Category Archives: 4th

Graphing in a Google Spreadsheet

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The students have been working on Graphing skills, so I had them log into their Henrico Google accounts and create a new spreadsheet. As they were opening a new spreadsheet, I passed out some data for them to graph. Here is an example of the data I used: DATA FOR GRAPHING

The students typed the information into the cells and then went to Insert > Chart > Bar Chart. Once the graph was on the page, we talked about what information was still missing from our graph. The students then went through and added the title and labels for the x-axis and y-axis.

Once their graphs were complete, the student learned how to copy their graph (ctrl+C) and paste it into a new Google Document (ctrl+V). Underneath of their graph, they pretended like they were the teacher and typed analysis questions for their classmates to answer. During math rotations, the students opened the doc that was shared with them and selected another color font (something other than black) to type their answers in on their peers document. They really enjoyed creating their own questions for their graph and having a classmate hop on their doc and answer.

Posted in 4th

Composing & Editing Writing with Google Docs

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This year, the elementary students are able to log into their Henrico Google Account and use the Google Applications. For this lesson, I set up the usernames and passwords for Ms. Herod’s 5th grade class at Longan. The students logged into their account and opened a new Doc. Ms. Herod gave them a prompt and we allowed them to type their descriptive paragraph(s) for about 30 minutes.

Next the students went to the share settings and shared their document with a classmate and their teacher. When the students clicked on their Shared with Me folder, they saw a document from one of their classmates. This allowed them to open their classmate’s Doc and use the commenting feature to suggest ways in which they could improve their paragraph. Students were looking for grammatical errors, spelling, punctuation, run on sentences, etc.

At the end of the lesson, the students asked if they could continue editing their friend’s writing for homework, so I think they enjoyed this new way of editing writing!

Since we have had such an amazing response with the students using computers and learning how to use Google Docs, Google Maps and learning the history of computers, we decided to add in a few after school classes for those students who want more. We are bringing in a class on coding and another class that will cover things like migration, encryption and technical grid technology. All at an elementary school level.

SCA Voting Using Blogs and Google Forms

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This year the SCA teacher reps at Springfield Park decided to move away from using QUIA and use a Google Form instead. Our only issue with the Google Form was that we could not insert images of the students running, so we decided to create an SCA Blog. On the blog, there is a tab for “Meet the Candidates” where the students can see a picture of the student running for office and their speech. Then they click on the “Cast Your Vote” tab and fill out the Google Form to vote for the candidates of their choice. The teacher was able to enable voting the day of the voting and then disable voting at the end of the day. By going to Form –> View Summary of Results, the teacher was able to easily see who the winners were for each office. Google Forms provide a nice pie graph to show the results. Now that the votes are in, they will use their SCA blog to post upcoming events (Spirit Days, after school PTA events, etc).

Sock Puppet Interviews

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The students in Mrs. Moore’s 4th grade class have been reading Tuck Everlasting. As a culminating activity, the students wrote and recorded interview questions for the characters in the story using the SockPuppet app on the iPads. Check out a quick sample.

*Side Note: At this point there is not an easy way to move the videos from the app to an external site. YouTube is an option, but the teacher and I were not able to successfully get them to transfer to the YouTube account. Our solution was to film the interview right off of the iPad.*

Smencils Commercial

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Each year, the Springfield Park SCA sells Smencils to raise money for their school.  In the past, the videos were created by a teacher.  This year, we assigned the task to the students and they rose to the occasion!  We began by meeting with the SCA Officers and having them brainstorm what needed to be included in the commercial.  Next, the students created a Story Board for the commercial using a template from Pixie.

At the next SCA meeting, the students collaborated by taking on different parts of the commercial and filming mini-skits or taking still photos.  Then the officers met again to put the videos and pictures together into an iMovie.  Check out their finished result!

Smencils Commercial from Karen Hues on Vimeo.

