Winter Break

Fall Session Week 9

Kindergarten Spanish:
A fast and furious day of centers! Since we've been talking about gatos and perros, we read Skippyjon Jones, a cute book about a cat that thinks it is a dog. Our four centers worked with weather, seasons, families, and pets-all the things we've discussed this session. Children did a Dora match game, dressed the weather bear for the appropriate season, did an animal coloring sheet, and built lego "casas" for my toy familia members and their mascotas (pets). Everyone got to do everything-fast and furious!

B1-2 Technology:
This week was the epitome of effort and perseverance as the children used Microsoft Word to type the writing assesment stories they have edited in their classroom. This proved very challenging to some, who will need to finish next week. For the classes that were not quite ready to type their stories yet, they got to explore the great world of Shidonni, a free site where they created animals, fed them healthy food, and kept them healthy. Try this at home-no registration is needed, although with the free registration you can do more activities. A great way to end the Don't Worry, Be Healthy session. They'll be doing their typing next week and the other classes will hopefully have time to try out Shidonni.

3-4 Technology:
We wrapped up our internet safety lessons by discussing email rules and etiquette, then practicing by sending a Smilebox holiday ecard home to parents. I hope everyone got to see them, they were very cute with customized text and uploaded digital photos. When finished, students could get the idea of a chatroom by chatting with an elf at northpole.com.

Fall Session Week 8

Kindergarten Spanish:
We've expanded our familia once again to include our mascotas, our pets. Our familias have lots of gatos and perros, and even some pez and serpientes! We read My Pig Amarillo by Satomi Ichikawa and made a mascota minibook. We also watched a PBSkids episode of Maya and Miguel where they figure out what to do with their mascota, their parrot Paco, while at school all day.

B1-2 technology:
Instead of keyboard climber, this week we had a new keyboarding game-alph munchies! Since we've been talking alot about healthy food and food groups, we did some microsoft word formatting fun on a paragraph called "Eating a Rainbow." Students moved the title to the center, changed font sizes and styles, and turned color words such as green peas and red apples to the right font color. Lots of fun! We finished class by making a holiday picture in paint with a text box. These pictures will be combined into a class holiday project to be emailed home next week as our present to our families.

3-4 technology:
A little break from Type to Learn-two keyboarding games, Keyman and Spider Typer. Then, finally, after much anticipation, it was time to redraw our partner monsters and see how they did with redrawing ours. I think our Fort Craig students wrote very good descriptions and had good results. After reading a few of our partner descriptions, they realized the need for clear directions! Everything can be seen at our monster gallery on the internet. Extra time was spent on Study Island.

Fall Session Week 6 and 7

Since we started this session on a Tuesday, and had Tuesday computer lab glitches last week, this short week worked perfectly to get everyone onto the same schedule for after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Kindergarten Spanish:

Our Fort Craig Thanksgiving feast was timed perfectly for our discussions on familia and dia de gracias! We talked alot about what we say gracias for and about our familias and our holiday traditions. After coloring a holiday picture, we read Gracias, The Thanksgiving Turkey by Joy Cowley and played Donde esta el bebe, a fun guessing game.

B1-2 Technology:

First, just a quick note to say how proud I am of these little guys! They now come into the lab, go quietly to their computer, log in, and go straight to keyboard climber (navigating internet, favorites, ikeepbookmarks) all on their own! Way to go! This week, we watched a Brainpop thanksgiving movie and then used our knowledge of the first thanksgiving to make a picture with dialogue in kerpoof. The final results looked something like this:

Remember, to play kerpoof at home, login with student class id. The nickname is the first three letters of the first name and the first three letters of the last name, password is kerpoof, and class id is m861 Happy kerpoofing!

3-4 Technology:

After Type to Learn and our body keyboarding, students assembled their "Little Book of Thanks" that they made last week. They came out great! Once the books were put together, students watched a Thanksgiving slideshow and did some fun activities on ikeepbookmarks, including a kerpoof Thanksgiving picture.

