Before Thanksgiving Break

Well, I almost reached my goal of showcasing technology skills to all Kindergarten - 5th grade classrooms, 26 of them, before Thanksgiving break, but came 2 classes short.  Thank You so much to all of the classroom teachers that replied back to my email and set up a time with different technology activities and skills.  Hopefully I can catch all of the teachers next time I set up this endeavor, maybe between the start of the New Years and Valentine's Day.

Kindergarten classrooms focused on a couple online activities, but more importantly how to use the laptops, plug in the headphones, how to get to the Internet, and how to put them away.
Their online activities were:
http://www.readwritethink.org/search/?resource_type=16
http://www.abcya.com/

Introducing BookFlix to 1st Graders

I have had the opportunity to introduce BookFlix to a three 1st grade classrooms during the month of October and it has been a blast.  Students are able to use this AEA267 web site both at school and at home as a parent newsletter was sent home with students to provide them with the username and password needed to get on the web site.  Students have easily learned how to use this web site to enhance their reading and allow them to become more effective readers by listening and seeing how words are read in some of their favorite stories.  This web site even goes a step further in providing puzzlers (games) for the students based on the books, meet the author activities, and web sites related to the concepts introduced and involved in the story.  Take a look at some of the pictures below.

1st Grade Integration-ABC Book

Mrs. Johnson's 1st Grade class took the opportunity to use KidPix 3D to create an ABC book.  Each student was provided a letter from the alphabet and then they had to use typing words, drawing pictures, stamps, stickers or animations in relationship to a word that starts with their letter. So for example if they had the letter B they could stamp an image of a basketball, draw a picture of a boy, and then do more related to the words they know that start with the letter B. Take a look at their finished products below:

1st Grade Integration-All About The Author-Finished Copies

Some finished All About the Author pages.

1st Grade Integration-All About The Author

The 1st grade students are and have been working on an All About the Author page using KidPix.  They are creating these to add to the stories they have created in their classroom so people can learn a little bit more about them, as an author of their stories.  During this process they learned how to insert a text box, resize their text and type in their information throughout 5-6 different categories, how to find a picture of themselves from within a folder on their computer that Mr. Morton put on their computers, and how to import their picture onto their KidPix page.  Below is the template they started with and soon I will provide some finish copies so you can see the finished product.

1st Grade Integration

The first grade students just finished printing their bedroom maps where they created either a "top down" or "look from your door" view of the bedroom with labels.  Please take a look at their printed pictures in their portfolios during conferences and see if the picture they created in KidPix looks similar to their bedroom.

They now are using KidPix Deluxe 3D to create math number sentences where they are grouping 1 set of stamps and either adding and/or subtracting that group with another group of stamps to find the total number of stamps left.  So for example: 10 monkeys - 5 bananas = 5 zoos.  Be looking for these in their student portfolios.

They next will be using KidPix to create ABC books with stamps, stickers, animations and even pictures of items related to their ABC letter from around the school.

Room Pictures:

Math Number Sentence Picture:

1st Grade Integration

The 1st grade students have currently started to create a map of their bedroom in their house, which relates to learning about maps and globes within their 1st grade curriculum.  They are using KidPix, a drawing program to be able to complete this project.

They are creating either a "look from your door" perspective or a "top down/superman/map" perspective of their bedroom.  This will take them 2-3 class periods, and they will finish their map by labeling the different items in their room.  They will print their bedroom and put it in their portfolio to see if their parents and siblings can identify their room exactly.

Be looking for their finished project in their portfolios during conferences.

1st Grade Integration

The 1st grade students have been coming into the computer lab at least 1 time a cycle and most recently have finished and printed their flower/plant picture using KidPix. KidPix is a software application installed on all of the elementary computers within the school district. The 1st graders used KidPix to draw and label their flower/plant in relationship to what they learned about flowers/plants with their teacher in the classroom, included their name, printed out their completed project and have displayed it in their portfolio. The 1st graders did a wonderful job and shown below are a few examples.

Kdg.-2nd Grade

The Kindergarten through 2nd grade students have been in the computer lab at least once since the beginning of the school year. They will come into the computer lab at least 1 time per cycle if not more.

Mr. Morton took the opportunity for their first day in the computer lab to go over rules/procedures for a little while so each student knows what I and their classroom teacher expect out of them.

After that we explored the new way for all Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade students to login this year. Last year they used a generic username and password for all of the computers. This year, with a little time and patience, they will each have their own unique username and password to use with any computer at Eason. They will keep and use this unique username and password all the way until the leave or graduate from Waukee CSD. The process is identical to how the 3rd-5th grade students login and even to how the 6th-12th grade students login.

It will take some time and patience but should be beneficial for the students over the years.

This is what the computer lab looks like in case you have not been in yet.