We're Going "Old School", 21st Century Style!

It's amazing how sometimes the sun, moon and stars align and a perfect project appears. This summer I was reading an article about the decline of the "art of letter writing" and the impending layoffs in Canada Post and thought "oh my". Flash forward one week later to our beloved Virginian native Kindergarten teacher offering me the email address of a friend of a friend from Spotslyvania, Virginia who wanted a Grade 2 penpal. And voila! What is a project that has been done for years became my AISI project and a favorite part of my Language Arts program this year. My students were each paired with a Grade 2 student and we've been busy. Our real world task became getting a job working at a newspaper and interviewing our partners during a Skype phonecall. The students took turns interviewing their partners and recording their answer. Our next phase of this AISI project is to now become movie producers and create a This is Our Town movie to send to Virginia in January. We will be out and about showing our partners what Forestburg looks like and what living in a small town is like.
So... what is something that my teacher did back in 1978 is something that can be spun into 21st century style. I'll keep you posted on my acting debut!

21st Century Learning

Once again this year we are focusing on engaging students in “real world” tasks that require higher level thinking, self-direction and collaboration.

The project that the Gr. 3 class has been involved in from November 27 to December 6th is called, Impossible 2 Possible or i2P. 4 youth ambassadors traveled to Rajasthan, the largest state of the Republic of India to the Thar Desert. Patrick, Harshveer, Emma and Jessica ran 270 kilometers through the Thar Desert of India. That is marathon per day for one week in a quest to experience this incredible country.We have learned an amazing amount of information about the quality of life in India this week. We learned about the animals, the environment and we were shown the types of food they would eat. We were able to talk to the youth ambassadors while they were on the trip through Digigone a "Skype" like appliaction that allowed them to read our questions through a chat line and then answer all of the schools that were connected at the same time.





The students wrote about our i2P project;
The Impossible Was Possible
Learning about India in Grade 3 is awesome! Over the past 10 days (Nov. 27-Dec. 6) we have followed 4 runners that have run 270 km around the Thar Desert. We were very lucky to get the chance to video chat with Jessica, Patrick, Emma and Hashveer when they were in India. They are a part of the Impossible 2 Possible team that were teaching us about the animals (yuck snakes), food, environment and hospitals in India. Emma is going to try to bring us some sand from the Thar Desert.
They all taught us that if we believe in ourselves and persevere anything can be possible.
Written by Grade 3

Bloom's Digital Activity List

Technology Check List of Activities Related to Bloom's Taxonomy

A whole show on banning junk food in school.

Banning Junk Food In School

EDTE.CH

Interesting Ways

5 Interesting Ways* to use Mobile Phones in the Classroom

5 Ways to Use Your Phone in Class

Livebinder for iPod Touch & iPad

Resources for ipads in school
Information for ipods too.

Ideas About Student Owned Devices

Edmonton Public Schools

Technology Integration Planning Services
Sample Permission Letter

What Do Kids Say?

EdReach- The future of Ed Tech Is....BYOD (Bring Your own Device)

FRABOOM!

This is my find of the month. I feel really bad that I have not been keeping up with blog posts! I have not even been keeping up with my own class blog. But anyway, here is my latest find.

FRABOOM

It is an online museum, with tonnes of interactive activities.

Also check out Little Bird Tales

LITTLE BIRD TALES

Blabberize

BLABBERIZE

LiveBinders - Wow Check These Out

LiveBinder for Web 2.0

Then go back to the main page and search for a LiveBinder by topic or author.

Great Sites For PD

Teacher Challenges from Edublog

Techonolgy that we can learn in 10 minutes!

Youtube has TeqPD


I think we should try them they look very interesting!
Linda

Great K - 1 sites

Year one math sites

Place to Share Our Work

I don't want to lose this site because I hope that soon people will
start to share their work. Many hands make for light work!

Brsd Repository

Famous words- "When I get a minute I want to start doing this."
Linda

This Math Video Makes Sense

Random Name Picker

Click here for larger version

Blooming Questions

This site has some amazing work with Bloom’s Taxonomy.

It has a list of sites as they relate to Bloom's

This a great story using Bloom's

Skyping With Mrs. McMahon

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Skyping With India

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Wow as we have been working towards "real world" tasks I cannot think of anything that we have done that has connected us more with the real world. This is what the students had to say about their experience.

On March 17th our Grade 3 class experienced the world of Skype with Leslie Lindballe and 3 children that live in Arambol, Goa, India. It was 9:00 a.m. here and 9:30 p.m. there. It was amazing! One thing that we found surprising was that cows are Gods. They also said that +27 C felt cold to them.
We asked them about their food, clothes and what their house was like. They asked us, if snow hurts when it hits us? We hope to Skype with Leslie again when she is in Mumbai.

By Tailyn, Jace, Daniel, Travis, Nolan

New Web Site!!

Need new smartboard ideas for math that are already made.
Check this out Harvey is amazing!

Harvey's Homepage

Linda

Two New Finds!!

The first thing I found out which many of you may already know is that you can put your word document information onto your notebook 10 just by going to PRINT and then choosing Print to Notebook 10. Good-bye cut and paste!!


