Summer Learning Opportunities

There are still so many fantastic ways to learn and grow this summer!

Weekly Tech-y News ... Double Issue

Click the images to download a PDF.

Christmas Books with Green Screen Awesomeness

This project was so much fun! Inspired by Brigitte Hollohan, we used the DoInk Green Screen app ($2.99) to take photos of each student in Mrs. Parisien's first grade in front of an image of Santa in the night sky. We used this image, but you could use any you like. It would be really fun to let students make their own using the Make a Scene: Christmas app ($2.99).

Once the pictures were taken, we could have done any number of things with them! Print them for cute Christmas cards or gifts, add to Seesaw and type or tell their story, create a collage in PicCollage Kids ... really the possibilities are endless! We decided to have each student write a Dear Santa letter using this cute FREE template, then load all the photos into Book Creator app, and have students read their "Dear Santa" letters onto each page. It easily shared to Seesaw, and turned out absolutely adorable!

Hour of Code Stations

Loved helping with Hour of Code stations in Mrs. Bishop's 1st grade. Students were split into groups of 3-4 and participated in each of these activities. The combination of hands-on, "unplugged" activities, plus coding on devices, was amazing. The transfer of skills was apparent, and the students' perseverance and stamina for creating code and problem solving was phenomenal.

Read more to see the activities the students participated in!

Label Thanksgiving Dinner with Seesaw Activities!

Using the template below, students drag labels to the correct Thanksgiving foods. Students then use the drawing tool to draw their family in the photo, and add their favorite Thanksgiving foods. They can use the microphone or screencast option to tell about the foods. Click the image below to access a template with directions, and keep reading for examples from Mrs. Erickson's awesome first graders!

Teach Your Monster to Read

Teach Your Monster to Read is a wonderful, engaging program that motivates children to learn the basics of reading. It features a variety of levels for pre-K and kindergarten students, and would be helpful for beginning of year 1st graders and struggling readers as a "boost". Continue reading to see how to use this tool in your classroom.

Mother's Day PicCollage

We converted this fun Mother's Day idea into a digital project using the FREE app PicCollage Kids. The first graders loved making these fun keepsakes for mom, then sharing onto their Seesaw journals. Keep reading to find out how we did it!

The Knuffle Bunny is Loose in Billings, Montana!

Inspired by Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny stories and illustrations, I worked with Mrs. Westrope's first graders to app smash DoInk Animation & Drawing app ($4.99) + Book Creator  ($4.99) and make our own Knuffle Bunny books! Keep reading to see how we did it!

Osmo Genius!

So, Mrs. Vergara at Bitterroot is an Osmo Genius! In order to store her Osmo letters, she added magnets to the back. She labeled a cookie sheet, and the kids are able to easily keep track of the letters and find them when they need them. Wahoo! Thanks for the tip. Click the image below to download her template, which she adapted from this site.

ChatterPix Story Retell Examples from 1st Grade!

I love the app ChatterPix Kids almost as much as I love teachers who use it and then send me examples of their student work! Wahoo! Thank you Mrs. Lang for sharing how your 1st graders used ChatterPix Kids to retell the story The Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. And an extra "Yay, you!" for adding them to Seesaw and sharing via Seesaw QR codes! You rock! Scan the QR codes below (using the QR scanner in Seesaw or any QR scan app) to see her student examples. If you have questions about using Seesaw QR codes (which are AMAZING!), CLICK HERE.

Don't Have Seesaw? (WHAT?!?!) Don't Worry ... You Can Still Let Students Share Creations!

Today in kindergarten we used the Feltboard app ($2.99) to make some letter sound pictures ... students were asked to make themselves, add their name, and then add other feltboard pieces that start with the same letter as their name.

Here are a couple examples:

 

(Those are piranhas.)

(alligator)

The teacher wasn't quite ready to start Seesaw, but I wanted to save these fun creations the students had made, so they will be shareable. Keep reading to see what I did!