2nd graders finish fairy tale PBL unit

Friday 2nd graders finished their 12 day PBL fairy tale unit. We completed the entire unit (minus 3 assignments) on iPads.

The unit involved reading a lot of different fairy tales and different versions of the same fairy tales. Students also used many Tools4Students graphic organizers to respond to the books. All the work was done in pairs as we are working a lot of collaboration skills and explaining our thinking. As students completed the graphic organizers each partner had a different job--that of typist or that of questioner. The typist filled in the organizer and the questioner prompted the typist the give reasons for what they were typing.

Students read all the fairy tales, except 2 fractured fairy tales, on iPads.

There were 2 culminating projects for the unit. First, students created a map (to tie in with our social studies unit) of Fairytale Land. They had to place at least 6 fairy tale characters that we had read about on the map and be able to defend where they were placing the characters. Their map also needed to include at least 5 landforms. The landforms provided a natural way for students to separate certain characters (such as the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood). This dovetailed with the discussions we had in social studies about landforms and how they influence where/how people live and interact. Maps were created on paper because I felt that the size of the iPad screen would limit students' ability to fit everything in as they tend to write and draw large with their fingers or stylus. Students did present their maps to the class with time for Q and A.

The other culminating project was taking a fairy tale and re-writing it in a modern setting. These were really fun for me to read. Students wrote on paper. I think if we had more time we would have used Toontastic because I love that app. I just didn't have time at this point for students to learn how to use the app and be comfortable enough with it to get their fairy tale complete. Maybe this is something for next year. However, they did create their main character using Toca Fairy Tale.

Justand is working well

I have gotten rid of my clunky ELMO stand and document camera. I was happy 4 or so years ago to get it, but even back then the cart that I was given was never functional. It took up a lot of space and had very little storage and was not easy to move around. I always felt that the document camera and bolted on projector were wobbly and I can't tell you how many students disregarded/forgot directions, sat under the projector (which stuck out to the side) and then stood up and banged their head.

In its place I have an old (but very functional) rolling cart with 3 levels. The top of the cart is the perfect size for the Justand and my laptop. I have the projector and other miscellaneous supplies (pens, tape, etc) on the middle shelf and the bottom shelf holds all the supplies for the day's activities. With the previous arrangement all these other items had to go on a separate stand.

The Justand has been easy to use. I like the way the arm easily swings up or down and even students can put their iPad into the stand and take it out quickly. The iPad with the cover that we purchased doesn't fit securely, as the iPad would if we didn't have the cover or if we had chosen a thinner cover, but the stand holds it well enough that I don't fear that it will fall.

This arrangement makes it really easy to use the iPad as a document camera. I have been using the CamDraw app to annotate on top of whatever paper I am displaying for the students.

The Justand 2 looks fantastic as well, I have been using the original.

Morning Work So Much Faster on an iPad

I have transitioned all of our morning work (first 1/2 hour or so) to iPads.

When students arrive they use Socrative to let me know they're present and whether they're buying lunch or not. Next they move to an iPad activity that was formally completed on paper.

Monday--Showbie activity to review 2nd grade concepts (I'm working on transferring 1st grade material to Showbie as well)
Tuesday--math fact test and daily sentence edit
Wednesday--Socrative math and grammar questions
Thursday--math fact test and daily sentence edit
Friday--spelling test and Showbie logic/problems solving activity

After 2 weeks my students know the routine, understand the work flow, and I find they are completing the activities so much faster than when they were doing the same thing on paper. I also love the way it frees up my time to meet individually or in small groups to quickly review topics from the previous day or check in with students who were absent.

Our first week with 2:1 iPads

My students spent a lot of time this week familiarizing themselves with some apps/websites that they will access frequently throughout the year. They were so engaged this week and always ready for the next activity. The hardest part is remembering different logins. I have a "set" username and password for each student for websites/apps that allow for customized usernames and passwords. However, some sites/apps provide a username and/or password that I can't change to the "set" format. I know this is probably a great life lesson in the long run (create different usernames and passwords for each private website used), but it's a real challenge for 6 and 7 year olds. Yes, they all have small papers with their login info written down and a place to keep them, but it is so easy for those papers get lost despite best intentions...

The first is the website Biblionasium. (it works on iPads). It's free and allows students to rate books they've read and to add books to their shelf that they would like to read. It also gives students the opportunity to suggest books to each other. It's similar to the adult website Goodreads. In the past I've used Biblionasium as the reading log portion of their homework. I'm not doing that this year because I am using the paid version of Scoopad for online homework. Students complete all parts of their homework--reading log, math, ELA, and spelling--on this online site. However, students are still engaged with Biblionasium. It is helpful for me to see what they are reading and what they want to read because it helps when choosing books to add to the class library. I can also add books we are reading in class to their shelves.

My school has a Raz Kids subscription and students all had a chance this week to do some reading in class from those leveled books. We also have the leveled library apps that correspond with Raz Kids and I use those apps for pair reading.

