Oh What Fun!

Yesterday we embarked on our annual gingerbread house decorating party! Okay, they were actually graham cracker houses but it was still lots of fun! Thanks again to everyone who sent in supplies and joined our festive celebration. Thanks also for my wonderful and generous gifts! I loved all of them! Watch the video below for a little glimpse into the festivities. 

Field Trip to Phoenix Courts

Every great field trip always starts with an exciting bus ride! Students were wowed by the tall buildings of downtown Phoenix and enjoyed the trip. 

First stop was "The Old Courthouse" and everyone had to go through a metal detector.

We spent a good deal of time in Judge Barton's courtroom and she gave us lots of information about the history of The Old Courthouse. She pointed out the lack of technology and even how some technology was impossible to incorporate because the building was built so long ago. She very patiently answered many of our questions, too! 

 Next, we headed across the street to the much more modern, South Court Tower. We took a combination of escalators and elevators all the way up to a courtroom on the 8th floor.

When we arrived, the person in charge of technology for the entire building gave a presentation about the technology used in the building including assistive technology (which several students got to test), microphones, projectors, and document cameras. This was very different than The Old Courthouse!

Next, students took a seat in the jury box and we heard two different mock trials.

First, Goldilocks took the stand and tried to convince us she was not guilty of breaking and entering and burglary in the home of the three bears.

The interrogation was pretty intense, and unfortunately, Goldilocks was quickly found guilty.

Next, Gretel of Hansel and Gretel took the stand. She explained to us how her poor brother had been captured and caged by an evil witch and she feared for her life! 

After a brief deliberation, the jury found Gretel not guilty and she was free to go! 

Thanks so much to our wonderful parent volunteers for all your help with this field trip and a HUGE thanks to Mr. Vingelli for all his hard work coordinating and setting everything up! 

Learning New Vocabulary With PicCollage

On Friday we competed in our first of three WordMasters Challenge meets of the 2014-15 school year. The WordMasters Challenge is a vocabulary competition based on completing analogies. Analogies involve higher order thinking skills which is based on logic and reason. We have been working on analogies and higher level thinking all year.

To prepare for the meet, students took up to three vocabulary words expected to be part of the WordMasters Challenge, looked up the meanings of the words and created a PicCollage using an iPad to demonstrate the meanings of their words. Students then presented their vocabulary words to the class and we discussed possible analogies and relationships for these words.

PicCollage is a fun, free iPad app that allows students to easily create beautiful photo collages. This app is easy to use and has lots of options to add text, stickers, different backgrounds, rotates photos, etc. 

Students really enjoyed becoming an expert on their new vocabulary words and sharing the information with the rest of the class. Our first WordMasters meet was very successful and the top five scorers were announced at the end of the day. This is a cumulative competition so scores from our next two meets will be added to the scores from this week to determine our final winners at the end of the year. 

Churning Butter

Today in Science class, we churned butter. This integrated with a larger Social Studies unit based on the first Thanksgiving. After writing all the materials and instructions for churning butter, along with predicting what would happen, how long it would take for their butter to churn and a few other things, students worked with a small group churning a small container of cream to turn it into butter. Students observed the results of their labor and tasted the buttermilk they helped create as well. Everyone had fun churning the butter but I think everyone had MORE fun tasting the results of their hard work! Watch the video clip below to see our butter churning in action! 

Turkey Recipes Via Google Classroom

Every year of my teaching career I have had my students write Thanksgiving turkey recipes to create a funny class book. However, over the years this project has changed fairly dramatically. I used to have students write their recipes by hand. I would take the stack of recipes home and laboriously retype them all. I loved the finished project but did not love how much extra work it created for me.

This year I am extremely lucky to have 1:1 Chromebooks in my classroom and amazingly tech savvy students! I posted the turkey recipe assignment in Google Classroom (a fairly new feature of Google Apps For Education), students each created a document using a recipe template and virtually turned in their completed recipe. Google Classroom neatly tucked them all away in a beautifully organized folder for me! 

Then, we took the project a step further and created a class video about these books. Once it was uploaded to YouTube, a couple of students took the link and created a QR Code for us. We embedded the QR Code on the cover of the book so anyone reading the book can easily scan and view the adorable video.  

Balance and Motion

In Science class, we just finished up a unit on balance and motion. We learning how to balance a pencil on the sharpened tip, using a counterweight. We took cardboard crayfish and balanced them in a variety of different ways. We created zoomers and spinners. We built roller coasters - both physical and virtual. But by far the most popular activities were the ones involving tops. Students loved creating, building and spinning tops!

Vocabulary we learned during this unit includes: counterweight, counterbalance, air resistance, stable, slope and rotational motion.

Honored to be Named a Jacobs Educator

Dr. Thomas Brush (Chair, Instructional Systems Technology Department), Josh Mika, Me and Kate Baker

This past weekend I had to great honor of traveling to Indiana University to accept the Jacobs Educator Award. This is an annual award which recognizes teachers across the United States who are using technology to support innovative inquiry-based teaching and learning activities in their classrooms. 

The weekend was a whirlwind of activities and events including touring the IU Campus, meeting with faculty, staff, students, parents of students and the other two awardees. Saturday morning we were part of a panel during Parent Weekend called "Why Teach?", speaking primarily to EDU students and their parents about our views regarding the opportunities, challenges, and rewards of the profession.

Part of the Jacobs Educator Award includes new technology for the classroom along with communication and ongoing collaboration with Indiana University's prestigious school of education. We will be doing many video conferences and professors and students from IU will be visiting the classroom throughout the year to observe how my students use technology for Inquiry Based Learning. 

Google Glass!

The events this weekend were extremely positive and inspiration and I am so excited to be a part of the team of Jacobs Educators and working with Indiana University. Of course, I am so excited for new, cutting edge technology, too!