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!

Bus-y Frank-ie!

I normally don't have time--or enough things created-- to post twice in one week, but I've really kicked it into high gear!  I think I'm probably working extra hard because next week I know that I will be busy packing to go visit my sister and new nephew in Ireland :) I'll be gone for a week, but will surely have more posts when I get back!

In addition to pinning like crazy on pinterest--you should probably be following me :D, I have also been making lots of things!

Indoor Recess

 Many of my indoor recess games didn't survive the year--including my Bopit! (I know! I thought those things were indestructible!)-- so I decided to try to prepare more things for this coming year's recess!

I made this Musical Twister game in college using fabric, felt, markers and a hot glue gun! I originally had a different spinner, but it wasn't heavy duty enough. That's why I've made new spinners! I'm hoping cardboard should be sturdy enough... time will tell!

My original storage box was an unused pizza box that I decorated, but I may need to upgrade to something plastic--we'll see what I come up with!

I'm glad I was able to touch up the marker and make new spinners because the kids LOVED playing musical twister last year :)

 Homework

I saw this idea on pinterest-- to have students fill out a chart when they do not turn in homework.  Here are some pictures of what I've come up with and here is a link if you want to have a copy for your classroom. Just click here.

I am still debating if I want to do weekly packets for students or have homework sent home each night. I tried both last year, but ended up doing weekly packets because students seemed to turn it in more regularly...

Any suggestions?

Classroom Library

As I hinted in the last post, I have started working on creating labels for my classroom library. I know that's not really that exciting, but I found a good template for typing out labels for a library or for addresses or whatever! You can download it here!

It a FREE download (you just have to sign up and yadda yadda, but no charge!). It is a very slick program with an easy download that you can keep forever on your computer!

Let's Get Busy!

Bling side!

I have been very busy lately! In addition to preparing to move to our new home in Shawnee, KS, I am trying to keep up with all my goals and planning for next school year! Here are some examples of what I've come up with so far.. 

Tame side :)

I recently acquired a bunch of plywood that I am going to have my dad saw in half so that I can make clipboards for my class next year-- pictures to come once I've made those too!


This may have been a bit early, but I figured I'll need some kind of cute container to store all of my new homemade clipboards in!


I didn't have many fun paint colors..... but I did have glitter!!


Science


This isn't totally done (I couldn't find any brads!), but I want to do more space science this year so I wanted to create a visual way for students to see that the Earth orbits the sun and the moon orbits the Earth. It also says the distance between on the white part in between. I'll attach brads when I get some and then it will be complete! All it took was some crayons, paper plates and brads :)

Things to come

I bought a bunch of really cute labels so I can label the books in my library--once I type up a format on word I'll share it so anyone else labeling books for their library can already have the template!

I'm planning on making more things tomorrow to post so this one may be a little short, but I'll have more things soon!

Resource Alert!!

There isn't a picture I can link to put it on pinterest, but this is a site with lots of BLANK school templates for newsletters, borders, school menus, lots of things! And FREE! Just click here

The Start of the Summer!

While I was planning on doing more things for school, Mr. Kietzman and I are buying a house this week! I still thought I should share some of the things I've been working on.

This is a game that I created a while ago to help students work on prefixes and suffixes. They toss a bead or coin into the muffin tin and whatever it lands in, the student then says a word that contains that prefix or suffix and then the meaning of the word (using the definition of that prefix/suffix). There are also 2 "free spaces"--the prefixes spot allows them to choose any prefix and suffixes spot allows them to choose any suffix.

It is very easy to make and the kids really enjoyed playing it this year-- it was also great for me to assess which ones were a real challenge for students.

Another things I've been busy focusing on is creating file folder games for students to work on skills. I found this game on the My Second Grade Journal This fraction game has cards for identifying fractions, but I am going to create my own cards for more advanced levels of fraction practice.

Click here to download Pizza, Pizza.

I'm happy to say that I am making some progress on organizing my resources (homework, units, paperwork, lessons, etc.) I've started making binders for each subject and then subdividing it within.  So far I have math and science done. I'm hoping to get to reading and social studies this week!

I recommend organizing resources because it's already made a big difference in helping me find things! With this and my filing cabinets, I feel unstoppable!

Now I just need to get to cutting out the laminated card resources for my reading groups...

Here's a bunch of links for the things I've found:

This is making inferences with comics: here

Matching character emotions with situations: here

I have who has math cards: here

I hope you enjoy checking out the resources!

And of course, just for fun, here's a picture of my helper for the day. My sleepy 2-year old Jack Russell mix Riley.

Have a wonderful day!

End of the Year

So in case you were wondering, there are 8 days of school left!

Here's an idea that I got from pinterest-- when there are about 10-15 days left of school you hang up that number of balloons.  I changed it a bit to work with my classroom. In each balloon, I have a slip of paper with an activity or privilege that the students will get to do the next day.  For my kiddos who are a bit of a handful now that the end of the year is upon us, I've worked it into my classroom management. I have my students sitting in "teams" (with a few islands) that have cups on their desks for beads. After each instructional time (math, math groups, reading, reading groups, and science/social studies), they can earn beads for their team. Usually the class is working toward having lunch outside for the entire class, but now we're working towards popping those balloons at the end of the day.

And the balloons are filled with really simple ideas like: 5 extra minutes of recess time, Mrs. Kietzman brings a snack, dance party time, 10 minutes of free time on computers, reading lesson outside, etc. If you need ideas you can comment and I'll send you my full list.

Another thing we're working on now that it's the end of the year is our memory books. Not all of my students will be getting yearbooks and even for those who are, this is a fun way for them to record their favorite parts about 4th grade, their best friend, their favorite school event, etc.

It's a really cute booklet and it has a chance for students to do a lot of writing and drawing about their favorites for the year.

Here's a link to the website:  School Memories Book

All you need to do is sign up for the website, but it's free and this packet is free as well as a lot of other resources on the site.

One more thing I'd like to share is a good search engine for kids to use called Kid Rex What I like about it is that it's created by Google, but makes searching Google sites appropriate for kids. Right now I have students researching countries for our upcoming cultural fair and this site helps take away the worry that comes with having students use the computer for research.

That's all for now! I'm hoping the next post will be a lot about my upcoming plans for classroom organization. I am very inspired right now and will probably be working on creating some of those things this week! Get ready for more pictures and info!