Maker Monday: 1st Grade Make Toys

In December, my first graders research transportation, communication and recreation in Colonial Times.  You can read about that here.  This year, I deceided to kick it up a notch and invite the classes in for time in the makerspace for students to make their own toy.  We talked about how in the Colonial Times there were no factories to make toys, no plastic and no batteries.  The children had to make toys from what they had on hand.  I showed them some of the different materials in our makerspace and then let them have at it.  Once again, the creativity the children showed, amazed me.

Technology Tuesday: Decade Research and 3D Coins

You know those crazy ideas that come to you in the middle of the night?  The ones that wake you up and then you can't go back to sleep because you are thinking about them?  Well, that is how this research product came about and boy was it fun.  I have just recently received a 3D printer and have been trying to figure out meaningful ways to use it with classrooms.  I woke up in the middle of the night one night after talking with a 5th grade teacher about the decade research made into an iMovie product that we have done for the last few years.  I also had 3D printing on my mind and I guess the two things just blended together and "Voila" the Decade Commemorative Coin was born.

The next day, I talked with the 5th grade teacher and explained my idea.  Students would do a decade "exploration" where they listed important events, people, inventions, famous firsts, ect from the decade and then choose one of those things to research more in depth and create an image on the top of a "coin" to represent the decade. Now this is the teacher that I have written about before (see this post).  She is slowly becoming more comfortable with technology, but I knew as long as we were in it together she would be on board.  I told her about the tinkercad website and that it was easy to use, but that I really had no idea what the students would come up with or be able to design (just keepin' it real).  Well, we were totally surprised by the creativity and outcome the students produced!

We spent one day doing the decade exploration using books that I borrowed from the middle schools. The next two days, the students chose their specific idea they would research more thoroughly using books, Britannica online and other websites that I had listed on my library webpage.

Then the fun part... I pulled them all together on the 4th day and briefly explained how tinkercad worked.  We were using chromebooks, so the students were able to loging to tinkercad with their google account.  I gave them the specifications of how big and think t make the coin and showed them how to group object and layer them on top of the coin. I also had them name their designs with their first name and the object and make it public so that I could find them and then print when they were finished.  We talked about the different shapes they could use and how they design couldn't be too detailed because of the small space we were working with.  

Then they set to work... As with any project, some students grasped using tinkercad right away and some needed a little more assistance but over all we were super pleased with their finished coins.  I was shocked at how detailed some of the students were able to get their coins and the things they figured out without me telling them. 

My filament is white, so I knew we were going to want to color them somehow.  We tested a few things and found that colored pencils worked best until I accidently ordered a different filament when I was getting low and then Sharpies worked better (see this post about things I learned).

 

Each coin took about an hour to print so as I finished a couple, I would take them down to the class where they waited anxiously to see if it was theirs'.  They colored the coin and wrote a little bit about the event pictured.

  

After printing the first couple, I realized that I was going to have to go in to each design and make sure they had layered properly and there were not spaces between the layers, layers coming through the bottom of the coin, or that the layers were not too tall.  That part was a little time consuming, but well worth it to the see the results.

Technology Tues: Kinder Shadow Puppets

My kinder classes have each been researching a different animal in class and this year, instead of doing a different research project in the library, we decided to use their notes from the class to make videos in Shadow Puppet on the iPads.

I am not really sure why this app is called Shadow Puppet because there are no shadows and no puppets involved.  It is a video creating app using slides.  I have used 30 Hands with kinder before but wanted to try this because text can be written on the slides and there is a web image search within the app.  

We did this lesson over 4-5 thirty minute sessions.  In the first session, we made title slides in PicCollage.  I had chosen 4 pictures of each animal and loaded them onto the camera rolls of the iPads. We opened PicCollage, chose one of the pictures, added the name of the animal in a text box and then the student's name in another text box.  The student liked being able to change the color and the font of the writing in PicCollage.  Then they saved the picture to the camera roll. 

The next 3-4 sessions were for making the slides with the information they had been researching in class: what do they eat, look like, do and where do they live?  Each time I gave the student back the same iPad they originally had since all the work was saved on that iPad.  Each time we started by reviewing their class notes for one of the questions.  Then we opened Shadow Puppet, searched for a picture that matched our topic, wrote a sentence on the slide and then saved.  

The final session was for recording.  The teacher and I each called students one-by one to record their videos.  I think they turned out super cute.  

     

One thing that I did not like was the way the text broke in between words.  For example, in all the videos where we typed "penguins" the "s" is on the next line instead of making the word smaller so that it fit.  That might be something that is easily fixed but I have not figured it out yet.

