Literacy Project-Another Digital Story Using Voicethread!

For my literacy project I used Voicethread again to create another digital story. With a few children in my class I have been doing guided reading groups with the focus being some of the most basic skills needed for beginning readers. The first skill we work on in voice-print matching, and touching each word as they read. We have also been working on decoding strategies, strategies they can use when they come to a word they do not know. At my school in Kindergarten they are introduced to decoding icons, so I figured why not introduce them to them now! This digital story introduces each one of the icons as well as the strategy they can use to help them decode an unfamiliar word. Watch and enjoy!

Trying to understand Popplet

I recently attempted the Web 2.0 tool Popplet as well, I did not enjoy this as much as Voki. Does anyone have a trick to help better understand Popplet?

Experimenting with Voki!

First time experimenting with Voki! Anyone could have so much fun with this!

Digital Story-Fruit Kabob Patterns

Below is the digital story that I created with my preschool students. One of the skills on our district wide math assessment is patterning. A child must be able to successfully extend a pattern, and then create their own pattern and be able to explain what kind of pattern they made.  The children in my class used fruit manipulatives to first practice the skill of patterning along with sentence strips which have spaces for them to extend a pattern and blank ones for them to practice creating their own patterns. Once children practiced making patterns using sentence strips and manipulatives they were provided with strawberries and bananas to pattern on kabob sticks. Some children showed mastery creating an AB pattern while others demonstrated the ability to create ABB patterns and AABB patterns. This was an excellent way for me to differentiate and authentically assess their ability to pattern. After the children finished making their kabobs they visited the writing table and wrote about the learning process, how they first practiced using manipulatives then got to pattern using fruit to show their learning. The children in my class enjoyed this learning experience so much!

My Diigo Library

Since having started this class, I have found Diigo to be quite useful! It is a place where I can find the literacy, math, and science ideas and have them right at my fingertips. I used to google everything I needed to find and now all I have to do is look at my Diigo library to find the sites I use and visit most. I find many great ideas that can be implemented right away into my classroom. Let me know if anyone has any other great sites they use that I can add to my library!

Digital Story Rough Draft

Here is my rough draft of my digital story, the pictures are all in order all I have left to do is add the narrations. Let me know what you think so far!

Literacy in Preschool

As we continue to work on the wiki project I have found a number of great ideas and activities to implement in preschool. Many of the ideas I found on pinterest and many others came from following links to literacy sites like prekinders and some free ideas found on teachers pay teachers.

Here is a snapshot of my wiki page!

Great Science Ideas

I often find myself having a hard time coming up with science activities for the children in my classroom. I know that science needs to be based on discovery and experimentation while also being hands on and fun. I recently followed this blog that someone else follows and came across some great science ideas for young children. I also found these pictures below to give a visual for some science activities to do with children.

Who knew 4 year olds could be technologically savvy?!

While reading through this weeks class notes and things to explore, I noticed that some of the suggested websites are those my children spend time visiting each day. During my literacy block in the morning, my children rotate through centers and one that they go to each day is the computer center. When they are there they can choose to visit starfall or pbs kids. It amazes me how different the world is today. The fact that we have children in preschool who are learning how to operate computers, the keyboard and the mouse blows my mind.

I hope this screenshot helps viewers see the different activities children can participate in when they first visit the site. For some of my children who are still working on letter and sound identification, they visit the ABC's page. I have some children however who are beginning to read and some who are already reading and for them this is a great tool as well to look at different books.

Valentine's Day Ideas for Prek

With Valentine's Day coming up this week, on my to do list this weekend was finding activities to implement. While looking at another blog I came across a great link to follow! Thanks so much for sharing! I also found some great ideas on pinterest. 

I thought this would be a great home/school connection. To send a heart home with each child, and have  them talk with their mom/dad or guardian about  what love means to them. While keeping in mind that some children would come back to school with their hearts not filled out in which case I will fill one out with them. 

I also found this activity on pinterest which I thought was great. We work so much on COG 6-relates number to quantity from the CT Preschool Frameworks and this would be a fun activity for them to use that day or maybe even the whole week. 

Stuck on math ideas for the classroom?! Look no further!

As a follow up to my animoto, I wanted to share what I did with my students most recently. Just last week we focused on patterning, recognizing a pattern, extending a pattern and creating patterns of our own as it is another skill measured on the district wide assessment. In a recent professional development session which focused on authentic math activities, I saw this idea and implemented it within my own classroom. It was amazing to see how successful the children were and the overall engagement. I thought I would share a few of the pictures! It was a very quick assessment for me as well. I was able to see who was able to extend a pattern with one, or extend a pattern by adding two more. I was also able to see who was able to create their own pattern. After we worked with the fruit manipulatives children were able to pattern with real strawberries and bananas. See below for AB patterns as well as ABB patterns.What do you think?!

Making Our Own Pizza!

