Make Writing More Fun: Little Bird Tales

Having trouble getting some of your more reluctant writers and editors to do some work?  Little Bird Tales
 is a free, web-based app that lets students upload their own pictures (or create in the editor), add text, and record original stories to share with their classmates and beyond.

Little Bird Tales has the functionality to create classroom accounts for free and is wonderfully motivating.  Students are very keen to the idea of creating their own stories, gathering works of art, and recording their stories to share.  The interface Little Bird Tales uses creates a welcoming environment for all students to encourage even the most reluctant writers to share their voice.

As an art teacher at heart, Little Bird Tales could be used to create student portfolios.  Uploading their own artwork and writing passages about their work or the teacher can generate prompts for each project.  something I am looking to try in the near future...I'll keep you posted!

Interactive Volcano Lessons

After watching some of our 3rd grade students work on Volcanoes in Science class, I started looking around for   some resources and interactive activities and found a blog post that discusses several great resources for students to use to learn more about volcanoes.  I initially started writing this post in the fall and just recently found the draft after I uncovered   Discovery Channel's Volcano Explorer which allows students to simulate and design different aspects of a volcano, like lava makeup and amount of gases contained inside.   When students make their selections the Volcano Explorer provides a short explanation of how those settings will affect the shape of the volcano and its eruption.

TED Talk: Why Videos go Viral

After my post about Mr. Peck's great video, I started to wonder to myself what makes a video go viral?  It didn't take long to find the answer.  In this TED talk, Kevin Allocca, YouTube's trends manager at a TED youth event discusses what he sees are the 4 reasons a video goes viral.

Learnzillion Common Core Math Videos

 Mastery Connect hosts an active community of teachers who are sharing lesson ideas built around the Common Core standards. Now you can also find more than 300 LearnZillion videos in the Mastery Connect community. 
All of these videos are tied to Common Core Standards from grades 3-9.   If you would like to add a video to your lesson plan, head over to the Learnzillion site and explore their offerings which also list the standard they are covering.  Most of them are recorded whiteboard lessons that are good for going over together as a class or individual review.  If you create a free account, you will be able to create video playlists and also connect and communicate with other members through comments and discussions on the pages.

Posterous Spaces: Great Tool for Classroom Content

I have heard of Posterous Spaces before, but this week is the first time I have had time to give the interface a whirl and try it out. My first thoughts are that this is just a fancy blog, but as I dive deeper into it, I see the benefits that Posterous can provide when used as a classroom management system and a one -stop-source for all of your assignments and content resources.  Posterous is a powerful and free tool for teachers and students to use to gather resources and document projects as well as communicate with other students, teachers, and parents to create a communal learning environment.

If you are thinking of using Posterous for a solution to online content management and coursework for students, here are some of the benefits that Posterous gives you:

• Lots of templates:  Plenty of layouts to give your space the right look.
• You can make as many spaces as you want.  Think of each space as a topic or a lesson plan
• Add videos, audio, documents, etc...  Even Powerpoint slides can be uploaded.  The student never has to leave the site, all objects are converted and set to be viewed right in the space.
• Comments:  Use the comments section in each space to extend learning opportunities and create discussions about the topic/lesson you are presenting.  Students love to post and participate in an online discussion.
• Security:  Your spaces can be viewed publicly, or you can control permissions to the site, only letting students in.
• Tablet users:  Posterous has an app that lets you do all of the work from your Ipad or Android device. Also students can view and participate on their tablets or smartphones.

Overall, I think Posterous has a place in where education is going today, providing a blended learning platform. Teachers and students can personalize their learning and develop 21st century thinking skills along the way by participating in web technologies that combine services and make creation of content easier and more effective.
Check out the test space I created in about 5 minutes here

Animals that can help our little ones get ready to read

There are two sites I have hoped to share with you for while that can give our Preschool through 1st grade students some help getting ready to read.  The first, is Scholastic's Building Language for Literacy whiteboard-ready activities that feature Leo, the letter loving lobster, Reggie the rhyming rhino, and Nina the naming newt.

I have to thank a colleague of mine for finding Leo and his friends who give you three games to play either alone or as a group.

The next site is probably a little more for the younger students (my 3YO thinks it is the best) is Alphabetimals

which is a great resource for teaching letters and sounds.

As I sat down with this site open to look at, my daughter came running into the room and immediately sequestered my laptop and began flipping the interactive book, clicking on both the animal and word sounds.  Great illustrations as well as the ability to type in the box at the bottom of the site to see your words in alphabetimals letters makes for this a nice site for kids to work on their own with.

Here come the GERMS!

With the kind of winter that we have had so far, it is always a struggle to stay healthy with all the germs floating around looking to give us the next runny nose, cough, and occasional temperature.  That is why it is important for us in school to stay on top of the things we can do to keep ourselves from being sick.
As we all know, the best line of defense is hand washing.  After watching the first graders wash up for lunch after recess, I felt it was my duty to give them a few pointers on how to keep our mitts clean by washing our hands with lots of soap and water.  But how to incorporate that into an art lesson?  How about by studying the organic shapes of germs and then creating our very own.

After looking at some images on the web of germs and bacteria through a high-powered microscope, the students described the shapes by calling them "round-ish" and "spiky-like", I explained to the students the differences between geometric shapes (shapes with angles and straight lines) and organic shapes (shapes found in nature).  The students used a loop of yarn to adjust and fine tune the organic shape they liked most and then traced around the yarn with a pencil onto paper.

The students then used markers to add all kinds of yucky feelers and eyes on them, adding patterns and colors to create a germ worthy of the CDC's attention.  We used glue to draw lines and patterns on top of our artworks so that we could run over them with printing ink to create unique textures and shapes.  After they were all finished, we looked at Joan Miro's Harlequin's Carnival and talked about the creatures created from organic shapes in the piece.
Hopefully, all the kids got a little creeped out by the germs and will spend a little extra time at the sinks before lunch!