Project Planning Sheet

 Project Planning Sheet

Name: Emily Headings

Grade Level and Subject Area: Kindergarten Writing and Science

Title of Lesson: What would YOU do? 

Goals: The major goal of this lesson is to give students a chance to show their writing abilities by creating a digital story. Students will be investigating how to best help the community with reducing, reusing, and recycling. 

Content Standard(s): 

-With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

-Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

Technology Standard(s):
Standard 2. Communication and Collaboration 
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

Performance Objectives:

1. Students will pick an environmental issue they want to change.
2. Students will do research about the issue.
3. Students will create a story sharing about their issue.
4. Students will create digital pictures to use in their digital story.
5. Students will record their voice and put together their digital stories.
6. Students will use share their digital stories with other students, and give academic feedback on 2 other students' stories. 

Description of lesson: This unit will take place over a week, with a lesson each day.
1. the first lesson will start out with a video clip about our community's problem with littering, trash, and other issues. Students will be asked to think about how they could help the problem. We will make a list of problems and possible solutions to the problems.
2. In the second lesson, students will be taken to a landfill and be able to ask questions of the staff there. 
3.The third lesson will be a time students can write a story of how they can help the planet. They will be writing their stories, and asked to do a brief sketch. 
4.Then, students will be abe to pick whichever way works best for them to create pictures to go along with their story. They can use the ipad, computer, or draw and scan their pictures. 
5. The last day will more work time, in order for students to record their voices and put together their digital stories.
6. The week after, we will have a day for sharing time, in which we will watch other student's digital stories. Students will be asked to give feedback to two other students. For their grade, I will be grading using our school district's writing rubric, which is as follows. 
3- I can write a story with a beginning, middle, and end all by myself
2- I can write a story but need a little help
1-I cannot write a story without a lot of help.



Students will be using Track star to move through the project. You can find the track here. 

Create a Copy



Other kindergarten teachers will be using this same activity at the same time, so collaboration with other teachers will be key. If students need more time with a certain piece  we will take more time. This will be the first time doing this activity, so a lot of flexibility is built into the lessons.  

Preschool Activities

Sometimes parents ask me what they can be doing with their children to prepare them for kindergarten. Practicing ABCs, numbers, counting, and writing their name are basic skills that help tremendously. I also found another blogger who listed wonderful activities that can be done independently. She uses these for her preschooler while she home schools her other children, but these would be great for anyone to do with preschool age kids at home. 

-coloring page

-books on table {choose about 5 books just for them to flip through...could be library books or off of your shelves.}

-preschool skills activity page {Just a preschool skills page from one of those huge preschool books.  It might have drawing, cutting/pasting, circling, etc.}

-puzzle

The next list are the activities that change each day.  You can keep a special box on top of one of our cabinets that holds some of the "extras" that aren't regular toys so that they are new to your child each time they play with them.  

-activity of the day:

1.      Muffin tin sorting: buttons; cotton swab writing: alphabet {You can print off several alphabet pages  to use during these types of activities.  Use a cotton swab and paint to trace the letters on an alphabet page.}

2.      Lacing beads; santa box

3.      Legos; stacking cups {these are just plastic solo-type cups}

4.      Rice and coins; Animal Logic lineup {rice and coins: store them dumped in a plastic bag kept in the special box}

5.      Play dough/spaghetti/cheerios; balloons {ball of play dough, uncooked spaghetti stuck into it, put cheerios on the spaghetti}

6.      Train bin; Uno cards

7.      Magneticdress up book; sock match {pull a bunch of socks out of  your drawer, mix them up in a basket, and have them match them.}

8.      Puzzles; pet shop box

9.      Muffin tin sorting: crayons; fill the bag: choose a color {fill the bag: choose one color, like red, and say find all of the toys that are red and put them in this bag}

10. Count the lights; zingo {I printed a bunch of pages with the numbers 1-20 on them, and she has to walk through the house and cross off a number each time she sees a light.}

11. Duplo blocks; cut magazines and make collage

12. Cookie sheet with flour; spoon matching activity {put a little flour on a cookie sheet and let them draw in it; spoon activity: plastic spoons with capital and lowercase letters...they can match them.}

13. Play dough; phone number practice {Write your phone number on a piece of paper, and have them copy it several times.}

14. Chalk board painting; cotton swab writing: numbers {chalkboard, water, paintbrush}

15. Strainer/pipe cleaners; sticker book {picked up a huge sticker book where the stickers go somewhere in the book, they have to find the "shadow" of the sticker and put it in the right place}

16. Sorting pie; wash tupperware/plastic dishes

17. Wooden blocks; fill the bag: choose a letter {choose any letter and have them find toys that start with that letter, put them in the bag}

18. Count the windows; dry beans {same as count the lights; you can have dry beans for play similar to the rice and coins}

