Technology plus Inquiry

Wow! I've been so busy that I haven't gotten to updating this for a month! A lot of exciting things have been happening in the classroom-- we've had birthdays, the walk-a-thon, a field trip, writing projects, centers, and most importantly, FUN and LEARNING!

Sumdog

Technology

I've had the chance to use much more technology this year, including a lot of wonderful FREE sites like Edmodo which is like an educational facebook.

For math I've also started using Ten Marks and Sumdog which are great tools for challenging advanced students and giving extra practice.

For reading I'm using the Lead21 curriculum site (which has virtual books and vocabulary building Star fall (which focuses more on phonics) and Game Goo which is a bit of everything.
activities),


Game Goo

There are many more sites I'd love to have students on, but sometimes those s
ites have games that aren't really educational so I'm always looking for more!



Symbaloo

I've been really happy using Symbaloo. Instead of going to a favorites tab, it shows images and then takes you to whatever you click. I use it for my home page on my computer, but you can also use it to organize resources for units. Like this Life Cycles Symbaloo I created has resources used in class and additional ones for students to learn from more. I uploaded it to my edmodo account for them to keep on learning even after we're done. I love it!

Inquiry

I'm new to inquiry lessons, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Our first question, we all chose the same question which was "What do my different roles say about me?" Here are some examples of our finished product!

 This time our focus is science in the community so we had a brainstorming session together and had the class pair up by interests and each pair is doing their own project (probably a poster this time). We'll see how it goes since the inquiry questions range from black holes to car motors to weather! Hopefully I can keep up with it all; I know the students will keep up the good work!