Fall Session Week 5

Kindergarten Spanish:

We are still talking about familia-this week we added our abuelo (grandfather) and abuela (grandmother) to the group and had fun practicing the vocabulary with our "What's Missing" game. We read Abuela by Arthur Dorros, and talked about special things we like to do with our abuelos. Since familias help each other, we colored a "Trabajando juntos-working together" coloring sheet and watched Families in Mexico, a video about a 5yr. old girl and her family.

B1-2 Technology:

After Keyboard Climber, students used the program Kidspiration to sort food pictures into the proper spots on the food pyramid. This was a challenging activity for many, involving not just clicking and dragging but also resizing of pictures without accidentally moving the food pyramid boxes! The final product looked something like this:

Once the picture was saved in their folders (a challenge in itself!), the children did more food group sorting fun with The Bodies Game.

3-4 Technology:

We started getting ready for Thanksgiving by talking about some things we are thankful for, including some of the little things we take for granted. Students made a 6 slide powerpoint to be printed out as a "Little Book of Thanks" to take home for the holiday. We discussed the merits of clip art versus google images and learned how to copy and paste pictures from the internet into our powerpoints. This was a big project to finish in one class and they really did a great job!

Fall Session Week 4

Kindergarten Spanish:
We're talking all about our familias this week! We learned the spanish words for people in our immediate familia-padre, madre, hermano, hermana, bebe-and practiced them with our dice game, the pass the familia game, and Donde esta el bebe? game. Lots of games for lots of different practice opportunities to use our new vocabulary. Students also colored a familia sheet while they told me about who is in their familia. We finished up by reading Bebe Goes Shopping by Susan Middleton Elya.

B1-2 Technology:
After our Keyboard Climber practice, we measured our first graders and put the data into an excel graph so we can participate in the collaborative project "How Tall is a First Grader?". We know that to grow tall we need to eat healthy food from all the food groups and we watched the Tumblebook Little Pea to illustrate this. After a Curious George measuring game, students finished up with education city.

3-4 Technology:
With all our monster activities this month, it was time to talk again about internet safety and some "monsters" you can meet on the internet. Students used their "netsmartz" at various activities at netsmartzkids.org such as Meet the Wizzywigs and Whose Your Friend on the Internet. This is an important subject that will be revisited in various ways throughout the year.

Fall Session Week 3

Kindergarten Spanish:

This week we talked about the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. Students learned that even though it has a scary name, it is not a scary holiday and it is not Halloween event though it takes place around the same time of year. Day of the Dead is a time when families remember and celebrate loved ones who have died. An ofrenda, or altar, is built in the house with pictures, candles, marigolds, special foods and items that pertained to the deceased. Although there are skeletons everywhere, they are not scary. Instead, the images are of skeletons enjoying the things they did when they are alive such as dancing, playing sports, playing music, etc. Children get calaveras, sugar skulls, that show that death is just a part of life and life is sweet. Special sweet bread is made in circular shapes to show the circle of life. In the classroom we made sugar skulls and talked about our own family traditions. Here are some pictures from Mrs. Waddell's class-hope all the calaveras made it home in one piece!

B1-2 Technology:

We combined a healthy food/food pyramid discussion with Halloween by listening to a Tumblebook story about The Lima Bean Monster. After that, we cut out and assembled out Pumpkin Math minibooks made from last week's powerpoint manipulation and spent any leftover time on Education City, our wonderfully engaging new skill review program which the kids seem to really enjoy!

3-4 Technology:

Our monsters are uploaded and we are excited to receive our partner descriptions and see their redraws. This week we watched a tumblebook called Frank Was A Monster Who Wanted To Dance and then made a skeleton dance on the cool interactive skeleton. We watched a short Brainpop movie to learn more about our skeletal system and then tried to Put Annie Back Together. Finally, the kids had fun uploading a class picture into the free photo editing site Picnik where they turned their fellow students into monsters with stickers and effects.

