1st Graders Share Their Understanding of Good Personal Narratives

We have been talking about what strong personal narratives have in common. Students reflected on their understanding either in iDiary or Educreations.

Educreations video

1st Graders Using Tellagami to Support Their Opinion

We've been studying polar habitats. Each student used Tellagami to explain why they would or would not want to live in a polar habitat. They had to give 3 supporting reasons for their opinion

https://tellagami.com/gami/DYUMJ7/

1st & 2nd Graders Plant Growth Observations on iPad

This year instead of recording grass/alfalfa and brassica observations in a paper journal my students are writing and drawing in the iDiary app. As with paper they observe their plants every 3-4 days and record observations and, as appropriate, new definitions. The focus is on plant parts for 1st graders and life cycle for 2nd graders. They are also photographing their plant every few days and at the end of the observation (about a month) we'll create a photo sequence.

1st & 2nd Grade Learn About Point of View

I got this great lesson from the Engage Their Minds, Terri Eichholz, blog January 15, 2014.

I read my students the book Who is Melvin Bubble? and we discussed point of view. They absolutely loved to book!  Using Chatterpix Kids each student chose 2 people/objects that could tell about them from a different point of view. They used Drawing Pad to draw 2 separate pictures of the people/objects that would talk about them. They imported each picture into Chatterpix Kids and recorded themselves talking about themselves from that person/object's point of view.

It was hilarious, I loved this lesson and the students really got into speaking in different voices and exaggerating a bit.

Chatterpix Kids video

2nd Graders Past Tense Verb Rules

For many grammar rules I follow up direct instruction with a combination of practice and students teach. This week students practiced sorting words based on their past tense verb rule using several decks in icard sort. They practiced the rules using the app Regular Past Tense Verb Fun Deck. Finally, they taught the rules using Educreations. I have been pairing students to critique each other's videos for sound quality, visuals and an explanation that makes sense.

Educreations Video

What Plants Need

Both 1st and 2nd grade students started their plant and animal/insect unit recently. Following a conversation about what plants need, students showed me what they learned via either Tellagami, Educreations, Drawing Pad/Strip Design, or My Story. We set-up experiments to test these ideas, and extended the concept to animals.

1st Grade Move and Match Feelings

I've been using the Move and Match app frequently this year, especially with my 1st graders. This week I added another layer. I gave the students a list of 8 feelings and asked them to write a sentence describing a situation in which they, a friend, or another person might have that feeling. I took their responses and added them to Move and Match cards and then everyone completed the Move and Match activity. They loved trying to figure out who wrote each sentence.

1st Grade Response to The Snow Globe Family

After listening to me read aloud The Snow Globe Family by Jane O'Connor students wrote and illustrated one activity the snow globe family did and one activity they would want to do if they lived in a snow globe.

1st Graders Practice Adjectives with Snowmen

To continue the snowman theme, students drew a snowman in Drawing Pad, My Story or Popplet and then labelled different parts using an adjective, a part of speech we're working on at the moment.

1st Graders Create a Non-Snowman

My 1st graders spent a lot of time this week on snowman and snow globe activities. From a SCAMPER activity I found online last year I asked each of them to create a snowman out of something other than snow. They drew their creation in Drawing Pad or My Story and then wrote about it (if they drew in Drawing Pad they imported to Strip Design for writing). I asked each student to tell me what their snowman was made of (many renamed them to match the building material), the advantages of using this material, and the disadvantages of using this material.

2nd Graders Use Popplet to Outline a Personal Narrative

Generally I ask students to outline writing assignments on a piece of paper. For a "what I did during December break" personal narrative, they switched it up and create a popple in the Popplet app for each activity they wanted to write about. Each popple became a "yellow detail sentence" (we use Step Up to Writing) when they transferred their ideas to paragraph form.

1st and 2nd Graders Logical Solutions App

This week my students used a new app called Logical Solutions. They worked at their own pace to drag the pictures to the correct box based on the arrows and minimal written directions. This is the 1st time I've used this app and I really like it. It was easy for all students to understand what they needed to do. Within the 100 problems of level 1 none of my students had difficulty. They played for about 15 minutes and reached level 15-60, depending on the student.

2nd Graders Cause and Effect About Themselves

While reading Freckle Juice we talked a lot about cause and effect. I asked each student to use My Story and create a cause/effect pair about themselves.

2nd Graders Pictoral Summary of Animals in Winter

After reading Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft pairs of students came up with the main ideas of the book (most came up with migration, hibernation, storing food, and how kids can help). They used Drawing Pad or My Story to create a picture representation of each main idea, no words allowed.  A next step will be to trade with a different group and have that group look at the picture, think about the book, and add a caption.

2nd Graders Create an Ad for a New Product

After reading Freckle Juice by Judy Blume each student created a magical product of their own. They used Drawing Pad to create a magazine ad that could help sell their product. We talked a lot about persuasion and looked at existing magazine ads before starting.