Second is check this math manipulative site out. Everything we could wish for.

Math Manipulatives for your SMARTboard

How to use Education Technology quickly

This blog has some great videos of how to use; Voicethread,
Twitter, Worldle and other sites you might be interested in.
http://www.undertenminutes.com/
Under Ten Minutes
How to use Education Technology quickly

Scribble Maps Are Amazing

Today we collected data about where our clothes are made
then we brought clothes that were made in India.
Scribble maps could be used for so many things!

Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

We saw Sir Ken Robinson on Wednesday February 9th.

This video has some of the ideas that he presented to us on Wednesday night in Red Deer. I have been thinking about some of what he said and he makes some really good points!
Linda

New Video Streaming Sites

Video streaming is here!!!
I linked them all to my Online Video Link
It will be wonderful just to have the Magic School Bus Videos.
This will be so nice to have our own lists to save video under.

Linda

Picture Book Maker

There are so many things you are going to love when you click on
eduTecher but I am going to try Picture Book Maker
on Monday it looks amazing. The visual learner in me loves how he shows me
how the site works.

Try eduTecher

Wow I love this because Mr. Bellows shows me how the site works I don't have to figure it out!!!

Joanne's Picks...

I have decided to add my picks for the month to my classroom blog, just click to visit and see what I have discovered this month in my web travelings...
This way I am sharing with a larger group than just my K-3 AISI group and that is the whole point, share your knowledge with as many people as possible.

Passion!

Great Video!

Mrs. Adams Small Finds

My finds this month are very minimal. I really like the site called Sppech SPACE, which is a cornucopia of ideas for integrating speech ideas into the classroom. I am also liking Diigo, which I am now using rather than Delicious to bookmark my favourite sites.

Speech SPACE




Diigo

Finding Smartboard Activities

Try this list of Smartboard Search Tools.
Don't spend all night looking for just the right thing!
Refine your search.
Work Smarter not harder!!

Linda Coutts

Barb's Paper Making Mess


Ok girls now that I have entered the "land of crazy" I thought I should demonstrate why I belong there. Today's new position states the obvious, sorry Lisa no offense, you were wise to take a hiatus from this land! However, my PLC project more aptly demonstrates why a) I am crazy and b) why I love teaching. I have struggled with finding the time and yes the motivation to treat this project as more than just one more thing on an already overloaded list. Then, I decided to make paper as part of my real world project. Now I have been accused of taking things too far, something I am sure you four will disagree with, but in my head it always seems like a relatively easy undertaking. So here goes, a description of my PLC project:

The Grade Two's have spent the fall learning about what it takes to become an author, and, that authors write about what is important to them. Well one day after having a discussion about the growing hill of paper recycling in my room with various powers that be I thought about how else to use that paper. That is where my project took flight. Since I know you are well acquainted with my husband's love of poetry I felt that I needed to encourage this in my young writers. There is something quite rewarding with finding a word that rhymes with scooters...

So we began writing up a storm and then spent the last week making a mess that I am sure Diane still has not forgiven me for. But what resulted was complete student absorption into creating their top secret "latest edition to the book market" right in time for Christmas. The finished copy was fairly rustic however, the kids had a blast doing it and we produced over 12 poems, five of them with stanzas, rhyming patterns, syllabic rhythm and following an actual idea from start to finish!

I think I have found a new career (especially since I still have the hill of bags in my room) however, I think my blender will never be the same again. Thanks to Santa for my Magic Bullet, it doesn't matter! Below are a couple of the websites we used to investigate poetry and play with words in order to create our "Winter Wonderland" book of poems.

So, sorry girls there's no pictures - my hands were fairly mucky, but aren't you glad, cuz my PLC project was rather ducky!


Word Clouds
http://www.tagxedo.com/

Poetry Engine
http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetry/poetry_engine.htm#

Lisa's Thoughts For January

My grade two class participated in a real world assessment task found on the Alberta Assessment Consortium website. Their job was to design, create and present a magnetic toy to the president of a well known toy company. After the toys were created and our presentations were over we took them out for a trial run. We had grade one students play with the toys. Then we gave the grade one students money which they could use to "buy" their favorite toys. We tallied the results and found the most popular toys.Pictures and video of our project will be added soon.

If you're looking for great elementary art ideas check out Art Projects for Kids and Incredible Art Department.

Looking for another source for online videos, check out Teaching Videos.

Joanne's top 3 picks...

This Snowflake Workshop is so good and will be awesome on our smartboards.

Professionally, this Harvard Education Letter entitled, "Kids haven't changed, Kindergarten has." is a fantastic read that for me completely reinforces the need for dramatic play in the Kindergarten classroom.

At My Best® is a Free comprehensive curriculum-supported toolkit for children in grades kindergarten to grade three to promote and develop children’s overall wellness. At My Best® combines physical activity, healthy eating and emotional well-being and aims to support children’s optimal physical and emotional development by inspiring and motivating them to make healthier choices today, and develop lifelong healthy habits.
**Lots of fun, educational kids activities/games in the kids section. Good for k-3 health.