Showing posts with label apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apps. Show all posts

Learning About Adjectives with Flipagram {FREEBIES}

I've had so much fun getting ready to present at the CUE conference this year with my *amazing* teaching partner Kay! We're presenting a session on digital photography in the classroom, and this Flipagram project is one of the projects we'll be sharing!


My students always have a hard time distinguishing parts of speech- they can never remember what nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are. I was hoping this lesson will help adjectives "stick." To start off, we talk about how adjectives are describing words, and how adjectives describe a noun. I read a bunch of "baby" books ;-) to the kids like these ones and have the kids try and pick out the adjectives.



Then I focus on how feelings can be adjectives because they describe us. We talk about lots of different feelings and I pull up a chart like this one:


Then the fun part begins. :) Kids use this organizer:

{Click to download}

to write down the name of ten friends and ten different adjectives they will show. The only rule is they can't use the same friend or the same adjective twice.


Once their sheets have been checked off by me, they can start taking their photos of their friends using the photography skills we've learned in class (like holding the camera steady, being a good friend and not cutting off friend's foreheads, and using a simple background- that's what the random paper around the classroom is for).


Once they have their ten "head shots" complete, they use Skitch to label the picture with the matching adjective and save it to their camera rolls.


Then on to Flipagram where they compile the pictures together and add music (I have the latest KidzBop album for them to choose songs from).


{Oh my goodness- can you see the "sik" kiddo with the trash can!?!?!!?}

***In order to save the Flipagram files to the camera roll, you have to be logged in. I logged my students in and had them save to their camera roll, and then logged them back out.***

When our adjective Flipagrams are finished, we share them on our class blog, on our class Instagram account (@PattersonsClassD8), and our class Twitter account (@Patterson_D8).

We also use this rubric to evaluate our work:

{Click to download}

You can learn more about our digital photography session HERE and see some other great projects!

Will you be at CUE??? Will I see you there??? 




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Zoo Scavenger Hunt, Chirp, & Five for Friday

Long time, no blog! We have two weeks left and I'm feelin' the burn. I'm exhausted!!!

Here's a peek into my week: 

We went on our big 2nd grade field trip of the year to the zoo!

We mapped out our routes:


Rode the bus:

Riding on the bus with 60+ second graders
#headache 

And had a great time! (Did I mention I'm exhausted...!?!?!) 

Each group got to take an iPad with them to take pictures (they had a scavenger hunt so they were looking for specific things to take pictures of.) 

When we got back, the kids used the app Chirp to share the pictures with the other members of their group, so everyone would have the pictures on their iPads (in order to create an iMovie). 


Chirping was WAAAyyyyy easier than sharing the pictures through email or Bumping them! It's quick and user friendly!!!


We've also been working on our last writing assignment of the year- informational writing about American heroes!


I seriously LOVE this time of year when we can look back and see where my kiddos started with their writing, and see how much they've grown!!! #soproud

Anyways, this writing aligns perfectly with our 2nd grade performance coming up- "Heroes All"; thanks Kate for recommending this to us!!!

In other news...


I'm still alive (barely) ;) and young if you were wondering...

And finally, we randomly {spur of the moment} booked a cruise for the summer to........


Alaska!!!!!!

I'm so excited!

Make sure to link up with Doodle Bugs for 


Have a great weekend ! :)

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Adorable Mother's (or Father's!) Day Project

A quick and easy DIY gift for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, or even Father's Day! Printables included!

Today we worked on our Mother's Day gifts and I'm SO excited with how they turned out!!!

I made a poster (two pieces of butcher paper taped together): 


And set it up in our classroom:


Each kiddo had to finish the sentence "I love you because ______" for their moms or grandmas. They used the Big Words app on their iPads, and we took a picture...

They turned out ADORABLE! 




(I took the pictures with my iPad, then filtered them using the Camera + app.) 

I'm having them printed out, and we'll make a card with the pictures for their mom's tomorrow! 

If you'd like the "I love you because" letters, you can grab them {HERE!} 
(The font is from Miss Tiina!) Love! 

And this was just about the sweetest thing ever... 
One of my kids posted this on our class blog today about him mom! So. Stinkin'. Sweet!!!


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Gotta Love Sock Puppets

I love stumbling upon those apps that can be used in any subject area in the classroom! And this is definitely one of them...



Sock puppets!!! Who doesn't love sock puppets, right?


Here's a quick video two of my kiddos made this week about fractions!!! 


The kids love being able to choose from different sock puppet characters, and adding backgrounds and props. 

We've used this app to practice spelling words- one sock asks how to spell "cat" and the other sock puppet says "c-a-t". (I didn't even think of this- one of my sweet kiddos did to practice his words for the week!) 

We've used it to pretend like we are characters in a story and are talking back and forth.

The kids can use this app individually or together (love the collaboration that goes on here!)...

The possibilities are absolutely endless!!!

I would definitely recommend having the students write a script before they record, or you could even write a script for them. 

Have you used sock puppets!?!? I would love to hear how you used it! 

