Monster Movies!

Recently on Instagram, I posted one of my new favorite projects for the month of October, Monster Movies!

Last year, I had my students create monster videos, using the app Chatterpix. At the time, my students were struggling with character traits, and chatterpix lended itself perfectly to helping my students create monsters with clear and specific character traits. However, this year's class is struggling more with basic story plot, specifically with understanding the difference between beginning, middle and end. So as any teacher would do, we made a new type of movie! 

We used the app Stop Motion Studio to create short monster movies with a clear beginning, middle and end! Students designed their stories and created simple Story boards. They then filmed them, making sure to barely move their monsters while they took the pictures! When all was done, they presented them to the class, making sure to point out the clear Beginning, Middle and End. Here you can see a picture of how they created their monster studios!

This app is incredible and so easy to use! I recommend it to everyone! I love that my little Second graders could use it in seconds! Check out three of our final videos below! They're super short but super cute! 

The Dance Off

The Great Escape

   

Soccer Friends 

I love how in that last one, the one monster gets hurt while playing soccer and his friend helps him up! So adorable! Definitely going to be using this app more this year!

Halloween Recap!

Hey everyone! I can't believe how fast the year is going! I blinked and October just flew! I probably should have been posting as it went, but with parent teacher conferences, progress reports, field trips, and school scheduled functions, I got a little behind. But I'm back and ready to do an October recap. Here are my top 5 favorite things we did last month! :)

#1: Reading Comprehension and Story Development: Below you can see my second graders holding up their Jack O'lanterns in front of one of my favorite October projects, "Our Halloween characters!"

How are cute are they!? I just love this picture! 

During October, we worked a lot on the development of character. We read fun October stories, analyzed how characters are described, and how they can change as a story progresses. 

Students created Halloween characters using paper, scissors, and glue. (no drawing or pencils allowed! Just cutting!) Then, they have to describe their character using proper organization and structure. We share them as a class and hang them on our Second grade writing wall! They each turn out so unique and different! 

 We then read the book, "Too Many Pumpkins" by Linda White and discuss the character of Rebecca Estelle. We talked about how her feelings towards pumpkins changed over the course of the story and we mapped out the evidence from the story that shows this change. We also wrote about what we would do with too many pumpkins and create Jack o'lanterns, just like Rebecca Estelle, to hang in the classroom windows for our Halloween Carnival.

#2: Math Manipulatives: This month we also used tons of fun manipulatives from the Dollar Store and Party City to make Math and 3 digit addition more exciting! 3 digit numbers are written on eyeballs, witch fingers, and gravestone cards to create engaging ways to compare, order, and add 3 digit numbers. 

                 

Here you can see the kids using the eyeballs and grooves in our school benches to order the eyeballs from least to greatest. You can also see the kids using the witch fingers to add together on whiteboards and the gravestone addition problems in a fun Halloween cup to solve 3 digit addition with no regrouping. 

Manipulatives make strengthening concepts that much easier! They are naturally more engaging and fun. There is so much you can do with them! Here are some other ways we used them this month! 

• We used the cards to play a scoot game to review 3 digit addition with no regrouping.
• We used the eyeballs to practice greater than and less than symbols. 
• We used the witch fingers to practice adding more than two addends.
• We hid the eyeballs around the classroom and went on a scavenger hunt to create Math problems. 
• We even combined the app, Doceri, to create instructional videos using our manipulatives to explain how to solve 3 digit addition problems.

Here you can see the eyeballs being used to compare and order numbers at a Math station!

#3. Quotation Marks with Candy Corn: What is one of the most exciting parts about Halloween? Well... the candy of course. In October as part of our study on characters, we learn about dialogue and use candy corn to learn about quotation marks! 

Students pick a scary Halloween character to say something. We write our sentences on strips and glue the candy down. We then create silly stories about visiting a Haunted House. In the story, Halloween characters talk to the author. We focus on the importance of differentiating what words we use, so as to make our story more interesting. You can find this activity here if you want to try it next year with your kiddos! 

#4 Halloween Technology: As a Blended Learning teacher, I am constantly trying to use technology in the classroom with my kiddos to help transform their learning, build deeper connections, and apply their understanding.  

During October, we used Doodle Buddy Stamps to help solve Halloween Word Problems. Below is a video I took of two of my students solving a repeated addition problem about spiders and their webs. You can see how they used the stamps to create a visualization of their thought process. They then created their own word problems! 

Here is an example of one of the problems they created! 

We also used the app, Chatterpix, to create Monster stories that outline what a Monster likes to do on Halloween. Students used clay to create silly monsters. They then wrote a script from their monster's perspective and used chatterpix to make them talk. 

We likewise used another app called Pic Collage, to create collages that show some of the fun Halloween stuff we did in class in October! 

#5 Dress up: Ok, so the last and final favorite for the month isn't so much a classroom activity but I loved it anyways! My primary staff dressed up as Jurassic Park for Halloween! Some of us dressed as escaped dinosaurs, while others dressed as the tourists being chased! I just love Halloween! We had such an awesome time! 

A look into my Reading Rotations

Below is a lesson that I submitted for a class I'm currently taking. It explains one teacher led rotation. It's a little formal, but I thought that it might be an interesting insight into how I use Reading Rotations and Ipads in my class this year with Blended Learning! Enjoy! 

