New Google Draw Creations

Turkey Place Value

Bonus Letter turkey

Teapots

Acorns make ten

Bears on the bus

The Mitten Sequencing

Hint Cards

I use Hint cards in my classroom.  Hint cards allow kids to be successful in lessons.  Before kids ask you for help they need to get a hint card and use it to push their thinking.  So I was asked the other day about hint cards in kindergarten.  They can’t read yet, so how do they read the hint card??  I thought about it and decided to try creating Screencastify hint cards.  Here they are:

Measurement Big Hint

measurement little hint

Turkey Big Hint

Turkey Little Hint

Chromebook Stars!!

So my first graders are chromebook stars!!  They are self sufficient with taking them home every night and returning them fully charged.  They use google classroom independently and screen castify is their favorite.  They help one another with chromebook questions and collaborate on assignments.  Yesterday a student asked me if he could share the differences between a woolly mammoth and a woolly rhinoceros.  So we found pictures of each on the chromebook and displayed them while he talked about each one.  Then I went into google draw and showed the students how to create a venn diagram.  We inserted the photos and I scripted facts that were shared.  The student wanted to continue it at home so I set up a google classroom just for him and added his venn diagram so he could continue his research at home.  LOVE IT!!  Here is what he has so far:

Miles Venn Diagram

                    Happy 50th Day School!!

Google Cast

A big thank you to Audra McPhillips for coming to our classroom today!!  She helped me set up Google Cast. so my students could cast their screens onto the board.  They each built a word with letter tiles Fundations on their chromebook and then took turns casting their screen and showing everyone what their word was.  They loved it!!  This is what the chromecast device looks like.  You can purchase one at Best Buy for $32.00.

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.:

Bears on a shelf (Making 10 activity)

Movable hands

Little Mermaid Fundations Activity

Here is another Fundations activity for Bonus Letters.  


Enjoy Ariel

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.

New google draw creations to share

Frozen Fundations Activity
Facts to 5

Happy Friday

              

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.Leaves, Cats  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.

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.

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.

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:

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

Happy Friday Everyone!!!  Enjoy the long weekend.

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..

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

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.

First Grade Apps

I wanted to share the other things we are doing in first grade with our chromebooks.  Everyday during guided reading my students use the Razkids program. razkids This program allows me to differentiate for all of my students.  They read books on their own reading level and complete comprehension questions for each book.
We are also using Xtramath daily. xtramath This also allows for differentiation.  It gives the students a quiz  and sets them up with the math facts that they are ready to learn.  Each day the students take a quiz on the facts that they are working on.  It takes about five minutes and then we start math.

While working on 2D and 3D shapes we reinforced our learning with the Math Playground App.geoboards and shapes

We are also using the sight word app Dolch to practice our dolch words. Each child clicks on the dolch list that they are working on.

Feel free to add apps or ideas to my blog. :)

Assignment Returns

The chromebooks went home this week and the assignments are coming in.  I am starting with one a week for now and they have until Friday to complete it.  I just finished looking over their assignments and adding comments to each of them.   If students can't take home their chromebook, I will have them watch the video at school and take home a paper copy of the assignment.

More homework tasks are coming.....

Reading Response

Happy Fall

I used the google classroom app again and created a new assignment.  It is a reading response that focuses on a text to self connection.  I attached a link for the book called: The Leaf who wouldn't leave in the assignment.  Students will use their chromebook to listen to the story at home and answer the responses on the google doc. attached.  leaf assignment. 

Here we go

So here we go.......  We are beginning a unit on non-standard measurement so I wanted to start it off with a chromebook assignment.  I am sending home this measurement task for my students to do with their family.  I created it in the Google Classroom App.  Here is the link: google classroom.  So I created a class in google classroom with all my student's email addresses.   I attached a youtube video for the students to watch.  It is called Sid the Science Kid Exploring Measurement.  Here is the link: Sid the Science Kid.  Then I created a google doc and attached it to the google classroom assignment.   I just hit the button that said, "make a copy for each student" and sent it to my class.  Here is the link to the document: Math Measurement Task.  Google classroom will tell me how many students sent in the assignment and who they are.  I hope to insert comments on their document for them to use as feedback.   I will be introducing the assignment next week and I sharing feedback on my blog.  Feel free to comment or share your ideas....