The students in Mrs. Beam’s 5th grade class have been studying the Midwest of the United States. With the guidance of their classroom teacher and librarian, they conducted research, wrote a script, and then recorded using the Green Screen and DoInk to share their information. The finished videos were uploaded to Seesaw. Using Adobe Premiere, I was able to make the videos fly in and out of the state they were referring to. Take a look at their finished video.
Fifth graders at Varina Elementary have been reviewing potential and kinetic energy (SOL4.2), so today, students in Ms. Primrose’s class created animations to illustrate these concepts. For this lesson, we used a different way to animate that I learned about from a fellow ITRT, Michael Price. He showed me how to create an auto-playing animation with Google slides. First, we reviewed potential and kinetic energy and brainstormed several examples (pulling back on a bow and arrow, squatting before a dive or a basketball throw, twisting a rubber band, squashing a spring, blowing up a balloon before releasing it, etc). I explained that we would be animating both the potential and kinetic energy of an action, so the students needed to choose one they found interesting. Next, we opened a blank Google slide, and clicked the Background button. The students used the built-in Google image search to look for a background that would fit their action. Then we added Shapes to make our characters and objects. We copied the slide (right click > Duplicate slide), and moved the shapes around slightly to make it look like the characters and objects were moving. We continued copying slides and making adjustments until our animations were complete. Now it was time to add the animation magic! We clicked File > Publish to the web and chose “Auto advance slides every second.” We also clicked the two boxes so that it would start automatically and repeat when it was finished. When the link appeared, we changed the number that came after “delayms=” to 100 to speed up the animation. You can see their final projects here.
Fifth graders at Varina Elementary have been reviewing potential and kinetic energy (SOL4.2), so today, students in Ms. Primrose’s class created animations to illustrate these concepts. For this lesson, we used a different way to animate that I learned about from a fellow ITRT, Michael Price. He showed me how to create an auto-playing animation with Google slides. First, we reviewed potential and kinetic energy and brainstormed several examples (pulling back on a bow and arrow, squatting before a dive or a basketball throw, twisting a rubber band, squashing a spring, blowing up a balloon before releasing it, etc). I explained that we would be animating both the potential and kinetic energy of an action, so the students needed to choose one they found interesting. Next, we opened a blank Google slide, and clicked the Background button. The students used the built-in Google image search to look for a background that would fit their action. Then we added Shapes to make our characters and objects. We copied the slide (right click > Duplicate slide), and moved the shapes around slightly to make it look like the characters and objects were moving. We continued copying slides and making adjustments until our animations were complete. Now it was time to add the animation magic! We clicked File > Publish to the web and chose “Auto advance slides every second.” We also clicked the two boxes so that it would start automatically and repeat when it was finished. When the link appeared, we changed the number that came after “delayms=” to 100 to speed up the animation. You can see their final projects here.
Ms. Casey at Greenwood was looking for an easy way to have her 4th graders record themselves reading a selection and then independently upload it to her. I suggested Seesaw! Seesaw has a record feature built into most of the activities. For this station, students took a quick picture of the text and then recorded themselves reading that selection.
For this fun activity I collaborated with Matt Caratachea at Glen Allen Elementary. The 5th grade students have been learning about how atoms move in each state of matter. Today we introduced them to coding in Scratch by creating these projects to show how atoms move.
For the solid, we provided the students with a template. They remixed and created a bunch of atoms arranged in neat rows to show how the atoms in a solid are tightly packed and vibrate. Originally the Lego block was a sprite, but we had trouble with the atoms moving behind the block, so for this remix, I made it the background for this project.
For the liquid, students selected a background of their choice from the library within Scratch. The only rule was that it had to be a location that had water. Students used the drawing tool to draw a circle for the atom and fill it in with a gradient. Students used the x/y coordinates to code the atoms to stay within the areas with water. Then they programmed the atom to glide to a random position within that x/y range.
Originally, I had planned for the gas to glide to a random position as well, but at a faster speed. A student in the first class suggested that we use “Forever” and “Go to Random Position.” This was an awesome suggestion because it involved less code and had the effect that we wanted with the gas flying all over the screen. For this state of matter, student drew a sky background and selected the orange ball sprite from the library. After they had it coded to always go to a random position, they simply had to duplicate the atoms to have more fly around the screen.
One of the great things about Scratch is that there is always more than one way to code and it allows the students and I to try out different codes, reflect, change it up, and share ideas. True problem solving and critical thinking in action!