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A Hodge-Podge of my Week

So sorry I've been M.I.A. for a week or so!!!!!!!! Last week was like the never-ending week, with Open House and meetings and board meetings and meetings and trainings and meetings. You know how it is. 

And then Friday rolled around, and then it was Spring Break! Yipeeeee! But then I got sick. :( Stuck-on-the-couch type sick. So sick I had to miss the SoCal blogger meet up. :(  

But then I felt better and I've been having way too much fun enjoying the sunshine and doing fun stuff like this with my teacher besties: 


Wine tasting!!! Fun!!!


I was way too exhausted to link up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday, so here's a quick recap of my week. :)


Open House was Tuesday (check that off the list- done and done!) and we had some QR code fun. There were QR codes hanging up all around our classroom for the kids to scan and share with their families. Some of the QR codes linked to plain text about what they were looking at, some linked to audio of the kids voices telling about the school year or a certain project (we used the AudioBoo app for that), and some linked to collaborative websites (Padlet, TodaysMeet) we've been working on. 

Here's an example from TodaysMeet (we were working on similes):


And this QR code told all about our class pet, Stinky Fluffy

It was also science week, so our mornings were filled with fun experiments and investigations all having to do with force and motion.  

We did bottle rockets (AND launched them!!!): 


(We used Skitch to annotate on top of that picture) 


Which tricycle will move farther with the same amount of force applied?



And we had fun dropping stuff to see which would hit the ground first (very scientific terms right???)- tennis ball or domino? Tennis ball or soccer ball? Tennis ball or ball of paper? 

(The tennis balls were on loan from:
)

Anyways...

We used this app to record our experiments & watch them back in super slow motion!!! We loved this!!!  


And if you're looking for an awesome unit on force & motion, you MUST check this unit out:


Super teacher and kid friendly, and we've had SO much fun with it! (Way better than the lame-o experiments in our text books ;)


I've got about a million ideas bouncing around in my head of things to create and share and do...

So- I'm going to do my BEST to be back soon. However, this:


may take over my life for the next week or so.

;-)
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Five for Friday (Late Again) & Fun FREE Apps!

What. A. Week. Eeeek!

Here are a few pictures from my week! :)

We started off the week with Jen's Fish Math-

This was a perfect wrap-up to our data and graphing unit! And who doesn't love Goldfish...? 



On Tuesday we got together to watch the Women Tell All from the Bachelor (teacher friends- NOT my students!) And we made breakfast for dinner! So much fun!!! (So grateful to work with such wonderful friends- not just colleagues!) 


We are learning all about ants this week, so we've been using this app:


to organize our information. 


This is a free app!

My kiddos are finishing up publishing their writing from President's Day (finally) and they've been using Comic Touch to add a little flair to their final projects. Check these out:




Such a fun way to show learning! And this app is FREE too!!! 


Report cards and conferences are next week, so I've been busy getting those done:


At least I have Abby here to help...although she's not too happy about it. (Neither am I...). 

Hope you are a having a GREAT weekend!

Looking forward to a (little bit) less stressful week with lots of fun lessons I can't wait to share! 

Make sure to link up with Doodle Bugs to share your week!!!


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Blah Blah Blah, Blah Blah Blah Blah

Do you ever get that feeling that they're just not listening to you....? Please tell me that's not just me. I mostly have a group one student who listens to every little word I say (and then holds it against me/corrects me/reminds me about every little thing I say), about 4 kids who mostly pay attention, 5 kids who sometimes pay attention, and 12 kids who hardly ever pay attention. I really don't know why the gunk on the bottom of their shoes is more interesting that ME!!!! 

Plus, we're starting subtraction with... wait for it... REGROUPING when we get back!!! Eeeeeek! This always makes me want to cry/pull my hair out/retire. 



It's a (paid) app on the iPad that allows you to explain everything- or anything you want. In this case, subtraction with regrouping!


Check it out:


 

I created this on my iPad. (I was even able to add some cute clip art from my Dropbox account!) (Plus I think there's so much more you can do with this app- I think you can animate stuff...but this was my first attempt at it!)...

I created it, exported it to YouTube, and I'm going to have my kiddos watch this on their iPads for their seat work station on Monday. I feel like watching this video will go over a little better than me trying to keep their attention whole group (or even small group these days!). We'll see!

But you could even project a video like this onto the board or SMART board whole group (if you only have one iPad). It's no BrainPop, but I feel like they'll listen better and (hopefully) absorb some of this regrouping shennanigans! 

Keeping my fingers crossed!

There's also this app:

Educreations! It's very similar to Explain Everything (but it a bit more limited) and it's FREE!

Next step is to have the KIDS start creating these videos to show their thinking and learning!

How do you get your kids to pay attention (besides dancing and singing and tap dancing and acrobatics and jumping around like at Jazzercise to keep them engaged- I do all of those things on a regular basis too! :-) ???

For more Technology Tips, head over to Fern's!!! It Technology Tip Thursday! :)

Freebie Fridays

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