Personal Best

The latest buzz word around school that I am attaching my procedures to is "personal best".  We have always told students to "do their best"  and "try your best"  and "do your best work"... but what does that mean?  Obviously it varies from kid to kid, as it does from adult to adult.  Intertwined in this is the notion of Multiple Intelligences, that we all learn differently and display what we've learned differently. So to some, writing a paper is torture while to others, a treat.  To some, getting up to give a speech would be frightening, while others would enjoy it immensely.

So, in order to highlight "personal best" in my classroom, as well as find ways to teach students what it means to do and give their personal best, I began searching for ideas.

I came across an awesome blog post by Emma McDonald, co-founder of Inspiring Teachers and author of several books.  This blog post is full of thoughts of what it means to her to give your personal best.  She mentions a poem in it that is worth pasting here.  She mentions that this would be a great way to start the first day of school.  I am definitely copying the poem for use in my classroom and/or the hall.  It extends the idea of personal best past this assignment or this school day or year and into the notion that what a student learns to give as personal best will carry through until adulthood, which will mean a much more fulfilling and successful life.

Here is the poem:

Pretty Good  by Charles Osgood

There once was a pretty good student, Who sat in a pretty good class And was taught by a pretty good teacher, Who always let pretty good pass. He wasn't terrific at reading, He wasn't a whiz-bang at math; But for him education was leading Straight down a pretty good path. He didn't find school too exciting, But he wanted to do pretty well, And he did have some trouble with writing And nobody taught him to spell. When doing arithmetic problems Pretty good was regarded as fine. Five plus five needn't always add up to be ten, A pretty good answer was nine. The pretty good class that he sat in Was part of a pretty good school, And the student was not an exception, On the contrary, he was the rule. The pretty good school that he went to Was in a pretty good town. And nobody seemed to notice He could not tell a verb from a noun. The pretty good student in fact was Part of a pretty good mob. And the first time he knew what he lacked was When he looked for a pretty good job. It was then, when he sought a position, He discovered that life could be tough, And he soon had a sneaky suspicion Pretty good might not be good enough. The pretty good town in our story Was part of a pretty good state, Which had pretty good aspirations, And prayed for a pretty good fate. There once was a pretty good nation, Pretty proud of the greatness it had, Which learned much too late If you want to be great, Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.

A Plethora of Online Math Game Sites

So my students in technology lab LOVE FunBrain.com and Cool Math , and maybe they aren't tired of playing them, but I am ready for some variety in the lab!
Here is a list of some new sites to try out.   The list came from a blog entry entitled "Ten Best Online Games for Homeschool Math" by Jimmee, a homeschooling mom.  (Low and behold, I go to her main page and there lies a blog entry about computer programming for homeschoolers!)

On to the math sites:
*Note: I will post a review of each of these on here as an update when my students have tried them.

• Number Nut
• Math is Fun.com
• Hooda Math
• Arcademic Skill Builders
• Math Game Time

One more not on her list that came up in Google search:  Sheppard Software Math.  The younger students have played a handful of games on this site and enjoyed them, so this is one I definitely want to check out for my Kindergarten students.

Reflections on Recent Lessons

The third nine weeks has just begun, and already the technology lab at KCSMA is a whirlwind of activity.  Here is a short synopsis of what I have been doing with each grade level as well as my thoughts on the success of each lesson.

SIXTH GRADE:  This nine weeks I am teaching a first period 6th grade connections class.  This first period is only 6th grade, whereas my 6th grade connections have been mixed with different 5th grade groups on different days.  It was quite a challenge to get used to have the same 6th graders everyday with a changing group of 5th graders, and figuring a way to teach different lessons to 2 groups at the same time.  The tool I found to help was Edmodo.  The students love the familiar format, and I enjoy the secure learning environment where I can post links, assignments, polls, quizzes as well as (a recent plus) find educational game and learning apps for students to access.
In grad school last semester, I created an entire online class in Edmodo which the 6th graders are now working through.  This is the semester I get graded on my facilitation of this class.  My goal with this experience is that students come away with an understanding of how classes online work, as at some point before graduating from high school, these 6th graders will be required to take an online class. Their college experience will definitely be peppered with online learning.

FIFTH GRADE:  The 5th graders are also on Edmodo, and this week most of the classes have spent time reviewing the apps that I purchased with Edmodo credit and then voting on their favorite app.  One class completed the lesson which will be used this week; They listened to a 5 minute science podcast, took notes while listening, and then created a document with their thoughts on the podcast.  This document was then uploaded to the assignment in Edmodo.
*Reflection:  The students were able to choose the format of this reflection on the podcast, either a Word document or a picture drawn and captioned in Paint.  I would also like to include Glogster as a possibility for an assignment like this, if the bandwidth at school will support use of Glogster.

FOURTH GRADE:  Fourth graders are on round 2 of specials where they are working on a 7 slide "All About Me" Power Point presentation.  Week 1 began with a demonstration slideshow, an example from a 6th grader, as well as a planning document for each slide.  This week, students are adding pictures from the Internet that they have saved to their computer and then inserted into Powerpoint.  Some students emailed me photos or brought flash drives from home of personal photos to use.  All students are practicing editing text and formatting backgrounds.  Next round of specials, we will attempt to put the finishing touches on the slideshows, with animations and transitions.  It may take one more week of technology lab to finish up the slideshows.  I will give the students the option to share them with the class, or only share them with me.
*Reflection:  I can honestly say that at least 80% of the students are seemingly enjoying this task as well as doing a great job of learning the steps of creating a presentation.  I know this will come in handy for them in years to come with school projects.  I only wish I had an assistant to walk around the room and reach more students during their 45 minute class.