Kindergarten students at Trevvett Elementary have been learning about Presidents Day and the two presidents it honors: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Today, students in Ms. Gouldman’s class painted presidential portraits based on research. Yes, even kindergarten students can start learning how to do research. I explained that we wanted our portraits to look like the real presidents, so we had to find out what color their skin, eyes, and hair were. First I asked them to guess, then we looked online for portraits and photographs to confirm or revise our initial thoughts. It was difficult, though, to tell some of the colors from just paintings or black and white photos, so I showed them how to ask Google a question with the microphone button. “What color were George Washington’s eyes?” I asked, and the answer came back: blue grey. Then the students tried it with Abraham Lincoln. We discovered that his eyes were green or grey or hazel (that type of eye color fluctuates depending on the light). We already knew that Abraham Lincoln sported a beard, but we learned that George Washington had light brown or reddish hair, and powdered it so it appeared white (it was a military thing, like a modern day buzz cut). As we looked at the different websites in our research, I explained that some sites are reliable, and some are not. I pointed out that anyone can make a website, in fact, they will be making a sort-of website today, actually. Our website won’t be reliable since we are not professionals, but websites like encyclopedias or museums or scientific organizations are usually reliable, especially when they agree with each other. Now that we had our facts, we went to ABCYa! Storymaker to paint our portraits. The students had already practiced drawing on the computer this year, so that part didn’t take too long. It was a perfect time to teach some typing skills. Storymaker makes typing seem easy and familiar by including elementary lined paper (press the yellow button on the right). I showed the students how to use Shift to make an uppercase letter, and we typed the presidents’ first names. Finally, we exported our pictures and shared them on a Padlet, which is their own “sort-of” website that Ms. Gouldman can send home to parents.
Mrs. Jung, 2nd grade teacher at Longan Elementary, was looking for a fun way to have students review what they had learned from the first semester. She sent me the skills they have covered and I created this digital breakout for the students to try to solve. In the first clue, students had to build a puzzle to reveal a pictograph and then solve the clue by analyzing the graph. Next students looked at a receipt to estimate about how much money Sam spent. Using a number line, students had to add double digit numbers. For number sense, students used a model similar to base-ten blocks to determine the correct number. For the last clue, students had to determine the place value of the provided numbers. As students found the answers to the clues, they recorded them on the provided Google Form. When they submitted their correct answers, students were able to click a link to play this Gumball Game to compare numbers.
Students in Ms. Roberts’ fourth grade class created scenes from the American Revolution using storyboardthat.com. They had to show the points of view of the Virginian Women in the American Revolution, the Native Americans, and African Americans. They learned how to customize scenes, characters and add text to really showcase their position during the war. When they were finished, they used the snipping tool to take a picture of their three scenes and then they uploaded them to a media album in Schoology. Students were then allowed to give positive feedback to their classmates. Great job Ms. Roberts’ class!
For Dr. Seuss week, I wanted to share some technology activities you could implement whole class or have your students work on independently:
-Dr. Seuss Digital Breakout for Grades K-2 (click on the “Holidays” tab and scroll to the bottom for the Dr. Seuss Breakout): https://sites.google.com/henrico.k12.va.us/digitalbreakout/home
-One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish Venn Diagram Sorting: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/2017/02/one-fish-two-fish-sort.html#comment-form
–https://quizizz.com/ (similar to Kahoot except students answer questions at their own pace). If you create a teacher account using your Google login and then search “Dr. Suess” there are a bunch of premade quizzes students can take and race each other
-Nearpod activity using story The Sneetches to promote treating people fairly: https://nearpod.com/s/social-studies/kindergarten/antiracism-with-the-sneetches-L37165209
–https://classflow.com/ (formerly Promethean Planet) login to your Classflow account using your Google login and then search “Dr. Seuss” under “Marketplace”. There are many flipcharts and interactive Promethean board lessons you and your student can use.
Fifth graders at Laburnum Elementary have been learning about how matter can change physically or chemically (SOL5.6), so today, students in Ms. Hall’s class created animations to illustrate some of these changes. First, we reviewed the differences between physical and chemical changes and looked at some examples. Then, the students chose a type of change they wanted to animate, and I explained how to download a suitable background image with a Google image search. Next, we went to ABCYa!Animate to create our animations. We clicked the “Edit Background” button and uploaded our background image. Then, we used the paint tools or the image library to create our first frame. I demonstrated how to copy the frame and make small changes in each subsequent frame so that when they press “Play,” it shows matter changing over time. When we were finished, we exported our animations as .gif files and shared them on Schoology. You can see them all here.