Pumpkin Math

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Pumpkin Math

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Fall Session Week 2

Kindergarten Spanish:

"Verano-Summer, Otono-Autumn,Invierno-Winter, Primavera-Spring. Each season has a song to sing." We've added a new song snippet from Lyric Language about the seasons onto our traditional class starters. Kindergarten had fun exploring the seasons this week. We learned and acted out weather expressions, dressed Senor Oso (Mr. Bear) for each season, and colored a leaf picture with the appropriate Spanish colors. Although Tennessee has four distinct seasons, we talked about the rainforests of South America which don't have the same seasons and the leaves of the trees don't change colors. The childred enjoyed hearing The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. We ended our class by reviewing the word "calabaza-pumpkin," and playing a game of "hot calabaza!"

B1-2 Technology:

We have a new keyboarding game to start each class this session-Keyboard Climber.

This game is fun, but very challenging for many of the students. We talked about the importance of using the right hand for each letter and that the idea of practice is to do their personal best, not to beat the game the first try(or ever!) Following keyboarding, we jumped right into our pumpkin theme activities for the week. After a few minutes of carving virtual pumpkins and clicking/dragging pumpkin faces, we listened to our "guest speaker" tell us some pumpkin facts.

The video was done with Crazy Talk, a cool program we will explore later in the year. Armed with our pumpkin knowledge, we were now ready to tackle Pumpkin Math, a powerpoint inspired by Kevin Jarrett and others. Students click,drag, and type to manipulate a powerpoint which I will print out as a minibook to bring home later next week.

3-4 Technology:

The Monster Exchange is in full swing! This week students tested their monster descriptions with a class partner and typed them in Microsoft Word. Some students realized that their descriptions lacked important details or clear instructions and a lot of editing needed to be done!Everything should be posted to the website next week for our out-of-state partners to redraw. We should have our partners' pictures to redraw by Thanksgiving.

Fall Session Week 1

Kindergarten Spanish:
With our new Fall session, it was time to talk about otonoFall) along with the other seasons--verano(Summer),invierno(Winter), and primavera(Spring). We watched a Lyric Language song video about the seasons and then reviewed our colors in Spanish by talking about the colors we see in otono. Next, we were ready for our color bingo game! After the game, we learned another spanish word for something we see in otono--calabazas(pumpkins). We read a book about the most grande calabaza ever, and then colored a calabaza picture.

B1-2 Technology:
Since the B1-2 classroom theme this session is "Don't Worry-Be Healthy," we discussed how to be safe and healthy(no viruses!) when using the internet. We went to the great netsmartzkids.org site to learn all about the Webville Outlaws. We took care of those bad guys with the Webville Roundup game and listened to an internet safety song. We'll be coming back to some of the other games and activities at this wonderful site in the future. We finished up class offline coloring in our Webville Outlaw coloring book and taking the internet safety pledge. I hope your child has shared it with you!

3-4 Technology:
October is Monster Month! Halloween, the release of "Where the Wild Things Are," our school author visit next week of Marcia Thornton Jones and her wonderful collection of monster (and other)books--the perfect time to join in the collaborative web activity called Monster Exchange!Monster Exchange is designed to encourage the development of reading and writing skills while integrating Internet technology into the classroom curriculum. Classrooms from a variety of schools worldwide are paired together; the students in each classroom are split into groups, each of which designs an original picture of a monster. The students must then write a description of the monster. The partnered classes then exchange their descriptions via e-mail and the Internet. These students are then challenged to use reading comprehension skills to read the descriptions and translate them into a monster picture. The true challenge involves creating a redrawn picture as close to the original picture as possible without looking at the original and using only the written description of the monster.(From website) This week we made our monster pictures and tried to describe them--the students realized this is harder than they thought! For practice, we redrew some monsters based on other students' descriptions. Next week, we will type and upload everything to the website. We'll get out partners' drawings after Thanksgiving.

