Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts

Friday, November 3, 2023

Saturday, November 5, 2022

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Friday, October 13, 2017

Pre-Make Labels in Seesaw for Students!


Did you know you can add labels to a post in Seesaw, have your students copy & edit the post, then they can access the labels and move them around on their own copy?! Super cool for word scrambles, word sorts, and labeling images. After they copy & edit the post, they just need to select the label tool in order to open it and be able to move the labels around. See the example below! And if you like this pumpkin example, you can access the image here for use in your own classroom. (Choose File > Download As > .jpg to create an image that you can upload to your Seesaw class.)

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Scarecrow Directed Drawing in Seesaw!

I love using directed drawing activities to introduce the Drawing tool in Seesaw. It allows you to guide students through using the tool the first time, showing them how to change colors, pen thickness, erase, etc. Today in Mrs. Erickson's first grade we used a free scarecrow directed drawing activity from First Grade and Blue Skies.
Scarecrow directed drawing
The drawings turned out absolutely adorable, and it was a lesson in perseverance as they struggled to make it look "just right". :) They then added the sentence "I see a scarecrow." and recorded their voices. They turned out so cute, I had to share a couple examples!

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Research Project: Going Batty!

We started a cool research project in a 1st grade classroom using bats as our focus.  I am going to document the activities here, but you can take these ideas and apply to any topic you'd like your kids to research.

We started by reading the story Stellaluna by Janell Cannon.  You can read the book, or use this fun video from StorylineOnline.  (It's the lady from Kindergarten Cop!)



We then used the Scholastic News Let's Find Out! issue about bats and birds to learn a little more about the similarities and differences.  If you don't have access to this, I suggest checking it out! AWESOME leveled resources that are super great for using with an interactive whiteboard!  It is about $5 per student, but here's a hint: I barely ever used the paper copies, I just like accessing the digital tools (and cool iPad app!).  So order the minimum number of subscriptions (which is 5) and you could have access to this tool for around $25!  Wahoo!



We recorded our ideas into a Venn diagram to discuss the differences between bats and birds.  We made one whole group, then had the students use the Feltboard app to create their own Venn diagrams.  The whole group Venn diagram creation would be a great opportunity to use your interactive whiteboard!  Create a Venn diagram, letting kids share the pen during interactive writing. You can use a template from your interactive whiteboard software (like Mimio Notebook) or pull a Venn diagram pdf into the interactive whiteboard software to write on.  They can save these to their camera rolls and publish to their Kidblog or other digital portfolio, if they are keeping one of these (which is so cool!)


Another idea is to use the app PicCollage for Kids to have them make a collage of birds and bats and add a fact about each.  I use the PicCollage for Kids app so they can use the web image search to safely add images to their collages.

To begin making a PicCollage, they tap the + sign to create a new collage.  Once in the blank collage, use the + sign to add elements like photos from the camera roll, web images, text, stickers, etc.

Students can adjust their font, size, color, etc and type into the area where the X is marked below:

We also utilized this theme in math class, using the free app Doodle Buddy to have students create equations using bats and birds.  Their job to to make an equation where there were less birds than bats.


Again, these can be saved to the students' camera rolls and uploaded to a blog or digital portfolio.  Wahoo!

The next part of our research project will be using the YouTubeKids app to safely search for information on bats.  They will type in: bat facts and see a series of videos with facts about bats.  
We will give them time to watch several of the videos, making note of facts they are learning about bats.  They could take notes while watching.  We will then meet whole group to discuss what we learned and create an anchor chart to use for students to use for their writing project.  We will use pages from this fun bat unit that I downloaded for FREE at Teachers Pay Teachers.  (Click the image to visit the Tpt page.) 

We will create the adorable bat craftivity from this unit, as well, and connect it to a video.  More about that later ... :)