A Second Grade Teacher’s Blog

Every May we celebrate Michigan Week. In the past we would talk about fun state facts, color the state symbols, and add cities and names of the lakes to a map. It was a fun week, but I was never sure how much of what we learned stayed with them.

This year I found a request for a Michigan School in the http://50statesproject.wikispaces.com/ I volunteered my second graders right away - even though I didn’t know what was expected and nor had I ever Skpye chatted with another school before.
We prepared at least 10 facts about our state and the children practiced reading them. We did a practice Skype with the school in Alabama the day before to make sure the connection worked (it did!) The following day we went to the computer lab (we have new iMacs and iSight cameras) and gathered around the camera/computer. The children did a great job reading their facts and listening to the Alabama school tell us their facts. I did learn a few things I will do differently the next time (and we will do it again!) We used an external iSight camera instead of the one on the iMac and we ended up a bit sideways. I also would have the children arranged differently. But all in all it was a great experience. Here is the link to our Skype chat. (The volume on our end is louder than theirs. Also the next time I will talk less!)

As it was Michigan week, and I had been given a Video/Green Screen assignment from my PLC group, I decided we would take our facts and illustrate them in front of the camera using the green screen (I needed at least 4 of the screens hanging behind the kids and on the ground so they could appear to be walking on the bridge.) We have done many green screen videos before so the kids were thrilled to do it. Each group would stand with their fact and we would decide the best way to show it. They pointed to the green screen imagining a map behind them, picked cherries from the green wall, swam with brook trout, and walked across the bridge. As it took a few takes to film each scene (and the rest of the class was quietly reading around the room at the time) we heard each fact repeated many times. The value of this is that the children can recite most of the facts from the video with little prompting. We have watched the video over and over and they repeat the lines along with the speakers. Yesterday we were playing a game, and the question asked if Lake Erie was one of the Great Lakes. We all laughed and repeated the lines from the video - naming all of the great lakes! ( We do know how to pronounce Ontario - even though the gals in the video kept saying Ontari-er!)

The movie was a great creative exercise. The children had many great ideas and their ideas made the video better. We covered a bookshelf in green screen and David climbed on that as if he were climbing a tree (his idea!) It is an experience I will repeat. This video will be shown to future classes as an introduction to Michigan Week. We already showed the video at our All School Student Film Festival. Video will be used in other content areas as well. I am already jotting down ideas for next year.

Last week I had one of those “Wow” moments and once again realized the Power of Using Tech in the Classroom.
Here’s the set up: (This shows all of the reasons why the children should NOT have been engaged during our afternoon lesson.)
Wednesday was 3rd graders “Business Day”. The children were very excited from the moment they stepped into the classroom, this event is a highlight of the year. The hallway (right outside our 2nd grade classroom) fills up all morning with 3rd graders setting up their wares to sell - from pizza, to small toys, to cookies, to smoothies. The 2nd graders did shop before lunch and consume way too much sugar. After lunch we had a longer recess (as business day was still going on outside our classroom.) We returned to the room and did some reading (My attempt to calm them.) Then unifix cubes were passed out to all students. We haven’t used them a lot lately so they were a “new” toy to play with. They had used them briefly the day before, but we did not have much free explore time.

Here’s the lesson:

Find more videos like this on MACUL Space

I set up the SMARTboard with 3 large rectangles and a couple of object options. I asked a student, Katie to come up to the board and show us how to multiply 3 times 3. As Katie made her way to the SMARTboard, I said, “Why don’t we film it and we can add it to our Mathcasts?” It took a minute to set up the camera. When the children saw I was ready and Katie was about to begin, they QUIETED RIGHT DOWN. The room was SILENT! I had not given any directions as to use of unifx cubes during Katie’s demonstration, however I did not hear one child playing with unifix cubes. Katie stated the problem, and began to drag apples into the rectangles. EVERY EYE WAS ON HER and all were QUIET. It was amazing! Not just amazing that they were quiet, but that they were pin-drop quiet on an exciting day, near the end of the school year, in a class that was not known for being pin-drop quiet, or even somewhat quiet. I just sat back in wonder. What had so engaged them? It wasn’t me - I wasn’t talking or doing anything. They were watching a classmate use the SMARTboard and they knew it was being filmed. It was the tech that grabbed them and the tech that kept them engaged. They will also watch this Mathcast, and the others we filmed over and over - reinforcing the idea and making connections. It was just so amazing. Wow.