Summer Session Week 9

Kindergarten Spanish:

Hard to believe these little guys have already made it through the first session of school! They've already grown and learned so much. We concluded our session with a whirlwind celebration of Mexico. We made quesadillas, played Mexican restaurant, dressed up in traditional clothes, danced La Raspa, and read Burro's Tortillas-all in 55 minutes. Here are some highlights:

B1-2 and 3-4 Technology:

We had a fun last week by exploring a site called Kerpoof. Although this week we mainly had a great time playing around with the different features and "kerpoofing" our work, it will be used later in the year for more educational purposes. Studenta first had to learn how to login. After going to the website, students click the login tab and then click "login with student class id." They will then see 3 boxes-nickname, password, and class id. Their nickname is the first 3 letters of their firstname first 3 letters of last name (no capitals or spaces). The password is kerpoof and the class id is m861 Try it at home!

See you after break!

Summer Session Week 8

Kindergarten Spanish:

After our usual starters (everyone has now had a turn at "Me llamo Fred"), we reviewed our colors and played color bingo-so much fun we had to keep playing until everyone had bingo. To prepare for our big Mexico day next week, we discussed tortillas vs. bread, looked at different foods made with tortillas, read Runaway Tortilla by Eric Kimmel, and watched parts of Kids Explore Mexico. Get ready for some exciting video next week as we cook, dress-up, and do some dancing!

B1-2 Tech:

The students are excited to be collaborating with children all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico in the Symbolic Monarch Migration project at journeynorth.org. After viewing 2 short video clips about the project, we cut out and decorated our monarchs, using our digital pictures for the head and antennas. They are now ready to "fly" to Mexico where they will spend the winter before returning somewhere in the United States or Canada in the Spring. We will be able to track them online and find out where our monarchs land.

3-4 Tech:

This was sort of a "clean-up" week for us. The students did Dance Mat typing for a break from Type to Learn, and then finished up powerpoints and digital jigsaw puzzles. When everything was complete, it was time for Study Island, our TCAP preparation site.

Summer Session Week 7

Kindergarten:

Too much activity for me to video or take pictures this week as we rotated through 4 different centers working with colores. We read Oso Pardo(Brown Bear) by Eric Carle and then did some gummy bear math, sorting and graphing our yummy gummy colors. Other centers included color lacing cards, playdoh, and color blocks. The students did a great job cooperating and working out their own problems while I concentrated on the graphing group.

B1-2 Technology:

This week we started a great project ,which we will re-visit periodically throughout the year, called the Symbolic Monarch Migration from the site journeynorth.org. I urge you to visit this site, which has a wealth of information. You can help track the monarchs on their Fall trip to Mexico and then back again in the Spring. We learned about the lifecycle of the monarch and watched some amazing video of the monarch caterpillar munching milkweed and the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

As the students played various butterfly and insect games on ikeepbookmarks, we took pictures of them with their "antennas up" to be used next week as we create paper monarchs that will be mailed to Mexico to spend the winter at the Monarch sanctuaries along with the real monarchs.

3-4 Technology:

This week we put all those formatting skills together with the information we discovered about ourselves to make "Who Am I?" powerpoint presentations. Students learned how to do motion clips, slide transitions, and insert a digital picture from a file (remember those pictures we took last week?) I'm hoping to combine their powerpoints into a class Who Am I to share here after everyone finishes next week. Students who finished early made a digital jigsaw puzzle of themselves at this cool site.

Summer Session Week 6

Kindergarten Spanish:

This week we focused on colores(colors)-rojo(red), verde(green), amarillo(yellow), azul(blue), and anaranjado(orange). We practiced these colors with the dice game, shown here by Mrs. Stedina's class:

After we read a story about a rabbit with lots of colored balloons that were hard to hold onto, we played our own balloon game. Here is Mrs. Kyker's class:

B1-2 Technology:

Formatting fun in microsoft word! After keyseeker, the kids opened up a word document about insects. Putting our mouse skills we learned last week to work, the students learned how to highlight words and change the font size, style, and color-like magic! I wish I had a video of their excitement in seeing the word "big" grow really big! We also listened to a tumblebook story called Bugs, Bugs, Bugs and did some insect fun games.