SECOND & THIRD GRADE:  Third graders will be moving on to learning the task of cutting and pasting, as the second graders have learned this week.  Second grade has been a doing a great job with this task, which is small but powerful throughout the years of typing book reports, research papers, etc.
*Reflection:  Some second graders have already been exposed to this skill, and some were learning it for the first time.  Most of them tried hard to accomplish the task, which was the level I was hoping to achieve with them.  It will be interesting to see what third graders do this week.

FIRST GRADE & KINDERGARTEN:  First grade and Kindergarten are both utilizing the ABC Magnet Game on ABCYA.COM.  Kindergarten is using the letters to spell their first and last names, with emphasis on capital letters beginning each word.  First grade is creating a sentence with the letters, with emphasis on capitalization skills, punctuation skills, and spacing skills as well as sentence creativity.  Also, during the demonstration with first grade, we are using the Cloze technique to identify what word could come next in the sentence based on the letter I select.

*Reflection:  The students are doing well with this short lesson.  I am enjoying their sentences, and especially liked the comment made by one student yesterday, asking if he could make a number sentence.  This tells me what his interests lean toward!  Another student created this image, which intrigued me to search into place value identification, so that we could determine exactly what this number was!  See below:

Organize Your Child's Artwork~!

I am the mom of 4 girls, so I know the excitement from the presenting of a new creation of theirs, whether in pen and paper, crayon and marker, clay, macaroni, pipe cleaners, etc.  I also know the stress of feeling horrible about not being able to keep it all.  We have moved three times in the last 4 years, and all of that "stuff" is heavy to lug around from place to place!

Therefore, I am very excited about this new app!  Only for iPhone now, Android is supposedly coming out in September (I will update with a new post as soon as it does).  The app is called Artkive, and according to this post on Daily Candy.  Here is a quote from that blog:

"Simply snap a picture of the artwork and the app automatically tags each image with your child’s name, grade, and date created. Add a title or description and then share the gallery with other parental units or whomever you invite to your circle.
But hold tight: The real genius of Artkive will be realized a few months into the school year (your refrigerator door is still clear!) when you’ve collected enough images to turn your digital collection into a customized coffee-table book with just the press of a button."


OH MAN!  Say WHAT?!?!?!  Again, I have boxes of stuff at my Mother in Law's in Louisiana, just waiting for SOMETHING to be done with.  Now I have an answer!  And I had to share with all you moms and pops and grandmoms and grandpops out there.

If you try it out, let me know!  I am anxiously awaiting the Android version.

A drawing by a first grader

A first grader drew this today in technology lab using Microsoft Paint.  He really wanted to print it out and bring it home, so we decided on this green alternative.

A super bird!

Baking Our Own Cajun Cornbread Boy

In class this week, we have read The Cajun Cornbread Boy by Dianne de Las Casas.

Here is a little preview of the book:

All students grades K, 1, 2, and 3 will have heard the story as of Monday the 17th.
I told the students I was going to put the recipe at the end of the book onto my blog SO here it is!

 

The students will tell you that, in the story, the Cajun Cornbread Boy had 2 chili peppers for the eyes, a peppercorn for the nose, and a link of boudin sausage for the mouth.

Actually, boudin is sold at the Kennesaw WalMart and the Acworth Wal-Mart.  It is a sausage made with rice and meat.  SOOOO good grilled!  I also like to cook it in a pan, and then cook lima beans (or butter beans as we call them in South Louisiana) and pour the creamy cooked butter beans over the boudin.

Here is a picture of the boudin that is sold at WalMart locally:

Anyway, there's my contribution to culture education for the week!  Enjoy, cher! 

Laissez le bons temps rouler!!!

Recent Happenings in Technology Lab Grades 4-6

The K-3 post was getting a little wordy, so I thought I would split the upper grades into a new post.

• 4th Grade:  As you know, we have been exploring the world of blogging for the last few months.  I can honestly say, I never expected it to take off like it did, although I was hoping that the students would enjoy it.  In fact, I had to turn off viewing rights for posts and comments temporarily, until I have a chance to catch up with reading and approving posts!  I am thrilled that students are practicing their typing skills in a context that is meaningful.  These students are also realizing the importance of writing for an audience. 
  
  So, the blogs will be utilized throughout the year.  However, we are going to move on starting Thursday to a few new technology concepts.
  
  The students are studying about European Explorers in Social Studies.  Therefore, we are going to implement technology into these lessons to approximate the distance between where the explorers set sail and where they made landfall, utilizing Google Maps.
  
  The week after the Thanksgiving break, we are going to place these numbers into Excel and create a graph.  I know this will be the first time many students utilize Excel, so I will make this as painless as possible with a ready-made document on each computer.  We will then create a graph that shows the differences between the distances covered by each explorer.  FINGERS CROSSED:  This is a lot to take on as fourth graders, but they are very smart and I know they can rise to the task.
  
• FIFTH GRADE:  I am in the process of getting 5th graders signed up for Edmodo, an online learning platform completely secure for elementary, middle, and high schools.  Once this process is complete, there will be no wondering what we are covering each day, as students will log on to Edmodo and a lesson will be there, or a directive of what to do next. 
  We have explored blogging as well in 5th grade, and last week we experienced a web tool called Wordle.  I am attempting to get Prezi accounts for all students, so that we can explore this presentation software.  In the meantime, we will implement Social Studies standards into a Google Maps/Excel assignment as in 4th grade. 
  
• SIXTH GRADE:  My small but powerful group of 6th graders that are in my class daily have been blazing trails with Edmodo, navigating online learning terrifically.  Yesterday they began planning their "All About Me" Power Point presentations utilizing Google Docs and Google Images.