All in all this was a fun project to do with the kinder kids.  

Technology Tuesday: Adobe Slate

Love, Love, Love this app!

It's a vertical storytelling tool with the ability to add words, pictures, photogrids and links.  Our 5th graders had the option of using that as one of the options to show their ecosystem research.  The students were able to use pictures from within the app or add pictures from the camera roll.  Here are just a few examples.  

Not sure what the cat on the title slide has to do with ecosystems.  I guess she just liked it. 

We do need to work on organization a bit.

I am excited to use this app more next year.

Technology Tuesday: Kinder Research

More thanks to our wonderful District Library Instructional Coordinator for helping us to take our research up a notch using the Guided Inquiry model.  Our kinder students researched jobs in the community and the tools people need to do their jobs.

This involved kinder coming four times for 45 minutes each time (and we still could have used more time).  We started off discussing what would happen if our school did not have a custodian.  You can read about that here.  Then the students went to tables where they sorted picture cards.  The cards had pictures of people and then tools that they might use in their jobs.

We had a good discussion about what tools people need to do their jobs well.  

In the 2nd lesson, the class was split into two groups.  One group stayed on the carpet with the teacher to look at books and the other groups went to the computers with me to read an ebook.  Then we switched. 

At the book station, I had books from these two series out on the floor.  

 Being the non-kinder teacher that I am, I was so thankful for the suggestion to give have index cards prepared with one green sticky and two yellow stickies. 

 As the students looked through the books, the put the green sticker on a page where they found the name of the job and the two yellow stickies when they found a tool the person used.

After they placed their stickies, they went and sat on a different part of the rug and the teacher paired them with another student to share what they found.  Most students had time to do 2 books.  

Meanwhile at the computer station, we navigated to four ebooks that our district owns.  These are called Community Helper Mysteries and give clues about the person all the way through the book and then reveal who it is at the end.  

After they listened to 2 books, they came to the table where they glued the cover of the books that they listened to and wrote the name of the person and a tool they used in their research journal (5 half sheets of manilla paper stapled together).

On the next visit, the used iPads to access PebbleGo and listen to one of the community helpers there. Again, in their journals, they wrote the name of the person and two tools they used.  

On the fourth and final visit, they used 30 hands to make a movie of one of the jobs and tools that they researched.  The librarians in our district had previously all found some pictures to put in a file that the students could access for this part.  The students saved the 3 pictures they needed to the ipads and then I walked them through adding the pictures to 30 Hands and how to record.  We modeled the video after the Community Helper Mystery Books.   The students saved their videos to the camera roll and then I loaded them in dropbox for the teachers to access back in the classroom.  

This was a great project for kinder however, as always I wish we had more time.  You'll notice on this video that we forgot to include the source slide.  We talked about citing our sources and how important it is to give credit for where we found our research, but when it came to crunch time we didn't make one to include.  We always seemed to be rushed trying to get 6 or 7 classes in four or five times during the two-week window that our district scope and sequence allows for research.  Wish it could be an ongoing skill through the whole year as interesting things come up instead of a two week chunk of time in their ELA block.  

Kinder... You gotta love them

I have posted before about my brief moment of panic 6 times every week before each kinder class comes to the library, but I have to admit, they are pretty darn funny.  This week we started our research unit about Jobs in the Community (more about that in a later post) and some of the things they have said are just cracking me up.

In the classroom, they are doing whole class research on animals.  I started off asking one of my kinder classes if they knew what research was.  I was expecting an answer like "It's where you find out stuff" or "when you learn something:".  One cute little guy raised his hand and said, "Its when you learn about babies..." I neverously glanced over at the teacher and her eyes are getting bigger as he finished "and where they live and stuff like that".  I think we both exhaled loudly at the same time. Come to find out their whole class research is about penguins :)

For our research in the library we are going to be researching jobs.  After asking what research is, I ask about the custodians and what they do at our school.  Answers were as expected... clean the tables, empty the trash, mop the floors, etc.  Until one pops out with "Cleans up the PUKE!"  Yes they do!

I also have them turn and talk to a neighbor about what would happen if we did not have custodians at our school.  First of all, if you have never done turn and talk with kinders, it is about the cutest thing ever.  They must do it a bunch in the classroom, because they all turned to the closest person and huddle their heads very close together and really have a conversation.  Asking each other "What would we do without our custodians?"

So as we are listening to these animated discussions we hear things like,,, there would be trash everywhere... our school would be a disaster!... we would have to clean up our own messes! ... and my favorite - there would be LOTS of rats!  So glad we have our custodians :)

Kinder... you gotta love them!