Blood on the River Google Earth Lit Trip

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The students in Mrs. Moore’s 4th grade class at Springfield Park read Blood on the River during their study of Jamestown.  As the students read, they filled out a Google Form with the description and setting of important events in the story.

After reading the novel and filling out the Google Form for each important stop in the story, the students created were ready to begin a Google Lit Trip.  They illustrated the scenes from each important location in the novel.  They took a picture of their illustration and uploaded it to comemories.com  Here is their album on comemories:  http://comemories.com/d16715

Next the student were ready to create the events in their Google Earth trip.  The students added a placemark for each location with a title, description, and illustration for each stop on the journey to Jamestown.

Finally, the students were ready to record their tour.  This is where we ran into some problems.  On the MacBook, the audio for the Google Tours stops at exactly 2 minutes.  Most of the students were taking 3-3.5 minutes to explain the tour.  The work around was to use the screen recorder in QuickTime Player.  The students clicked on screen recorder and then selected the internal microphone.  The students worked with their partner to re-record their voice narrating the trip as the Google Earth tour played.  The finished videos were posted to vimeo and placed on the class blog.  Check out this great example!

Blood on the River- Ravi & Lily from Karen Hues on Vimeo.

Elapsed Time – My Perfect Day

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The students in Mrs. Dawe’s 4th grade class at Glen Allen Elementary have been working on elapsed time in math class. As a culminating activity, the students created a timeline of their perfect day. They used Prezi to create a presentation explaining their perfect day in terms of how much time they spent on each activity and how much time elapsed. Check it out!

Step Up To Writing Template in Pixie

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Mrs. Ricks at Springfield Park approached me looking for a more interactive way to have her students plan for writing a paragraph.  She noticed that their attention just wasn’t there using paper, pencil, and markers, so I helped her create a template in Pixie that her students can use for future writing assignments.

The first green dot is for the topic sentence.  The yellow dots are for main ideas, and the red rectangles are for supporting details.   Finally, the last green circle is for the conclusion.  On this template, everything except for the text boxes are glued down so that students can not rearrange the shapes on the page.  After students type up their sentences, they could easily then record themselves reading their paragraph and listen to it played back to see if it makes sense.  Click the link below to download this Pixie template.

Step Up To Writing.pxi

SCA Voting Using a Blog

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Mrs. Neely, 4th grade teacher at Glen Lea, wanted to have a way that students could listen to their peers speeches and then vote for the SCA officers of their choice.  Together we set up a blog for the Glen Lea Election!

On the blog you will find a tab for a page with a drop-down list for the speeches recorded by the students running for President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer.  After viewing the speeches, students then click on the tab for the page where they can cast their vote.  On this page, a Google Form was embedded.  Students selected the four candidates that they thought would best represent their school on the SCA.  We set up the form so that students could only select one person in each category.


Mrs. Neely did not open the form up for voting until that morning and then closed it down again that afternoon.  Once all votes are in, they automatically compile into a spreadsheet complete with graphs and percentages, so it is easy to see who the winners are!

 

VoiceThread

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One of my favorite Web 2.0 tools is VoiceThread!  I have used it in several classrooms to get the students communicating about the things they are learning in class.  The first step is to build avatars for your children so that their actual pictures are not out on the internet.  There are several great sites for creating your avatar, such as buildyourwildself.com, or you can have your students draw themselves in Pixie.  Then you can use these pictures to add identities on your page.  You only have to create the identities once and they will be on your account forever, or until you delete them.

From Build Your Wild Self Avatar

Next, the teacher uploads photos or videos to their VoiceThread project.  Once the images are uploaded, you are able to share the link with your students so that they can hop on the computer and make comments.  Comments can be typed or spoken.  Both commenting options allow you to have a virtual pen, so you can draw on the page while you are talking or typing your comment.  You can set their preferences so that all comments have to be approved by the teacher before they are posted.  This is a really great way to get your students talking with their peers, other schools, other students in Virginia, students in other states, and students in other countries!  The possibilities are endless.