going home with students and she is asking that kids blog about the animal's experience.  Her first grade students take a photo of themselves with the pet and then email the photo along with a message to the student-run blog.  What a fantastic way for students to see a real purpose for blogging!

Reading iPad Tech Integration

First grade students learned about characters feelings and how they change in their unit, Readers Meet the Characters in Our Books.  Students could show their learning by making a Doodlecast Pro of images from the book along with a narration of how the character's feelings changed.  I have included a teacher sample that can be used as a model below.

Reading Makes Me Feel Good

Festival of Stories is starting in the Primary School this week!  Students will be inspired by Todd Parr's book Reading Makes You Feel Good.  In Technology class, students will mimic Todd Parr's drawing style to create images of what makes them feel good.  Below are samples created by Mr. Mike's class.

Daily Weather Check

First grade students will be studying weather and record the daily temperature and cloud coverage for a particular city to track its weather.  At the end, students can compare various weather patterns from cities around the world with their classmates. 

Daily, students will:
1.  Choose a city  
2.  Click on its 'globe'  
3.  Click on the link to find out that city's weather for the day
4.  Record the weather on their monthly weather calendar

Fantastic Films

Today we had thirteen second grade students work together with the PS Tech Coaches to create three short videos highlighting the importance of our SAS Core Values. We had an hour to brainstorm and plan in the morning and then an hour to film and edit before lunch.  The link to the playlist is below:

Click here for the SAS Core Values Video Playlist

QR Code Book Reviews

Students in first grade are going to make QR Code Book Review Posters!

Kelli's Weather Report

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The new clip-n-clip feature in iMovie is amazing! Here is a short sample I made quickly for our first graders who will be studying weather in January...can't wait to try it with them.