3-4 Technology:

After starting this session with "the inside story" about computers, we've moved on to our own stories. We went to a cool site called How Many of Me, which uses US census data to show how many people in our country share our first and last names. To show our individual uniqueness, we completed a word document called The ABC's of Me. After filling out each category, the students formatted to their heart's content! Computer parts hangman and funbrain were available for early finishers.

Summer Session Week 5

Kindergarten Spanish:

Our class starters include the buenos dias song, the day of the week song, and our Me llamo Fred game-here is Mrs. Waddell's class playing:

This week we also talked about feelings, and learned feliz (happy) and triste (sad). We read Why am I so happy-Por que soy tan feliz? by Kelly Gonda and watched a short episode of Handy Manny about a boy who is triste because he has just moved to a new city and does not have any amigos. Luckily, the ending is feliz!

B1-2 Technology:

This week was all about the mouse! We listened to a cute computer mouse song, worked on some mouse skills, and put it all together with some mouse fun games.

Of course, we also did keyseeker.

3-4 Technology:

After Type to Learn, or TTL as we affectionately call it, we continued our discussion of formatting. Students made and saved a "Top 10" list of fonts done in each font style-the fun part came when they learned how to format the background of their document. We love fill effects!

The students also took a basic computer part quiz and played a fun strategy game called disc domain-look for this in Friday folders.

Mrs. Connell’S Ants

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Mrs. Hale’S Ants

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Mrs. Croft’S Ants

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Mrs. Dotson’S Ants

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Mrs. Sinclairs Ants

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Mrs. Keyl’S Ants

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Summer Session Week 4

Kindergarten Spanish:
We added something new to our class starters this week-a game called Me llamo Fred. This game, which is great practice with Como te llamas (What's your name) and Me llamo (my name is), has been a favorite in the past. Student 1 sits backwards in the front of the room with eyes closed, while Student 2 sneeks up behind. Student 1 asks, "Como te llamas?" and Student 2 answers in Spanish with a silly name and a disguised voice before returning to his seat. Student 1 then guesses donde esta (where is) Fred. I'll try to get some video next week. We also learned the days of the week, buenos dias (good morning) and buenas noches (good night) and played a fun game waking people up. Our amigos discussion expanded to community helpers this week with a story called Tito, the Firefighter by Tim Hoppey.

B1-2 Tech:
The students are getting much better with keyseeker! This time, instead of drawing on their hands, I put purple and green smiley faces on the monitor as a reminder. Remember, this can be practiced at home by going to the ikeepbookmarks link. Since B1-2 is learning about ants, we discussed the different parts of an ant and make ant pictures using our Paint program. Their amazing results are published above as a slideshare presentation.


3-4 Tech:
After Type to Learn, we had fun with formatting! Students used Microsoft Word to type their name, move it left-center-right, change font size, color, style and add clipart that represents their own interests. When the final product was saved in our individual tech folders, the students practiced single and double mouse clicks with some mouse fun games.

Summer Session Week 3

Kindergarten Spanish:

Check out Mrs. Stedina's class doing our "buenos dias" song--it's how we start each class.

We also read The Little Half Chick by Lucia M. Gonzalez, a story about a spoiled chick who did not treat his amigos very well, and talked about our "no put-down" rules. We agreed that no one likes put-downs--No Me Gusta!--and talked about things we do like--Me Gusta! After coloring a picture of some things that make us say "Me gusta (I like it)", we talked about how amigos work together and cooperate, especially on a team. We watch Dora the Explorer and her amigos play "futbol" and then we got a chance to work together to try to score some goals with the soccer ball in the classroom. Gol!!