In preschool one of the skills tested on the district wide math assessment is following steps; first, then, next and last. Each Friday we participate in a cooking activity which requires children to look at and follow a recipe. We talk about each of the ingredients, how much of each ingredient is used and the steps that are taken when following a recipe. We have made our own play dough, followed the steps (first,then, next and last) and talked about measuring proper amounts of each ingredient. The following week we made our own english muffin pizzas. We read the book, The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza which was part of our curriculum. To couple math with this literature, we made our own pizza and practiced following the steps using the language first, then, next and last.

A young girls creative spin on digital storytelling

I liked this example of digital storytelling. This young girl decided to use digital storytelling to talk about getting out of the classroom. How bored she was in geography class, how much longer she had to wait until lunch and recess, how much longer she had left in the school day and how she would rather be home watching TV.  I thought it was a young students own creative way to use digital storytelling, or telling a story with voice and pictures and no words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9OvmyTOPAE

What might a preschooler see when they look at this?

I found this image as well and wanted to add it to my visual art blog previously.

Inspired-How does a 4 year old view art?!

Teaching at an art's academy always leaves me trying to be as creative as possible and providing my students with rich visual art ideas and experiences. While viewing another preschool teachers blog I saw one example she found and used with her children. This got me thinking how I could use the image below in my own classroom, the questions I could pose to the children. What do you see when you look at this image? How would you create your own? I went ahead and searched some more images I may provide my children with to see what they spark inside of them. 

Aggregator vs. Aggrevator

The idea of "Really Simple Syndication" is one that blew my mind as I began reading through chapter 5 in Richardson. I immediately thought of my own classroom and teaching practices and how much easier it would be for me to be able to visit an RSS feed pertaining to oral language development and phonemic awareness ideas and activities for the preschool classroom. I am constantly searching the internet, all different  sites for new ideas and games. If I were able to visit one site or feed that had the capability of collecting all new information from those different sites and held them all in one spot, my life would be a whole lot easier. All with the help of an "aggregator." Who would have thought?!. I also found information on RSS on another website that may be useful in providing more information to viewers.

Benefits of Kidblog

The article brought up a few very good points, I may not have considered had it not been for reading it. Sometimes all it takes is one time reading about something to have a new perspective. I thought nothing about the fact that when students blog they are being given the opportunity to share ideas with new people, sometimes those outside of their own class, sometimes with other children across the world. In what other setting may they be given this opportunity if it weren't for teachers incorporating technology into the classroom through various ways. After reading this article, I went on to search for kid friendly blogging sites and came across one which we have actually talked about and used in class with 7th and 8th grade students.When I came across this, I knew just how safe and kid friendly this site is and how easy to use it is.

Animoto

After following the link to someone's animoto, I saw the way it can be used to benefit both teachers and students. This particular teacher used her animoto account to introduce key vocabulary words to her second grade class. She was preparing to teach a unit on the community and community workers and decided to use an animoto as a way to introduce her children. http://saraeduc584.blogspot.com/search/label/Animoto

"Start Small"

The idea of blogging was one that was foreign to me up until taking this class. I was relieved while reading Chapter 3 in which Richardson encourages starting small, which I most certainly have. Week by week as I begin to learn more about blogging, each post seems to be a bit easier. One of the coolest things about blogging is the ability to link to other blogs as well as add pictures to one's post. The chapter went on to talk about blogging with students which does seem like a bit much but I have to remember I teach preschoolers. After seeing the blogs posted by 7th and 8th graders I realized how far technology has come in recent years.

Snow Day Tomorrow Question Mark?

Will tomorrow be a snow day or will it? The weather now is showing that it is in fact a possibility.

New Literacies, NETS for students, NETS for teachers

New Literacies allow us to identify important questions, navigate complex information to locate appropriate information, critically evaluate information, synthesize it to address questions and then communicate the answers to others. All of these compiled together help us to better gather and understand new information and then take that new information a step further by sharing it with others. The NETS for students are standards for evaluating skills and knowledge students need to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly global and digital world.  The NETS for teacher standards are standards for evaluating the skills and knowledge educators need to teach, work, and learn in an increasingly connected global and digital society. In order to achieve these, students need to be able to use technology to analyze, learn and explore. These skills are crucial in today's world while not only being an expectation of those entering the working world but also being a requirement. In the same token, teachers must be up on the newest technology as well. This is in an effort to provide their students with the newest information while also staying up to date on new things themselves. Teachers must also have the ability of sharing new information with colleagues and other workers. Professional development for teachers would be one way to ensure knowledge and new learning for teachers who could then bring it back to develop in their own classrooms.

Thoughts on Reading

After reading chapters 1 and 2 in our book, I was faced with some thoughts I had never considered before on the topic of blogging. The first being, using blogs as a resource. The book stated that if anyone with internet connection can now get online and start blogging about any topic he or she may want to, how credible may each source be? As I began thinking about this I realized, blogging is often heavily based on opinions and if that is the case how can blogs be used as a resource. I also came to terms with the benefits of using a blog as a classroom teacher. It is a great way to reflect on one's teaching practices as well as the practice's of others. It's nice to have a place with things written down to be able to go back and revisit one's thoughts.

First Blog

This is my first time creating a blog and blogging here in class.