Inauguration Fun

Hi all!

My class had lots of fun with the inauguration so I thought I would share some ideas for you.  Although there won't be another inauguration for 4 years, President's Day is only a few weeks away.

Since the inauguration was on a holiday, we celebrated on Tuesday.  I invited my students to wear red, white and blue that day.  (However, I had so many ideas that some of these ideas were used on Wednesday.)

Biography of President Obama

I began by reading a biography of Barack Obama.

Then we created pictures of President Obama.  This art project is from TLC.  It was a bit complex, but my kiddos did a great job!  If you haven't created TLC projects with your children, I highly recommend you check them out.  Kaye Espinosa is the brains behind TLC.  These lessons were created to teach children the kindergarten curriculum using art.  All of the TLC projects begin with rectangles.  Students then cut and paste to create amazing artwork and along the way, they learn a lot about math.  The Barack Obama lesson is in the America book, but it is currently available as a free download at the TLC website.

Then students had to pick which color in the American flag was their favorite.  We made a tally chart and then graphed our results on a simple worksheet I created.  Later, I kicked myself for not doing an art project about the flag.  Hmmm ... please remind me about that four years from now.  Pretty please!  

                                              Then it was time for another read aloud:

If I Were President

After reading this book, we brainstormed what we would do if we were president.  Then the children wrote about it.  I gave my kinders paper that already said, "If I were president".  My firsties used regular lined paper.  I LOVE what my kiddos wrote!!

Here is a kinder sample:

If I were president, I would take a nap and eat whatever I want.

This is a first grade sample:

I love this one because it is so balanced.  Maybe this is how I should lead my life: play with kids, work real hard, take care of the whole world, play with my DSI, and take care of the family.  Love, love, love!

Then we did another art project.  I created a guided drawing lesson about the White House.  My sample is first and then student samples follow.  I LOVE doing guided drawing with my students!  Each piece of art turns out unique and wonderful. I tell them step by step what to draw.  Example: "Draw a large rectangle in the middle of your paper."  (More math incorporated into art.  LOVE IT!)

Whew!  The children had so much fun and hopefully learned a lot!

Love to all,

Camille

iTalk iPads: Story Creator

I am going to try to focus on one new iPad app a week.  That will insure that I keep trying new apps, plus will help me reflect on our use of iPads.

I have a new favorite iPad app: Story Creator.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!  What about my firsties?  They LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it, too!

Here is what makes this app so special:

• It is free.  (How awful that I list this first, but you all know why!!)
• It is easy to use.
• Children can create their own books.
• Drawings, photos and text are all easy to add to the books.
• Audio can be added, as in, children type in their text and then record themselves reading the text.  Then when you scroll through the story, you hear the child's voice reading each page to you.  Oh, be still my heart.  I SO love this feature!
• The tech support is phenomenal!  I sent an email to the developers asking a few questions and I received a reply.  A real reply.  But it gets better.  I got the reply within hours.  The reply contained answers to my questions.  Like I said: phenomenal support!

Here is what I don't like:

• The only way to share the created books is via Facebook.  That means we are NOT sharing our books.  But this is one of the improvements on their list for the December upgrade.  (Which I know because I received an email telling me this. : )  This same thing tends to be a glitch in quite a few apps, especially the ones that are free.  So the books will stay on each iPad and have to be shared via buddy reading or author's chair.

Here is how I unrolled this app for my first graders:

• Ahead of time I created a three page book using Story Creator.  The first page had a drawing and text, the second page had a photo and text and the third page had a photo, text, AND audio.  
• I used my document camera to unveil my three page book.  (I just placed the iPad directly on the document camera so my kiddos could see.)
• I showed my students how to access the app, how to start a book and explained each icon at the bottom.  All in all, my presentation was five minutes max.  I really try to not overdo my instructions with apps.  I want my students to have lots of freedom because then they will be much more creative.
• I let my students loose to use the app.  Some of them began to draw pictures for their books.  Other started by taking photos.  A few students began adding audio as soon as they had typed in text.  Some students discovered the spelling correction feature.  (Which can be both a help and a hindrance with beginning readers!!!)
• I buzzed around the room listening, reading and mainly learning from my amazing digital natives!
• As a few students finished books, I sent them to the office to share their stories.  They came back with HUGE smiles.
• We ran out of time or we would have had a sharing time at the end.  As it was, my students were VERY upset with me when I had them cleanup because it was time to go home.  ("What school is over?  "Can't we stay longer?  PLEASE!!!!")

That's it for now!

Love to all,

Camille

Writers at Work

"Writers at Work" is the title of a bulletin board in my room.  Every student has a designated space on the board.  Each month a new writing sample is placed on the board on top of the previous samples.  That way students and parents can look through the child's posted samples to see the amazing progress that has been made in writing.  Then at the end of the year, all of the writing for each child is bound together in a writing sampler.  This is given to the families as a reminder of growth in kindergarten / first grade.  (Special thanks to Marlene for this GREAT idea!)

The writing samplers begin with a note to the child and then a poem introducing the book to parents.  I have created links for my cover, poem and a sample note.  Unfortunately, I could not get my adorable graphics to copy into Google Docs so you'll just have to take my word for it:  the graphics were totally adorable!!!

Writing Sampler Cover

Poem for Writing Sampler

Sample Note to One Student

In the photo of the bulletin board some of the students were kinders and some were first graders.  This writing was done in April when we were studying fish.  The artwork is a directed drawing that we did together and then I gave each student a fish sticker to add to the picture.  Then the first graders had to write a descriptive paragraph about "their" fish.  The kinders had to write two sentences.