1-2 Technology:

This week the 1-2 classes started Keyseeker, a program which helps young children learn to use two hands while keyboarding. A purple letter on the monitor gets typed with the purple hand and a green letter uses the green hand; thus, the hand smiley faces! We'll be using this program for a few weeks at the beginning of each class. The students also learned how to find their folders on the computer. Lots of "double click" practice (and some frustration!) as we went to My Computer-R drive-Kidsave-teacher name-student name. It will get easier! After that we linked back to the classroom unit study on insects by watching Ace Lacewing: Bug Detective on tumblebooks, a great site.

3-4 Technology:

After our Type to Learn keyboarding practice, the students used Paint to make puzzles as a gift for their younger grade "dynabuddies." They made a picture and then used the straight line tool to divide it into pieces. I'll print out the pictures and laminate them so that they can be cut on the lines and put into a baggie as puzzles for our first grade friends. Here's an example of one of the pictures:

Good mouse control practice as well as lots of fun!

Summer Session Week 2

Kindergarten Spanish:
This week we continued our discussion of amigos with my big bag of puppets! Everyone got an amigo and we learned to ask Como te llamas(What's your name) and Me llamo___(My name is__). We practiced these phrases with name train. As we asked each student "passenger" Como te llamas?, they answered Me llamo___. The class then gave that passenger three cheers as they got on the "train". We soon had the entire class in a long train that chugged around the classroom and back to the alfombra. What fun! After some coloring and more puppet play, it was time to sing our "Adios Amigos" song.

1-2 Technology:

After discussing how our computers are like a house that is sometimes locked, we learned how to login using our "key", our passwords. We definately used our lifeskill of patience as we followed directions and waited for our computers to start up! We reviewed some parts of the computer and then learned how to use the shape tools in Paint to make a monitor, tower, keyboard, and mouse. Some students even made icons and keys. We went to our carpeted "clubhouse" to color a computer parts coloring book while students went in small groups to my hands-on corner to explore the opened tower and other computer parts. I think the hard drive and the CPU were the favorites.

3-4 Technology:

Keyboarding practice first-we always start with 10 min. of Type to Learn. We learned about favorites and bookmarks on the internet and then went to my ikeepbookmarks.com site to check out "The Inside Story" and to practice clicking vs. double clicking with "Tidy the Classroom."

After the classroom was tidied, with everything in its place, we discussed how we have a specific place for saving our documents. Students found their folders by going to R drive, kidsave, teacher name, student name. We used kidspiration "Initial Me" to practice dragging pictures that start with the initials of our first and last name and saved the file in our folders.

Summer Session Week 1

Kindergarten Spanish:
It's so much fun to meet our new kindergarteners-they grow up so much during that first year that I always forget how little they really are when they first start. We began by learning some of the areas of the classroom such as the alfombra(carpet), mesas(tables), puerta(door), and ventana(window) and then learned the Buenos Dias song that we will always use to start our lesson. Here it is, in case you want to sing at home(to the tune of "Are You Sleeping):

Buenos dias, good morning
Como estas, how are you?

Muy bien gracias, very well thank you

y usted, and you?

The rest of the class centered on the theme of amigos and how they act and treat each other. We read A Cat and A Dog by Claire Masurel in English and Spanish, colored our amiga Dora the Explorer, and tied the class into the Kindergarten yearlong theme of "Hooray for the World" by watching some of Dora's World Friendship Day.