You can see the rest of the videos by visiting our class wiki.

Every year I read “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” by Judi Barrett aloud as part of our weather study. After the reading we discuss the wacky weather and brainstorm weather words and food words. (We get very hungry doing this!) The children are given a weather forecast template and fill in their own Wacky Weather Forecast with the food and weather words. They love to write about a shower of orange juice, a drizzle of chocolate, cotton candy clouds, or a tomato tornado. After the rough drafts are written, the children edit their writing and write a good copy. They also are given the opportunity to illustrate the wacky weather forecast. The children create pictures using crayon, followed by a water color layer. We usually display the writing and picture together in the hallway. They are placed in the hall for a week or two and then sent home. Until this year…..

This year we decided to “tech” it up a bit! The children are excited to write their report as before and illustrate it, but we will share it differently. They are going to practice reading their weather forecast out loud, and then each child will be filmed reading it sitting at a desk in front of green screen. We will then scan the pictures into the computer and use them as the background for their weather forecast. The children were very excited about the project today. (Today’s classroom blog reporters chose to write about it today and they called it a fun project!) We have already filmed a few students reading their forecast and we are going to look at these and learn from them. I hope I can get the kids to read with more expression, and they will learn they need to practice reading their forecast a few more times before the filming. We will film more tomorrow and should have the pictures finished as well.

Stay tuned….the first Wacky Weather Forecast video will be posted soon!

Voice Thread is a wonderful Web 2.0 tool that has unlimited possibilities. While it is designed as a collaborative tool, I have only used it with my second graders, within our class. We have viewed the Voice Threads of other classes, but have not commented on them. I hope to have a collaborative project in the works soon. (Voice Thread for Educators has a one time fee of $10 and is well worth it!)

My 2nd graders have used Voice Thread to read and comment on Langston Hughes poems, and share what they know about geometric shapes. Parents have enjoyed these posts as well and now I look at every lesson as a possible Voice Thread opportunity! My friends on Twitter are also creating Voice Threads and we get ideas from each other. I decided to use the drawing feature with our Geometry Voice Thread after viewing the Matter Voice Thread by Mrs. Patterson’s Class.
Our Langston Hughes Voice Thread was inspired by many of the other Voice Threads I have found on Mrs. Patterson’s blog, as well as Mrs. Wojtera’s Famous American’s VT, An Abe Lincoln VT by Mrs. Diaz’s class, and Mrs. Shulman’s Many VT’s, here is a link to The Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch VT.
I needed to first give credit to the Voice Threads and teachers mentioned above, as they have inspired and challenged me to use this tool with my class and to find a way to share it and use it as a collaborative tool. ( I also wanted to have links to all of their wonderful VT’s in one place for easier access!)

There are many benefits to use VT. I know I have only scratched the surface. Here is what I have found thus far.
While one student is commenting, the other students are listening closely (they have work they should be doing, but can’t help pay attention to what is going on in the front of the room.)
The students will play the VT over and over at home, reinforcing the concept or material.
In order for a student to make a comment, they must somehow connect with the material. VT encourages the children to think differently and make those connections.
One student referenced a Langston Hughes poem at recess - he said the Rain kissed his cheek!
The students are proud of their work and share it with family and friends, again reinforcing the concepts.
The children are learning from each other! Even though we are not collaborating with another class, it is collaborative learning at the classroom level.

Here are the two Voice Threads created by my second graders. Enjoy!

The students love their turns as blogs reporters! They check the board first thing each morning to see if it is their turn. When they see their name - they come right to me to get the BLOG BOOK (a spiral notebook that they write the blog entry in before the type it into the computer) and pen (a cool pen or marker that just makes writing more fun.)

They first meet as a trio to decide what to write. We are still perfecting the best time of day to do this. We began with end of the day, but that got very busy. We are trying right after lunch. We’ll see if that works better. Some groups did need a little more guidance in the “what to write” part. They all wanted to interview the class with the same question (same question 3 days in a row!) I encouraged the writing about class and school events. This helped them get started especially as it was a special week with a skating party and carnival to look forward to. This week we will spend some time brainstorming ideas for blog entries. This will be a great exercise and we can post these ideas in the room (or inside the cover of the BLOG BOOK.)

They liked to personalize the blog entry with something about themselves or mentioning children in the class. They were great at sitting down at the computer and typing it in, commenting on spelling! I sat with them and helped edit the post before they published it. We took the picture and they gathered around the computer to learn how the picture was uploaded to the page.

The last group of the week lost interest half way into typing the entry (exciting day - the carnival) so I finished it up for them. Another student, a blog reporter from earlier in the week was shocked to see me doing the typing. She could not believe it! Had I not been about finished I could have had her step in and do it. (I will keep this in mind for the future. If a group is not able to get the entry posted, allow another student to help, not do it myself.)

Check out the student posts at www.harju.edublogs.org.

Other things we are working on:
Visiting and commenting on other classrooms blogs. Right now we are doing this together, but would like to follow the example of Mrs. Shulman and her blog World of Wonder and let the students post their comments themselves. Mrs. Shulman has her students write their own blogs and I am exploring this as well. Right now I have assigned this as a homework option. The writing part of the homework can be something that they would like to post on the blog. As they come in, we will determine how to best share them - on their wiki page, individual blogs, group blogs, or on the class blog.

The best thing about teaching is there is always something new. This is especially true when technology is involved! Technology must be involved if we are to teach this digital generation. This week, I attended a conference on 21st Century Learning at Summit Academy, with keynote speaker Sheryl Nussbaum Beach. I came back energized, exhausted, and rewriting my lesson plans with these two goals in mind

1.) Have my students do MORE of the tech in the classroom and
2.) To share it with the world.

It is amazing how challenges come at a time when you are open to them. The day before the conference I was uploading student work to our classroom wiki, and thought – “The kids should really be doing this!” I should have stopped. But of course it is always faster and easier to do it myself, and I was in a hurry to get it done. I thought about sharing with the world, but not as globally or in such a student centered way as Sheryl suggests. When I proudly told her about my classroom blog, she asked, “Who does the posting?” Again I had to admit it was me (sometimes with student input, sometimes without.) I took a look at our classroom tech and looked at how much is student and how much is teacher. I’d like to say it was mostly student, but I can’t.

I started making changes with the classroom blog. I assigned three students as the reporters of the day. I guided them to write about our classroom events (they wanted to write about sports – which I realized later would have been fine as well. I missed a teachable moment!) They decided to interview their classmates, ask questions and use this as their blog post. I showed them how to type their text into the blog and post it. (I did edit it with them, they are in second grade and this is a published piece.) They were very proud of their entry. A picture was taken of them, and I showed them how to upload it add it to the post. A second trio was assigned to do the blog post the next day.

This was a start on the first goal –more student, less teacher, but what about the second – share it with the world? I took the opportunity to have the students look at the comments that our blog has received. We read and discussed them. I then showed them another classroom blog from a 4th grade class in another state. We read their post, watched their video and as a class wrote a comment. This class commented back the same day and I was able to share this with the students. We have since had another comment from a class in Australia, and I can’t wait to share this with the class. This is just the beginning and I am excited to see where this goes. So many possibilities!

I have already received great ideas from my Twitter friends. (Thanks to MaryKK and digitallearnin!)
I am also looking into student blogs. I may let those boys have their sports blog after all.

This blog entry is cross posted on my MACULspace blog.

I am not going to make New Year’s Resolutions as I know what I will do with those. (I can usually keep one for about a week.) What I will do is set some teaching with technology goals for 2009. Here they are in no particular order;

1. Google Earth -Utilize and Integrate Google Earth into my lessons plans. I have attended two conference sessions, played with it and explored Google Lit Trips, downloaded lesson plans and now I need start using it. This is such an amazing tool and has so many possibilities. I also know I have a great resource, Ben Rimes, who is only a click away.