Transportation, Recreation and Communication

This year, thanks to our wonderful District Library Instructional Coordinator and her love of social studies, our 1st grade research unit was kicked up a notch.  I blogged about this research project last year here.  The kids and teachers liked it, but this year was so much more fun.

The unit was designed as a Guided Inquiry project so we started off with by talking about the students.  How old they were, what was considered the past, the present and the future for them.  We used a strip of 10 blocks and had them number up to their current age (the present).  Anything before that was the past and anything after that was the future.  Then we glued that into a paper journal I had made.  The 10 strip was a great visual for them and I really think it helped to cement the concept. 

 They were shocked when I brought out my timeline and showed them all 42 of my squares.  You would think I was 110!  We talked about how my past is longer than theirs because I am older.  They of course wanted to know when on the timeline I was in 1st grade and when I became a librarian, etc.  

Then I showed them Discovery Education Boards that my assistant and I each had made about what transportation, recreation and communication was like when we were in first grade.  

I loved this because we could put our own pictures, or find some on the web and we could use a recording app on the ipad to read our writing and embedded that on the board to read to them also.  My assistant is 10 years older than I am so it was interesting for them to see the difference in that short amount of time.  

In the next lesson, I had picture cards for each group of pictures of communication, transportation and recreation items.  I told the kids they needed to sort the 12 cards into 3 groups.  They did need some guidance for that but once they got one of the groups, the could go from there.  Then I read them the book Hornbook and Inkwells by Verla Kay

and we talked about the different transportation, communication and recreation items that we saw in the book.  We took notes about the book in our journals.  

For the 3rd lesson, our district library services had bought each of us some items for the kids to explore with.  I had a slate and chalk, quill and ink(feathers and black tempra paint), clay to make marbles, ABC dice, wood dice with numbers, a ball and cup toy, a buzz saw and spinning tops.  The kids really enjoyed the hands on opportunity to get to use things.  More than once I heard from the quill ink station, "Boy am I glad we have pencils now!  This is hard!"  

For the final lesson, we took a lot at Pebble-go Social Studies and took some more notes on the Colonial Times and Now.  Then the students had to write a sentence or two in their journals about what they had learned.  Then they used the iPad to take a picture of an item that went with their sentence and then narrate the picture in the educreations app.  

I am so glad that we were able to have so much fun with this research.  It is a crazy time of year though and trying to fit this in right now with all the "other" stuff going on was a bit challenging, but I think the kids enjoyed it and have a better understanding of communication, recreation and transportation in the past.

Technology Tuesday: Discovery Streaming Board Builder

My apologies for being away so long.  I am going to get back on track.  Today I am going to tell you about a guided inquiry project one of my 5th grade teachers and I collaborated on.  We were addressing the science strand: predict the effects of changes in ecosystems caused by living organisms, including humans, such as the overpopulation of grazers or the building of highways. This was a 2 week project with our final product being a Board Builder from Discovery Streaming (which our district subscribes to).  

Board Builder is a tool students (or teachers) can use to display information in a poster style format.  But the cool thing about it is that you can import video clips and pictures or you can find some within Discovery Streaming and save them to use in your board.  Text can also be added.  Here are two examples of boards our students did. 

If you have access to Discovery Streaming I would highly recommend you check out Board Builder.  Let me know what you think about it!

Flipping in the Library

There’s a lot of talk in education circles about “Flipping the Classroom”.   I have been intrigued by this idea but didn't fully understand it until I read this book 

by Jonathan Bergmann

It makes a lot of sense.  The students watch some kind of presentation at home and then do the practice, what would have been the homework, in class where the teacher can actually help them.  Being that librarians are supposed to be technology leaders on our campuses, another librarian and I got together to talk about the logistics of “Flipping the Library”.  We had a lot of questions that we had to hash out answers to together.  Who would we do this with?  What if they don’t have access to a computer or Internet at home?  What kind of lessons would we flip?  How would we actually get the information to the students?  We both like to do research mini lessons with our students throughout the year before they actually come and do a BIG research project so we thought the mini lessons would be the perfect ones to flip.  We seem to spend a lot of time telling kids how to research and BOOM then it is time to do it for real.  They do not often get a lot of time to practice the skills.  So we are going to work on creating a video of coming up with questions for a project and looking at key words within the questions as our first flip.  The idea is that the classroom teacher would assign the video and short recording sheet for homework and then they will come to the library to actually discuss the video and then practice coming up with questions and key words of their own.  If students do not have access at home, they can come into the library before school or during our whole school intervention time right at the beginning of the day to watch it here.  We are planning to start this in early November so I will post then how it actually worked. 

Have any of you tried flipping the library yet?