Archive for December, 2009

CSI Twitter- Crime Scene Investigation

Friday, December 18th, 2009

CSI- Crime Scene Investigation at school!
Third graders find unidentified skeleton on school campus.
What is one to do, when you find such a specimen on school grounds? Students across grade levels took a mini fieldtrip to the pond on campus to examine the skeleton. The BIG question for everyone, including teachers was: WHAT kind of [...]

Podcasting with First Grade

Friday, December 18th, 2009

If you have not thought of podcasting with your younger elementary school students, I encourage you to think again.
The first graders at my school had listened to the second grade podcast about animals, and had really enjoyed their story.They were especially thrilled that the second graders had received so many comments from teachers around the [...]

Backchanneling with Elementary School Students

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Chatrooms have acquired a bad reputation. Children are being warned that entering a chatroom will get them kidnapped, abused and possibly killed.
As with everything, if you use scare tactics and simply tell children “not to do it” , they will automatically been drawn to whatever you are trying to keep them away from.
My philosophy, instead [...]

Information Literacy…Authentic Conversation..Globalize Curriculum…

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Students are participating in a Jewish History Fair. Their topic is “Jewish Communities Around the World.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24707395@N02/ / CC BY 2.0
In the old days… students would have been given a specific topic, sent home, to the computer lab or the library to “look up” information. They would then have to write a report, print out images, [...]

We Podcasted Today- So, did you learn anything?

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Second graders at my school are studying animals in their science unit. They learned about the different characteristics of mammals, reptiles and birds.
If their parents ask them tonight at the dinner table if they learned anything today, the students probably will tell them that they recorded a podcast today!

Will the parents know that they practiced:

Collaboration [...]

Collaborative Student Math Wiki

Friday, December 18th, 2009

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about my Thoughts on Setting up a Student Created Wiki.
I chose to use wikispaces education wiki as the platform of the Math wiki. The set up of student accounts was very easy and fast, no email was required for the students.

I also pre-created a page [...]

News Assignment with a Twist

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Over the years (from Elementary to High School) , I cannot tell you HOW many times each of my own daughters had to find news articles to bring in to class to share. These assignments came in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they were required to write a summary, print out a representative image and [...]

Our Own Private Pirate Island

Friday, December 18th, 2009

I wanted to add my reflection to the lesson, as a follow up to my post” Map skills and the SmartBoard” with 2nd graders from a few days ago.
As one of the activities for their maps and globe unit, 2nd graders worked collaboratively by creating an imaginary island according to specific directions.
Directions were:

Draw a Compass [...]

Taking Notes- Summarizing Information- 2nd Grade Style

Friday, December 18th, 2009

2nd Graders have moved on from their Maps and Globes unit to learning about communities. Their investigation started out with looking at a map of our planet Earth at night.

We zoomed in to look at urban and rural areas and compared cities, like Jacksonville and Buenos Aires. the teacher then guided the students to come [...]