Silly Santa!

Mrs. Tieszen's first graders were enjoying this hilarious little video when I was in her classroom at Orchard today. It's so funny, I thought I needed to share. Enjoy! :)

Displaying a Visual of Apps

In my kindergarten classroom, I always printed large reproductions of app icons and attached these to my magnetic whiteboard or put into a pocket chart to give students a visual of what apps I wanted them working on at a certain time. I really liked putting them on the magnetic board, so I could also write beside the app any specific instructions (i.e. how many times to that app, what letters or numbers to work on, etc). When I was in Mrs. Elenbaas' room, I noticed she does something similar. It's so simple and easy ... she keeps the apps attached to the top of her whiteboard and drags them onto the main board as she is instructing kids which app to use.

Make a Scene Christmas App

Today in 1st grade we used the app Make a Scene: Christmas paired with Seesaw tools to document student learning. The kids loved using this engaging app, and incorporating math and literacy concepts with this app made our learning time together very fun. Enjoy these examples from Mrs. Johnson's 1st grade!

Christmas Breakout Edu for Primary

A huge thanks to Ms. Wanner for letting me cause chaos in her 2nd grade classroom with a fun Christmas Breakout Edu activity! Instead of a traditional locked Breakout box, I brought in a wrapped present and told students that they needed to solve clues in order to open the box.

BPS Teachers - get the Word Wonderland App for FREE!

Billings Schools K-2 teachers, you have an opportunity to get the Word Wonderland app from McGraw-Hill for free. This looks like an excellent app for reading and phonics skills in the primary classroom. Deana Elder purchased licenses for this app while it was listed as FREE, so if you'd like it installed on your classroom iPads, please submit a Help Ticket to Deana and ask her to install it on your iPads.

Reindeer Facts in Seesaw!

I loved working with kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders at Orchard today to learn facts about reindeer and share what they learned using Seesaw! To make our adorable reindeer, we used directed drawing directions that I found on the blog Happy Kids, Busy Mom. You can print the directions HERE. Instead of drawing on paper, we used the Drawing tool in Seesaw to complete these projects, then add sentences and our voice.

Simplify the Wonders login for your students!

Wondering how to best utilize the student portion of Wonders, without wanting to pull your hair out while trying to get your students logged in?! Simplified login to the rescue! By using the simplified login option, students select their icon and name from a list, then enter a 3 character visual password. It works from computers, Chromebooks & iPads and is a game changer, especially for primary teachers trying to get their young learners logged in!

Troubleshooting Seesaw Folders!

I had a great question from a teacher who is just starting to use folders in Seesaw with her class. I thought I'd share my answer here, in case anyone else is having the same problem as they implement the use of folders into Seesaw!

Interactive Writing on Your Mimio: iPad Expectations!

Here is another interactive writing idea to use with your Mimio! I found this great "I Can Use My iPad" book online for free - I wish I knew who made it and I would credit them here. I used to print this book out for my students' poetry/fluency binders when I introduced iPads to them. However, I used it in Mrs. Marcotte's kindergarten class to introduce iPads and so some interactive writing using her Mimio.

Breakout Edu with 1st Graders!

If you haven't heard of Breakout Edu, you should check it out! Ann has caught the Breakout bug and has been sharing this super engaging and exciting learning experience with many teachers and kids throughout the district. Kristie Martin and I decided we wanted to try to do the same thing with primary kiddos!

Interactive Writing on your Interactive Whiteboard

Here is another super easy example from Mrs. Elenbaas' kindergarten of using your interactive board or projector for interactive writing. Simply open a blank Mimio Notebook file (or ActivInspire flipchart, if you have a Promethean board) and insert a picture. Mrs. Elenbaas used Halloween-themed pictures like bats and spiders for her writing today. Then, have students use the Mimio pen as you would a marker on chart paper. So easy and is great to keep and print!

 

McGraw-Hill Wonders Website for 1st Grade

Mrs. Risser shared this website with me - it's great for first grade teachers. Gives a quick snapshot of Wonders content for each week of each unit. Click the image above to check it out!

Sight Word Books Using Interactive Writing on Mimio & Book Creator App!

Did you know that you can use your interactive whiteboard or projector for interactive writing? It is so easy! The kids love it and you can save yourself some chart paper. The files are also printable, so after you finish an interactive writing project you can print, laminate, bind and place in your reading center! Keep reading to see some awesome examples from Mrs. Elenbaas' kindergarten classroom.

Nearpod in 1st Grade with Mrs. Romei

Jen Williams shared this awesome resource in her Extended Studies newsletter, and I thought it was fantastic. In the video below, 1st grade teacher Mrs. Romei shares how she uses Nearpod lessons in her classroom to extend ideas with some of her students. Thanks for sharing, Mrs. Romei! You can also click these links to download the Shapes and The Moon lessons she used with her students.

Our Hopes

I was at Orchard yesterday, and I absolutely adored this display in the primary hallway. I believe this is from Mrs. Lang's first graders, but the topic appeared to be something that all classes had discussed.

I love the idea of having students think about their hopes and dreams, and write those down. In some classrooms, I saw this done as a shared writing or interactive writing chart. Students talked about lifelong goals, but also hopes and dreams for kindergarten, first grade, etc. Some were simple and some were deep, but I love the idea of having students think about these things, process them, and write them. What a cool idea, Orchard!

Green Screen Accessories

I helped Mrs. Bishop's kindergartners with a green screen project, where they used the new "Did You Know?" videos from Epic! to research an animal, then write facts they learned.  They recorded the facts on paper, and then took a screen shot of their animal to put onto the green screen behind them. Saving these screenshots to Seesaw is an easy way for the teacher to access the images later.  This was a great opportunity for the students to practice their research, writing and reading skills, as well as their abilities integrating technology by using a variety of apps.  However, in this post I'd like to focus on a few of the "accessories" we used to make these projects successful.

Stop Motion Weather Videos

Mrs. Risser's first graders have been studying different weather occurrences, so for a fun way to demonstrate what they had learned, I helped her students create stop motion animation videos using the FREE app Stop Motion.

Printing PicCollage Kids Collages or Sharing as a Photo Slideshow

We made these really cool projects SelfieScoot projects using the free app PicCollage Kids in several classes last week.  Most of the teachers use Seesaw and were able to post the finished pictures there. However, some classes who don't use Seesaw wanted to print the photos, so students would have them as a keepsake.  This works great from an iPad with AirPrint, but I found that printing from the camera roll didn't allow me to change the size of the photos.  However, printing directly from the app allows you to resize and print as an 8.5 X 11 photo.

Selfie Scoot

At Washington Elementary today, we played the Selfie Scoot iPad game in kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades, and it was so much fun!  This is a product I purchased from Erintegration's Tpt store for $3, and it was worth the money.  It's a great idea, made simple by printing and following her step by step instructions.  And a time saver for me, to not have to create these resources on my own!  Yay, Tpt!

DoInk Green Screen + Seesaw = Awesomeness!

I am working on some more green screen projects with first graders, and I am amazed at how well the DoInk Green Screen app and Seesaw work together to make these projects great!  Ms. Ash and Mrs. Brammer had their students research biography projects, and I visited Beartooth and recorded their videos.  For the green screen backgrounds, they had their students take photos, search images, make PicCollages and even use Masterpiece on Osmo to create illustrations.  The students then saved these to Seesaw, using folders to make them easy to find.  If you're not sure how to set up and use folders, click here to see a quick tutorial.