Today the #TechTakeout crew went over to Carver Elementary to work with some amazing kindergarten students and teachers! We had a blast working on some Math skills on both iPads and computers. As a group we made sure to focus on particular skills that the students had trouble with throughout the year. Even though we were working on tough concepts for kindergartners such as money and fractions the students were engaged and having a blast the entire time!
We kicked off the day with a great game of Kahoot! The game focused on fractions and money and really got the kids pumped to start the lesson. All of the students were cheering for their friends when they got the right answer. Kahoot is a great tool because it is so easy to differentiate for the younger grades. Today we only let the students choose from two answer choices since they are younger.
Julie Smith and Jessica Robinson helped the students to review the fractions ½ and ¼. The students started by creating a farm fraction scene using the app Farmyard. Students were encouraged to make equal groups using the animal stamps to represent ½ and then make a second scene with four animals to represent ¼. They saved their scenes to the camera roll and imported them into the app, Educreations. Students used Educreations to record and annotate their explanations of their fraction scenes. Mooooooooooooo!
Sarah Green and Stephanie Wright helped students review money by making movies. First, they took pictures of the coins and then used the Shadow Puppets app to add labels to each picture. Finally, they recorded themselves talking about each coin to make a movie.
Tech takeout from Sarah Green on Vimeo.
Gina Browne and Karen Hues used the iPad app 30 Hands to create food fractions. The students uploaded pictures of different foods from the camera roll. There were three pictures of each food item: the first picture was the whole food, the second picture was the food cut in half, and in the third picture the food was cut into fourths. Once imported into 30 Hands, they used the drawing tool to write “one” on the whole, “½” on the halves, and “¼” on the fourths. The students then recorded their voices describing their food fractions. The three slides were combined and exported as a movie.
Fraction Foods from Karen Hues on Vimeo.
Jim Covais and Matt Caratachea turned their group of students into computer programmers! When most people think of computer programmers a kindergarten student is not typically the first thing that comes to mind, but these kindergarten students were disproving that all day! The students used both Scratch and Makey Makeys to make money actually speak.
First, the students went to the Scratch website and the students added the event “when spacebar is pressed.” Next, they added the command to make a sound. They students had a great time recording their voices explaining which coin they had and how much it was worth. We then added the Makey Makeys into the mix. The students took a coin and connected it to their own Makey Makey and then connected a ground wire to the earth section of the Makey Makey. When the students touched their coin their computer said, “I am a quarter and I’m worth 25 cents.”
