11.21.13 Thankfully for iPads

So today we did something new and it was awesome. Well I thought it was awesome, I think the kids did as well. We worked on the iPads that our librarian let us barrow. I wanted to get the kids off of the computer because it seemed that it was getting stagnant. We split the kids up as equally as we could and had them sit together at large tables. I brought in construction paper that I had lying around and asked them to create a three to four slide narrative. Funny enough when they paired themselves up, the girls sat at one table and the boys sat at the other so when they were working on the story line, you could diffidently see how each group worked out. The girls were very into it and wanted their story line to flow and the boys all had their own ideas and wanted to do what ever they wanted. A little boy named Dillion, had his own agenda entirely...... he was a little harder to get to focus. After picking out their story line they wanted to cover, we asked them to draw a part of it and also write a description.
From there, we took pictures using the iPads but we let the kids (very carefully) handle them and take their own pictures. Many of them could use it better than they used the computers which was kind of surprising to me. Most of them were in first grade and had been going over lessons about the pilgrims and Plymouth and so they, because of Thanksgiving coming up, picked to do a story about the Mayflower and the first thanksgiving. After taking pictures of the images they had drawn we put together a short presentation on Animoto. I was thinking we would use iMovie as we had been taught to make movies in class but because we were working with kindergartners and first graders, we thought this might be a little easier. They were able to do most of it themselves and it turned out to be a very good little presentation about "The First Thanksgiving".  
They did all the work: took pictures, cropped them, picked out a the theme of the slide show (girls fire, boys falling leaves....not kidding) and gave each picture a description. Each student thought of what they wanted to add and typed it in. I thought this was really interesting because they would help each other but never did it for the other person. The slide show even had music that they could attach to it which they picked through very thoroughly. The boys, like I said before, pick out a falling leaves background with an acoustic guitar to accompany, which made the presentation entertaining because the first slide was about the Mayflower in which Henry labeled it " And everybody Died".....yeah. But the fact that they picked this all out together was what got me: it gave them the power and the ambition to want to finish the project. Had I given them strict instruction on what to do, I'm not sure they would have followed.  
The girls also did a great job. They had a flaming background but no music and their images they had created were a little more detailed. I believe the students learned a lot and so did I. It was interesting to see the react to each other when they had to work together. They have had to work together before but this showed a different side of their team work skills. The only thing I might have changed for next time would be to have them come up with their own story line entirely and not suggest something. All in all, it was probably my favorite day so far.

11.14.13 Dino Day

So today was a pretty entertaining day. We only had a group of 6 kids because the book fair was going on and the facilities that the other kids were able to use were being accessed for the book fair area. This was a blessing. These are great kids, they are just really high strung and I don't think my Tech Club partner John has ever had to watch little kids before. He sometimes tends to freeze up just a little bit when they become too roudy. But he did a great job for the project that he found for the kids to do. We worked from a website that we had the kids find, we helped them type it in but they navigated it most of the way, on Scholastic Kids that had them learning about Dinosaurs.
There was a small quiz at the beginning that they went throw and most of them understood the questions pretty well. It asked them which types of dinosaurs looked like what and if there are any dinosaurs were still living today.... most of them yelled, "Chickens!!!" That was pretty funny.  (I think I have a good sense of humor and there are times during instructions when it is really hard not to giggle at an answer they produce.) From the test we went onto the a "Construct a Dino" activity. I think that giving them the test before we started was a good but easy way for them to remember what they had learned about dinosaurs and it helped them to create dinos that would be able to get around. Through the website, the kids were able to pick which type of dino they wanted, Herbivore or Omnivore, and from there the site gave them a list of heads, bodies, tails, and legs to create a dino that they think would survive a "journey". They were able to make each part bigger or smaller by a control used at the bottom of the screen controlled by the key board. I found this helpful because it gets them acquainted with  using the key board and having them memorize which keys are where.
As for constructing a dino, many thought that it would be a good idea to have a larger headed dino paired with a smaller bodied one. They quickly found out that their dinos wouldn't last the journey and they would have to start all over again. They began to take the challenge more seriously and with help from each other created a dino that could finish the journey as well as fend off predators or "grab a bite to eat".
They all seemed to be really into the creating a dino that would work and therefore began to remember which keys to press and what they were supposed to be looking for to create a successful dino.

redo for 10.31.13 Halloween

This was originally done last week but for some reason it failed to post and I had to redo it.

Today we worked on Spiders. John and I figured the kids were going to be wired on candy and so we focused the lesson on multiple areas so that the kids wouldn't get too out of control. Surprisingly they were well behaved and so the lesson went pretty well. As before we had them watch an 8 min clip from the Bill Nye Spiders episode. It was a good way for the kids to get focused on what we were going to work on today. The 1st and 2nd graders have been studding insects all year and we thought this would be a great intro to another bug lesson.  They did really well with watching the video and because it was something they were already learning in school they were able to connect to it more. They found it really interesting that a Daddy Long Leg is not actually a spider. The Kindergartners were fascinated by learning about the body parts of the spider.....it may have been the candy too......hmm.


After the video we asked them to go to Google Images and find their favorite spider. Many of them, do to knowledge or fear, picked the black widow spider. Many of these kids know the danger of a black widow but one little girl picked it because she liked the color. Through this entire time they were strangely quite.... all just really into what they were doing. After finding two spiders they liked, we asked that they draw them out on TuxPaint. As I said before, many had picked Black Widows so they were able to get done rather quickly, so we had them get on the National Geographic site and find a spider from another country. Many were finding spiders from the rain forest and said they wanted to use them in a class project. I felt this was a great connection to what they were doing in their class room studies. Although it is a very basic tool to just Google an image, many of these kids don't even know how to type yet because they are still learning their alphabet. This is a good way for them to use their phonics and to learn how to use the desk tops.

I think next time, we might try to

11.7.13 Insects

Today we worked with the insect theme again. We started off with having the kids get onto Discovery Kids. com. This is a great site because many of the games are based on learning technology and other areas they are already working on in school. There math games that deal with the rain forest and social study activities that deal with the rivers in the U.S as well as the populations around them. We had the kids take two quizzes on insects to begin with and then had them work on another project. They were a little unruly today for some reason and the class clown, Ryan who's in Kindergarten, was dancing to the librarian computer music. She was watching a tutorial on iPads.....it was pretty funny, but I couldn't laugh because we were trying to get them to calm down. It's a weird thing trying to be authoritative and not being able to joke with them when they are like that because I'm used to joking with the kids I babysit.

Anyway, we had them take two quizzes on insects. This might seem harsh but if they passed both quizzes they were able to go onto the funner activity on Discovery Kids. If they only passed one they were able to go the lesser fun of the two activities. Most of them did very well and ended up on the second activity which was a game called Puterbugs. The less exciting of the two activities was to go onto Insects.org and find their favorite bug. Because many of the computers weren't connected to the internet, they were grouped into pairs or threes and did well figuring out the quizzes and deciding on which game they wanted to play. Puterbugs, misleading because of the name, actually showed the kids how to used certain technologies such as webcams, i pads, and geo maps. It used bugs to direct them but wasn't actually about insects. Although it didn't follow our lesson it turned out to be a really great activity for them to work on. The kids that were on the first activity had an interesting time figuring out their favorite bug. I think there may have been too many choices for them but they were able to single out what ones they thought were cool. They drew them out as best they could and typed one thing about their insect.

Overall I think it was a successful day, even if it was a "happy accident" kind of lesson. It worked well because the kids were able to work together on a computer and figure out the problem. We still need to be more put together but next week is Dinosaurs and I think it will go better than today did.