Winter Session Week 9

B1-2 Technology:

We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday this week by watching some of the beginner book video of The Cat in the Hat. We talked about how the children really should not have let that cat (or any other stranger) in while their Mother was out (and reviewed some internet safety tips as well!) and used Kidspiration to brainstorm some other things they could do on a  rainy day. After saving their work, the children had fun using Paint to create their own hat for the Cat and enjoyed playing some Seussville games. Here's an example of my hat:

3-4 Technology:

The older students focused more on Read Across America week with lots of book activity free choices. They could use GoAnimate to make a new animation about a book character or author, use Kerpoof to Tell A Story, Watch some Tumblebooks, or play some games based on their favorite books here or here.

Have you seen the Cat in the Hat rap? Check it out!

Winter Session Week 8

B1-2 Technology:

This week we continued our work with the Tooth Tally project by checking watching the Tumblebook You Think It's Easy Being The Tooth Fairy and then watching our published videos and voicethreads on our tally page. We had a lot of fun checking out the map to see some of the other schools who are participating from all over the world. It was exciting to "visit" schools in Thailand, Japan, Germany, and New Zealand but just as exciting to find our own Fort Craig on the map. We spent the remainder of the class playing some map skill games such as Adventure Island, State Puzzle game, and Treasure Hunt.

3-4 Technology:
Students continued work on their goanimate famous person autobiography by adding effects like music and props. Unfortunately, we can't embed them on the blog, but students can watch each others' and send comments. Have your student log in to the site and show you what they did!

Winter Session Week 7

B1-2 Technology:

We love shiny teeth! In fact, we took digital pictures of ours to make into an animoto video to put on our tooth tally wiki pages-just scroll down on the tally page and click on our Fort Craig classrooms to check it out and keep track of our missing and wobbly teeth for the next few months. We love lots of things besides teeth, though, and practiced inserting motion clips and clip art photos into a "Things I Love" powerpoint slide for our Winter Wonderland Wiki project. We also had fun sending Jan Brett Valentine emails to our teachers and playing some Fun School valentine games.

3-4 Technology:
This week we explored a new site- GoAnimate4Schools. Students went through the animation tutorial and then began using their biography research to create an animation using their famous person talking and giving their autobiography-also a good chance to discuss the differences between biography and autobiography! There was lots of excitement as students played around with the different special effects, voices, and actions.
We finished up our class by watching some of the Jeopardy match with Watson, the IBM supercomputer and discussing how computer technology continues to change.

Check out our Tooth Fairy Voicethreads!

Mrs. Storie's Class:


Mrs. Sinclair's Class:


Mrs. Connell's Class:


Mrs. Dotson's Class:


Mrs. Barham's Class:


Mrs. Keyl's Class:

Winter Session Week 6

B1-2 Technology:
This week we started work on our tooth tally voicethreads. I took digital photos of the tooth fairy picture that the students drew last week and uploaded them to voicethread. In class, students took turns recording their voice describing what they thought the tooth fairy did with all the teeth she collected! I should have the final project ready to post on the blog soon. While students waited for their turn, they watched The Magic Schoolbus Gets Programmed to find out what is really going on inside a computer.

3-4 Technology:
Continuing our research for a biography project, this week the students used bighugelabs to create a trading card of their famous person. I was really proud of the perserverence of these kids as they dealt with numerous technical difficulties we experienced in the lab this week! Everyone should finish by next week, and then we can have fun trading!

Computer Challenge #2- Make a Doodle 4 Google!

Google is having a contest for kids to create a doodle based on the theme "Someday I want to..." Pick up a template in the lab or print out here and bring it back to me by Feb. 28 so I can register you. Not sure what a doodle is? Here are some great ones from the past.

Winter Session Week 5

B1-2:

We are participating in the Tooth Tally Project with over 250 classes around the world! For the next 3 months we will be keeping track of lost and wiggly teeth as well as doing some other activities. This week we listened to the tumblebook Abra Cadabra, The Tooth Witch. We drew a picture of the tooth fairy based on a description given by the Tooth Tally Project. We will use our pictures next week in a Voicethread presentation where we discuss what the tooth fairy does with all those teeth. After our pictures were finished, we went back to our computers for some fun tooth games like Squanky the Tooth Taker, Plaque Attack, and Whack a Molar.

3-4:
This week the students began some research for a Biography project. First, we discussed some internet search techniques and watched this great youtube video from Commoncraft.
4th graders are researching a famous Tennessean and 3rd graders are researching the person they checked a book out about last week in library. Our goal this week was to get 5 facts and to save a picture of the person in our folder. We also talked about the Doodle4Google contest-I hope some of you enter!