19. Day and night activity; write name with pens, markers, crayons, etc.

20. Sort laundry; teddy bear counters {teddy bear counters are from our math curriculum}

21. Shape puzzlebox; plastic animals

22. Quirkle; count the cabinet pulls

23. Marshmallows/toothpicks; pattern blocks {build things with marshmallows and toothpicks}

24. Jenga blocks; table fort {throw a blanket over the table and play}

25. Build a letter; white board/markers {build a letter is a book that we have with pieces that allow you to build a letter along with the book...can't find a link for it}

26. Dominos; cutting practice

27. Legos; Rummikub

28. Popsicle stick free play; junk mail {save your junk mail and let them open it, cut it, write on it, etc.}

29. Dot markers; memory match {basically a memory/match game}

30. Chalkboard drawing; muffin tin sorting: coins

Hope this gives you some ideas for your own toddler/preschooler. You can get at least 30 minutes of teaching time out of these. 

If you have any links or ideas to share, please do! 

 Click here for he original post.

Enjoy!

Educational Games At Home

Hello everyone! 

We are finally back from spring break, and it feels wonderful to be back in the swing of things. The kids did such a great job coming in this morning and getting right back into our routine.

I have a few online resources for you today! These are games that we've played at school, or that would be great to play at home. 

ABCya   Here's a summary from their website:

All children's educational computer activities were created or approved by certified school teachers. All educational games are free and are modeled from primary grade lessons and enhanced to provide an interactive way for children to learn. 

Grade level lessons incorporate areas such as math and language arts while introducing basic computer skills. Many of the kindergarten and first grade activities are equipped with sound to enhance understanding. Fun children's Holiday activities are available in grade level sections!

In addition to the online games, ABCya also has apps for iPad, iPhone, and iPod, and it looks like they are developing apps for the Kindle Fire.

The games are organized by grade level.   When you click on a grade level, the games are organized  into groups such as Letters, Numbers, Holiday, etc.  The organization is designed to make it easy for children to use.

This game is 100 Number Chart.  Students click and drag to place the missing numbers.

There's lots more, so you'll want to get in there and explore.

Sheppard software is a great place for those going into kindergarten next year, or early in the school year. 

We used this website a lot with our Mobi as an extra for centers. 

Scoot Pad  is a GREAT website for later in the year. I have a few students who use this already at home, and parents seem to love it. It is completely personalized, and meets the child where they are, and pushes them further.

Learning Games For Kids is another website we've used in the classroom. It works great for our Mobi, to get the kids interacting. The link is to memory games, but they have games for every subject. 

Have Fun Teaching is a great website for students and teachers alike. They have worksheets, coloring, flash cards, activities, songs, videos, teacher tools, and ways to connect. You can go and print off number flashcards to practice with your child, or have them watch a video about life cycles. Great tool!

First post!

Welcome parents, students, coworkers, and peers! 

I've been meaning to start a classroom website for quite some time. Our school district doesn't have any space for teacher websites, so I put the thought on hold. I created a personal blog last year, and realized I could just make a classroom blog instead of a website. Now with a gentle nudge from a grad school class, I finally found the time to do it! 

This will be a landing pad for lots of things. Parents, I will keep this updated with information about school, our classroom, and your student.  I will also be posting some ideas we are using in our classroom, that may or may not be helpful to other educators. Lastly, I will be adding some resources I discover as I finish my Master's Degree. 

Parents, please remember to check out our Classdojo page! You can check this throughout the week to see your child's behavior points. Reports are always emailed on Fridays.

Click picture to head to our site!

 This week in our "switch" group, a few students were able to focus primarily on numbers 1-10. These students created a book in which we wrote numbers, glued items to match the number, and added photos of making numbers with our bodies. Here is one example of the number 18:

My current course with Ball State has taught me so much about literacy through technology. I knew quite a bit coming in, but the literacy piece has had so much growth in just the last few weeks. It is so interesting how 5 & 6 year old's writing processes are enhanced by technology. So many times teachers of older grades ask me how in the world I could incorporate technology into learning at such a young age. What many teachers still do not understand, is that we are now teaching digital natives.

This year, my teaching of writing has changed dramatically. Especially in the last few weeks. I am doing a presentation on digital storytelling, and it has opened my eyes to more uses for technology. Another teacher showed us an example of her kindergarten class creating their own digital story. Truly inspiring! This class read the book, Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems, and then made different endings to the story. They then made a picture to go along with their ending, and made a digital story out of it.

The only issue with using technology in writing is the issue of the internet. I am always questioning myself if I am taking all the right avenues in order to properly publish student's work online. My hope with this blog, specifically,  is that students will be able to "publish" a story here, in order to share their writing with their parents/ other students/ the world. My hope is that this will help to spark a love of writing and collaborating in my students that will last for their lifetime. 

Thank you for checking out my blog! I look forward to learning, growing, and celebrating my kindergarteners with you!