1-2 Technology:

This is the first year I am teaching technology to the first and second graders. We started off by discussing procedures and respect for property-our first cyberethics lesson. We read Arthur's Computer Disaster, by Marc Brown and did a related color sheet(an hour class is a long time in the beginning of the year!) We then went to the computers and learned the difference between monitor and tower/computer, explored the desktops, and checked out the Fort Craig homepage. The highlight of the class for most of the students was exploring our Paint icon and practicing with the tools. 3-4 Technology:

Our class theme for the next few weeks will be "The Inside Story." We read The Magic Schoolbus Gets Programmed and had some hands-on time with some hardware such as cables, CPU, disc drive, hard drive, and power supply. After reviewing our computer log-in procedures, we talked about the home row keys and proper keyboarding position. The students started their first Type to Learn lesson, a keyboarding program that we will use for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of each class. Finally, it was time to learn how to shutdown, not just turn off, the computers.

Check Out The Computer Lab!

Thanks to all the teachers (and my superb, though not super willing daughter) who helped me haul away old monitors and clean out cabinets, we now have a clean, uncluttered lab with a separate workspace/carpet area for stories and paperwork. I've added lifeskills, bulletin boards, and a hands-on hardware hunt area to explore. Check it out!

Our New School Year 2009-2010!

I'm so excited to be back in school after our short break. We have lots of changes for this year-3rd and 4th grade classes mixed up for specials, and B1-2 now in tech instead of Spanish! Caramba! My goal is to update this blog each weekend with news of the past week's lessons, so check back often to see what we are learning!

Mrs. Hurst's Mini-Mall

Oops, one commercial accidentally got left out of the mall. Here is the new, improved version!

Get Ready For Market Day!!

3-4 classes have been busy making their market day products, so now it is time to advertise their wares. Students drew a picture of their company spokesperson and took a digital picture of their drawings. Using a cool program called Crazy Talk, we brought the drawings to life with voice and animation. I pieced all the individual commercials together with Windows Movie Maker into a Mini-Mall commercial for each class. Check them out!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

Mrs. Waddell's class shows of their maracas!

Kindergarten students had fun (most of them) working with our ooey-gooey paper mache last week to make our maracas. This week we paint them, and also learn all about Cinco de Mayo and the Battle of Puebla. The maracas look great--hopefully they will make it home in one piece!

Rainforest Explorers

B1-2 classes are learning that the rainforest is not just tall trees and cool animals--lots of medicines, spices, and foods such as cashew nuts, vanilla, chocolate, gum, and cinnamon come from there as well. Mrs. Croft's class is trying to figure out what these items are in the containers. The ginger root was a tricky one! This week we will make gum with real chicle from the rainforest.

Kindergarten in the Garden

K students have been learning the parts of a planta--semilla, raices, tallo, hojas, and flor. We've had fun acting out the parts as our body "flores" grow, and we have talked about different parts of the plant that we eat. Last week we ate cactus for the hojas--a new experience for everyone! Most said "Me Gusta!" This week, after reading Carlos and the Cornfield, we are eating semillas in the form of blue corn chips. Delicioso! Look at our beautiful coloring sheets of a jardin in our Friday folders.

Earth Day Activities

3-4 tech classes are finishing up an Earth Day powerpoint called "Save the World with the 4 R's". They are learning how to custom animate their text ideas for reduce, reuse, recycle, and refuse. We are also adding links to the virtual ribbon around the world--check it out at planetfesto.org My B1-2 Spanish classes are working on a Rainforest unit. For Earth Day, we are participating in the National Earth Day Groceries Project (earthdaybags.org) by decorating paper bags with Rainforest and Recycling messages in English and Spanish. Mrs. Green will deliver the bags to both local Krogers stores so that people can have their groceries packed in one of these custom bags instead of plastic. Here is Mrs. Sinclair's class with their finished products!

Market Day Commercial Preview

I'm slowly working at incorporating some web 2.0 tools into our tech classes; hence, this blog. Students have enjoyed my "guest speakers" made with Crazy Talk animations and now they will be able to create their own. As 3-4 gets ready for Market Day, I am planning on having each student make a poster advertising their good or service. We'll take a digital picture of the poster, animate it, add a voiced commercial, and combine the results with Windows Movie Maker into a "Minimall" movie for each class. I'll post the movies here for easy viewing. It should look something like this example: