Friday, October 31, 2014

Virtual Manipulatives

I love this site:  virtual manipulatives!  The possibilities are endless.  You type in your grade level and it supplies you with a menu of manipulatives and backgrounds.  They have game boards, work mats, storyboards and a wide range of manipulatives.  Here are a few screen shots of what I found so far.:
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Bears on a shelf (Making 10 activity)

Movable hands



Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Great Pumpkin Math

I love the story of Linus and the Great Pumpkin.  Here is my Great Pumpkin situational story.
Great Pumpkin        

Frozen Measurement

New Frozen themed measurement task.  So cute Frozen measurement

Virtual Legos

Thinking of using Google Build to create models of student neighborhoods for our social studies unit.Build with Chrome 
It is a virtual Lego site. I think they will love it.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Fundations Connectons

You can incorporate Fundations into your chromebook tasks.  One idea is to create a sorting task such as these two.Digraph Sort 1  Digraph sort 2.  You can have students complete these as a reading center activity.  You can also use this site: fundation tiles (thank you Pat D'Alfonso for creating this) one day and the magnetic boards on another day.  It is easier for the kids to return the letters to their spots by just clicking the back arrow.

Chromebooks and situational stories part 2

My students are loving these interactive situational stories.  Here are  a few more that I have made.LeavesCats  I usually start with the students on the carpet and I display the story on the board with my projector.  We read the story and we note the givens and goals.  Then we turn and talk about how we would solve the story and students share out their ideas.  When everyone is comfortable with the task, I offer two options.  They can go on their chromebooks and complete the task independently or they can stay on the carpet for further hints or teaching points.  Eventually everyone completes the task and turns it in.  As each assignment is turned in, I call students up  to conference about their work.  For early finishers...  I have created a google document with all the links needed for the topic we are covering.  This week it is measuring and they can click on each link for reinforcement.  Here is the document:measuring sites.  When everyone is done, we come to the carpet and I pull up a few students to share their document with the class and explain their thinking.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

situational story problems in google draw

I am addicted to google draw now!!!  Here is a math task that we will be doing this week.  pumpkin math. Students need to move the pumpkins to solve the situational story.

Friday, October 17, 2014

My first experience with Google Draw!!


My kiddos have been doing fact and opinion sorts.  I thought I would create an interactive activity in google draw.  With Halloween just around the corner, we have been reading about bats.  So this sort is my first google draw creation.  It does take time to create but I love the result. Bat Cave The students will be able to drag the facts into the bat cave and leave the opinions on the tree branch.  Enjoy this cute video that my students love.


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Hey Little Ant Opinion Writing



So for writers workshop we are still working on Opinion Writing.  I love this story.  It is about a boy who wants to squish an ant.  The ant and the boy go back and forth giving reasons why he should or should not be squished.  So I set up their task in google classroom(Love this).  First they view the videoHey Little Ant.  Next they complete a google form.Little Ant Survey  Then they use this google doc. to tell me one reason why the ant did not want to be squished.Hey Little Ant Response.  I would love them to tell me several reasons, but they have limited keyboarding skills.  It can be very frustrating for little fingers.

Here is a copy of the survey:



Monday, October 13, 2014

More measurement activities

Here a two measurement tasks that I added to my google classroom.  They address this CCSS: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.1.MD.A.1.  Enjoy

Students view: Finley the Fish in google slides.  After viewing the slides they can complete this google doc.Fish measurement

Students view: compare objects by length.  After watching this video, they can complete this google doc.pencil measurement

Friday, October 10, 2014

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Retellings using Stupeflix

  
During my guided reading block, I am adding a video retelling center.  Students will read a book and then use the Stupeflix app to video themselves retelling the story.  They will use their retelling rope retelling rope to summarize the story.  After recording their retelling they share it with a partner and get feedback. I can watch the video later and use it for an assessment.


Today I introduced Gonoodle https://www.gonoodle.com/ to my students.  It is a great website for Brainbreaks.  GoNoodle uses short periods of physical activity – dancing, running, jumping, deep breathing, and more.   GoNoodle gets the wiggles out, so we can keep on learning!
GoNoodle is great when:
 • we need to focus
 • we’re transitioning from one subject to another
 • we’re feeling stressed or anxious
 • we’ve had a great day and need a reward

The students can create their own account and there is a section for parents too.  Love it..

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Community Photos



I am trying to add an assignment for each subject area.  The students are loving this!!  They are asking for more work to do.  So today I added a Community assignment.  They are going to this website Neighborhood and they will be building different types of communities.

Chromebook Assignment Directions and AHA moment

For my first two chromebook assignments I am sending home a direction sheet in their computer bag.  I thought I would have to do this for every assignment, but my students and parents are completing the assignments in my google classroom library before they are even due.  SO AWESOME!!!!!!  So no directions are needed after the first one.  Here are the google doc directions that I sent home.assignment directions

Wednesday, October 1, 2014


So we are working on Opinion Pieces in first grade.  I found a funny video on the National Geographic kids site http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/videos/.  You have to scroll to the bottom to find it.  It is called: "Seal riding on a turtle."  After the kids view the video they need to fill out a google survey. Opinion Survey  I also created a google doc Opinion where the students need to state their opinion.  Should a seal ride on a turtle?  Yes or No.  They need to type two reasons for their choice to support their opinion.  I plan to use the results of our poll to create a future google graphing assignment.