2. Podcasts - I have recorded the children reading, singing, and praying. They love to listen themselves over and over (an added benefit.) I would like the children to do some of the recording. Right now I am doing most of the work. Audacity is an easy tool and I would like to see my second graders using it.

3. Smilebox, Voicethread, Animoto - I would like to find more ways to use these three free tools. I have used Voicethread and Animoto a little, but Smilebox is a new one for me. Again I would like to find ways to have the students use these tools to complete projects.

4. Skype - This is another great free tool that I have not utilized. I have contact with classroom teachers all over the state and country (through MACULspace, Twitter and Plurk) and Skype could be used for some shared learning.

5. Wiki - I have a classroom wiki and I want to find more ways to use it to encourage writing with my second graders. I also want to explore true collaboration opportunities with 2nd graders and the wiki.

Wow! I am already overwhelmed………. One goal at a time………. I think I will start at the top with
Google Earth. I will try to complete one goal every month. We’ll see what happens.

What are your Teaching with Technology Goals for 2009? Please share!

Kelly Hines tagged me in this meme.

Here are my 7 things in no particular order.
1. I am not a cat or a dog or any kind of animal person. I have allergies, however I live with a dog and 2 cats (husband, son and daughters convinced me they needed them to be happy.) I dream of the day when all the pets are gone and I can live in a pet free home. My children do not like to hear me say this.
2. I love Gilmore Girls. I own all seven seasons and have watched each episode many, many times. I watch it when it airs daily at 5pm and if I am home at 11am. I can recite the lines and often do. I want to visit and live in the fictional “Stars Hollow” and eat at Luke’s Diner. My oldest daughter is also a Gilmore Girl fan and we pretend we have the same perfect Mother-Daughter relationship.
3. I love to be alone. I do not often get this opportunity as a teacher by day and wife and mother the rest of the time, but when it does happen (like the 4 days I was alone over the 4th of July last year) I treasure it. I do love my family, however everyone needs some time when things are quiet and no one needs them. It is bliss.
4. I am not a good housekeeper (anyone who has visited my home does know this.) There are a million other things I would rather do and I often do them instead. I need the threat of family or friends dropping by to buckle down and get things cleaned. I did clean the best when I was pregnant with my second child - major nesting instinct kicked in, however that has never happened again. I am looking for ways that my laptop can clean my house, maybe my PLN at Twitter can solve this for me?
5. I collect Nativity sets. I only have a few, but I love each of them. Some of them I keep out all year. They are too beautiful to put away in a box for 10 months a year.
6. I do not eat peanut butter, nuts or fish. The lack of peanut butter and nuts in my diet goes back to childhood. My older sister is allergic, so I was never offered peanut butter or nuts and do not have a taste for them. I also do not like fish of any kind and do not care for the smell when it is cooked in my presence. I do not cook it for my family either. I feel these two things are important to add to the list as people who have known me all of my life still do not know this about me and will offer me fish or ruin a good brownie or cookie with peanut butter or nuts.
7. My favorite ways to spend time are reading, playing scrabble online, watching a movie (or Gilmore Girls), working in the garden (I love to be one with the earth every spring,) thinking about exercising, but not actually doing it and exploring web tips from my Twitter Friends. I even enjoy working on my lesson plans. I do them on my computer and add clip art, color and font changes. They are very fancy.

I am now tagging friends from my Twitter PLN…enjoy!
njtechteacher
TeachaKidd
teryl_magee
ehaygood
billgx

Lee Kolbert at A GeekyMomma’s blog started a meme.
Her blog post was titled, “Can I Have a Wordle with you?” She made a Wordle out of her blog’s RSS feed. I was tagged by NJtechteacher (Ann Oro) to do the same. I decided to cut and paste the content of my blog posts into Wordle to concentrate on the entries that are education related. Here is what I can up with.

I love that children, classroom, and reading are prominent. Here is what I got when I simply used the RSS Feed and included all of my blog posts and titles.

Classroom and reading are again prominent as well as video. This is due to the fact that we created many class videos this fall. We have taken a break from videos (mostly because another teacher borrowed my video camera and hasn’t given it back.)

I am now tagging others in this meme.
Kelly Hines you are tagged.