Spring Session Week 4

Kindergarten Spanish:
Earth Day week fit so well into our garden theme. After reviewing our plant parts vocabulary, we read Cactus Soup by Eric Kimmel. After our story, the real fun began when the children got to try cactus! Not a favorite of everyone, but most tried it and several really liked it-you can buy Nopalitos, cactus, at Walmart. We watched a Maya and Miguel Earth Day movie and then "recycled" some paper into ripped scraps to use next week for our maraca paper mache making.

B1-2 Technology:
Earth Day week in tech lab gave us a chance to explore the virtual Eecko World. There is so much to explore here that we spent the entire class period (after keyboarding practice, of course!)



3-4 Technology:
Earth Day week gave 3-4 a chance to talk about things they can do to help our world. We then read the poem "If I Were In Charge of the World" by Judith Viorst and wrote our own In Charge poems with this instant In Charge of the World poem generator. The results were pasted into a Word document and formatted with new font, clipart, and borders. Remaining time was spent playing some environmental games on Ecokids.

B1-2 is tall!!

We participated in the "How tall is a first grader" project. Here are the voicethreads we made:
Mrs. Keyl's class
Mrs. Hale's class
Mrs. Connell's class
Mrs. Dotson's class
Mrs. Croft's class
Mrs. Sinclair's class

Spring Session Week 3

Kindergarten Spanish:
This week we reviewed the parts of a plant and compared them to the parts of our body, giving us a chance to sing one of our favorite songs, "Hands on My Head." Hopefully I'll get some video of this one next week. We reviewed semillas (seeds) and saw how some can be pequeno (crocus seeds), some can be grande (avocado seeds), and some can be eaten (beans). We played a color bingo game with our bean semillas and read Under the Lemon Moon by Edith Hope Fine.

B1-2 Technology:
We started with Dance Mat typing-some of the students are already moving up some levels! I introduced the students to Voicethread, which is a tool for adding conversations to media-we used it to add our voices to the "I'm taller than/shorter than" pictures from last week. It was so much fun to see the children's eyes light up after they heard their recorded voices! While I was recording children one at a time, they were watching Hector's World, a great cartoon about internet safety. There were a few absent students that still need to record-when they are all finished I will post the voicethreads here for you to enjoy!

3-4 Technology:
This was TCAP week, so to give students a little break and reward for their effort during testing time we started a Voicethread to give the 3-4 teachers for teacher appreciation week. While students recorded voices individually with me, the others had some free time with the Just for Fun folder of activities on Ikeepbookmarks

Spring Session Week 2

Kindergarten Spanish:
This week we learned the parts of a plant: semilla(seed),raices(roots),tallo(stem),hojas(leaves) and flor(flower). We practiced our new vocabulary with the always popular dice game and then read Carlos and the Cornfield. We ate blue corn chips, made from blue corn semillas just like in the story. The children also colored and made collages of flores-muy bonita!

B1-2 Technology:
After Dance Mat typing, we discussed this sessions theme of "In a Small Pond" and listened to the tumblebook One Duck Stuck. We then revisited our "How Tall is a First Grader" graphs from the Fall and remeasured our youngers-everyone has grown an inch or more! We used paint to make a picture showing things that we are taller than and things that we are shorter than. Next week we will put this together in a voicethread and add student narrations-if everything goes as planned!

3-4 Technology:
This session's keyboarding starters will be to work through Dance Mat typing, advancing whenever a level has been completed. After keyboarding we continued gathering our Fort Craig census data by interviewing the B1-2 classes. Back in the lab, we used voki to create a public service announcement about the importance of the census. Unfortunately, we were unable to publish them due to lab problems, but they were a lot of fun to make!

Spring Session Week 1

Kindergarten Spanish:
When we met last it was invierno, and hace frio-now back after an almost 3 week break, we have a new season (primavera), a new month (abril), and new weather (hace sol, esta lloviendo) to talk about. Spring is also a good time to talk about plantas, flores, and frutas (plants, flowers, and fruits). We read Sandia Fria/Icy Watermelon, by Mary Sue Galindo and then made a icy watermelon drink by blending 1/4 watermelon, ice, and a little sugar. The kids helped pick out the semillas (seeds). Almost everyone said "Me Gusta!!!" They also completed a challenging flower coloring worksheet where they had to read the colors in Spanish-great work!

B1-2 Technology:
A new session means new keyboarding practice-this time we will be using the fun site Dance Mat. We started with level 1, homerow keys, and will be advancing according to ability. This is a great one to practice at home! When we left last session we were discussing animals in winter, so we checked in on some springtime animals in the Tumblebook Cinnamon and the April Shower. We finished up by completing a word document about our Spring Break, using clipart and formatting.

3-4 Technology:
National Census Day was this week, so we learned about the importance of the census and how the information helps our communities. 3-4 students became census workers as we visited the kindergarten classrooms to help them fill out a Fort Craig Census. Back in the lab, we entered the data and had fun with some census games like the map challenge game and the census for kids site. Next week we will interview B1-2 students!