For math we are using 2 websites/apps, both tied to the Common Core standards, Ten Marks and Front Row. Ten Marks is a website and Front Row is an app. I did not use Ten Marks last year and my students used Front Row last year just for the fraction portion of CC, because that was the only part of the math curriculum that was available. Front Row has done a huge amount of work over the summer and now has math curriculum for all the math CC standards for K-5.

Finally, my school's foundation paid for me to have the paid version of Showbie. I tried the free version of Showbie last year and really liked the concept. However, for 6 and 7 year olds it was too many steps to transfer an assignment to a different app, annotate, save it back, see comments from me and repeat the process for areas of work that needed to be completed or corrected. With Showbie Pro my students can annotate (and so can I) right in the app. Since writing on the iPad can be tricky I plan to use this in place of worksheets that don't require many sentences. Here are math and logic assignments 2nd grade students completed Thursday and yesterday.

Over the summer I attended a Buck Institute PBL training in Napa. I love the PBL format and one unit I've created for 2nd grade revolves around "What is a fairy tale?" We started that unit today. All of the fairy tales (about 15 for the 12 day unit) are read on the iPad. During the unit students will use various Tools4Students templates to respond to the reading. In addition this week they asked and answered comprehension questions in pairs using questions I created in a flashcard app. Rather than writing their answers they responded with the Tellagami app. This was their first experience with that app and I had several students tell me how much they liked it compared to writing on paper (I wasn't surprised).

Use of the Justand has been put on hold. I think I'm going to love it, but it doesn't fit on the current ELMO stand I have, so I need a new furniture configuration.

First grade students did an inference activity using Popplet. Each pair of students had a backpack with 7 items. For example, 2 mystery books, a set of Halloween stickers, a hair decoration, watercolor paint set, art project kit, and a piece of 2nd grade homework. Students grouped objects (or left them as a single object) and took pictures using the iPad camera within the Popplet app. They used the typing tool to add a caption to each Popple explaining what they could infer from that/those objects. For example, one pair took a picture of the Halloween stickers and wrote "it's fall".

Can't Wait

Due to a lot of hard work from my co-worker Kelly, I will have 14 iPad 4s ready to use when the bell rings tomorrow morning. I am really excited to be 2:1 and to have larger storage so I don't have to move apps on and off the devices each trimester.

I have TenMarks and Raz Kids set-up and ready to go with assignments leveled for individual students. Students will use those 2 apps (as well as some others) in a rotation format a couple times a week.

Also, my principal delivered a Justand to me Friday afternoon so I will have a chance to try that out as a teaching/learning tool in place of the ELMO.

2nd grade students are going to start a new project-based learning unit tomorrow with a lot of iPad integration.

It's going to be a great week!

Our 1st month

We have actually been in school for 4 weeks now! The 1st 2 weeks of school student used the iPad 2s from last year. Then they were taken back to be re-configured for lower grades. Our new iPad 4s arrived at the school at the end of the week so as soon as they are all unpacked, tagged, and configured we'll have iPads back in the classroom. I can't wait!

In the meantime I got rid of my classroom response system and I've been slowly switching all my questions from PowerPoint to Socrative software. Right now I'm focusing on attendance and a few questions each day to review math and language arts concepts. I was really hoping to find a polling software/app that could use the PowerPoint question and also grade them, but no such luck. When I tried students answering in Socrative but reading PowerPoint it was possible, but cumbersome.

Rather than sending home a Friday newsletter at the end of each week I am asking students to do the work. The last 10 minutes of each day 3 students are responsible for emailing class parents a list of 6 activities from the day.

I used Classdojo the last 2 years for personal record-keeping of student behavior. This year I have linked to parent email so parents get an immediate snapshot of their child's behavior. I also tied the wording of positive behaviors to the wording that will be on our new report card.

Classbadges.com are continuing to work well. This year I have ditched the homework sticker chart and created a badge for each week of completed homework (we do weekly packets).

I attended Mobile2013 in Tucson last week and had a fantastic 3 days of learning. With all the training and the knowledge that I'll be 2:1 with iPads this year I feel like I need to take a week off to re-vamp my lessons!

I don't have eSpark this year (boo hoo) but I highly recommend to anyone who has the funds for it. I will be using Showbie Premium for some simple writing activities--I'm thinking fill in the bubble, matching, drawing pictures of problem solving/logic questions, 1 and 2 word answers, and number talk. Once we get a chance to try it out I'll write about how the process is going. I'm excited that it will be smoother than open a doc in an annotate app, annotate, save and send, teacher open in an annotate app, comment, repeat above if changes need to be made.

2nd Graders Finish Poetry Unit with A to Z Tongue Twisters App

As a wrap-up to our poetry unit, pairs of students read through the A to Z Tongue Twisters app. Thanks Tony Vincent for the suggestion! They were rolling on the floor (literally) as they read through the sentences.

As a follow up they came up with a list of requirements for what makes a tongue twister. Each student then wrote and performed their own tongue twister for the class.