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(Once a day, my students participate in what we call Reading Rotations. Students rotate through 3 stations for 20 minutes each. In one station, students meet with a teacher. Monday through Wednesday the teacher runs guided reading groups with leveled readers. Thursdays and Fridays the teacher leads students in learning new apps on the iPad or in utilizing alternating reading apps including but not limited to “Endless ABC,” “Educreations,” and “Storykit.”

In another station, students are asked to complete what is called the Paper Station. The Paper station likewise alternates throughout the week. Mondays and Tuesdays are worksheets that are designed to assess students’ understanding of a phonics skill. Wednesdays asses parts of speech and and/or sentence structure and Thursdays and Fridays are left for word making manipulatives and Free Choice or prompted Journal Writing.

The Final Station that students participate in each day during this rotation time is the IPad Station. In this station, students are given a choice of taking Accelerated Reading Quizzes, working on RAZ kids or taking pre-determined quizzes on Scootpad. Occasionally I mix it up and require they use a discussion board app like Lino.)

The Lesson below comes from one part of my Teacher station. It shows how I might use the apps “story kit” and “flash cards” to work with my students on reading and writing the past tense of irregularly spelled verbs.

Content Area:  English Language Arts

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1d Form and use the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs (e.g., sat, hid, told).

Objective:

• SWBAT identify the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs.
• SWBAT rewrite present tense verbs in the past tense within their own writing.

Procedure:

The learning center I have created utilizes the app Story kit and the app Flash cards. Students will work with a teacher in a small group during Reading Rotations. Focus for the small group instruction lends itself from an earlier whole class led instruction time and attempts to meet students in that group’s needs. This lesson will start with the teacher playing a short game with the students on her teacher iPad using the app, “Flashcards”. The teacher will show the present tense form of a verb. Students will as a group determine the past tense. When they have decided on an answer they will press the app and watch the card flip over to see if they are correct. After playing the game for 4 minutes, students will open the app, “Story kit.” They will create a new book, and title it, “Today and yesterday.”  The teacher will give them a present tense verb. They will create a sentence following the format on page 1, “Today I (present tense verb).“ They will then flip to page 2, and create a new sentence following the format, “Yesterday I (past tense of the verb.) They will complete a total of 8 pages for 4 verbs. They will be given a choice during their Ipad station the following day to illustrate their pages. (To differentiate further within group… teacher will assign different verbs to different students for the story kit portion of the center)

Materials Needed:

• 1 iPad per student in group (about 4 to 5)
• One teacher iPad
• Story kit app on student iPads
• Flashcards app on Teacher iPads

Assessment/ Review

Teacher will observe the discussion during the flashcards activity, identifying which students in the group quickly come to the answer and which need more time or practice with determining the past tense of irregularly formed verbs. She will record her observations.

Teacher will also observe the students’ created verb books.

Teacher will encourage during a share time for students to swap iPads with others, review and read each other’s “Today and Yesterday” books. 

A New Page: My Second Graders

As part of the Blended Learning Initiative at my new school, me and my amazing partner teacher, Lisa, are teaching our Second Graders about technology through the creation of a class blog. Students are writing and planning the posts that we update on a weekly basis about our classroom. They write about things that they're learning or projects they're working on. It's an amazing way to document what we've done throughout the year, and increase the communication channel with parents. It also acts an effective way to utilize technology in an effort to teach students how to ethically and responsibly approach technology and the internet.

Some of the topics we are using the blog to teach about are....

• Online protection, and privacy (never posting pictures of faces, or using real names)
• The importance of making sure one thinks, and rationally evaluates before sending email, posting on Facebook or using any other mode of technology
• Cyber bullying (how not to act towards others)
• How to use technology to research for legitimate resources. 
• How to plan out writing, and edit it before making it public
• and many others.

Anyways, the blog is officially updated and students have begun to post. Below is a picture of the main page. The link is in the bar above, as well as below the picture. Please enjoy the new second grade blog! Let me know what you think.

http://holyspiritschool2mc.blogspot.com

This year...

As part of my switch to California and to a new school, I also switched to a brand new model of instuction. I no longer am an Expeditionary Learning teacher but rather a Blended Learning one. Both styles of education encourage their teachers to use research based and effective techniques on a daily basis. They also contain similar components of a project based learning style, however, they direct their attention and focus to a different emphasis.

Expeditionary Learning strives towards student understanding of the learning process, and the use of high quality work on products that span both subjects, and standards. It also looks at reason and motive behind learning, engaging students in its aim to produce work for an audience.

Whereas Blended Learning combines projects and learning with the integration of technology, attempting to meet the needs of each and every student, while also encouraging them to open their eyes and minds to the 21st century. Accommodating, and adapting apps on iPads and or laptops aid in instruction, practice and assessment at the click of a button. They increase the ease of differentiation, so as to help teachers best meet the needs, levels and interests of each student in class. While also acting as way to engage and encourage students to think, wonder and explore the world around them while working on different technology infused projects.

Both models are amazing and so well researched. I have already seen their effectiveness and the deepening of learning and understanding that they create in both a classroom and school community. I feel so blessed and excited to have had the opportunity to receive some training on both. And although I'm just beginning to skim the surface with Blended Learning, I can't wait to see how it improves my style and overall effectiveness as well.

This year is going to be an extremely tough year transitioning from what I know... to what I need to be for this new school. It's going to be a lot of work and I'm sure I'm going to fall flat on my face numerous times, but I'm excited. This year is going to be an amazing and enlightening adventure.