Category Archives: Glen Lea

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.

1st Grade Skip Counting/Graphing Lesson

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Mrs. Lundy, a 1st grade teacher at Glen Lea, wanted to work on graphing with her students, but also wanted to incorporate the idea of skip counting by 2’s, 5’s, & 10’s.  Pixie is a fantastic program for introducing the idea of graphing to the primary grades.  By using the paint can, they can fill up the bar graph box by box until they have the correct number represented. As we dumped paint, we skip counted together.  The students did a great job, and they learned that bar graphs don’t always count by 1’s.  Sometimes the scale counts by 2’s, or 5’s, or even 10’s. Here are the graphs they completed:

After the students created each graph, we analyzed the graph for the favorite, least favorite, most, least, etc.  There are so many uses for these graphs and they are so simple to create on Pixie.  Sign up for a consult and I can show you how to make your own!

Kindergarten 5 Senses

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The kindergarten students have been learning about the 5 senses, so I had a them create a Pixie and label the 5 senses.  They took a picture of themselves on Pixie, glued the picture to the background, and then labeled their eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and hand with the 5 senses.  We practiced resizing and changing the color of the font.  After the students saved their work to their folders, I was able to go back, open all of them up, and then share it as a movie with this cute 5 senses song.  The students loved seeing their work put altogether on the big screen.  If you want to learn how to turn your students Pixie slides into a presentation, please sign up for a consultation.

5 Senses from Karen Hues on Vimeo.

2nd Grade Comparing & Rounding Numbers

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The 2nd Grade students in Mrs. Woolheater’s class at Glen Lea used Pixie to practice comparing numbers and rounding to the nearest ten.

To compare numbers, I created a template in which the students were considering two numbers and trying to determine which number was larger.  They used the alligator to help them determine which sign to choose.  By flipping the alligator sticker, you can turn it so that the alligator is “eating” the larger number.  The greater than, less than, and equal to signs can be drawn using the paint tool, or they can be selected from the Math clip art folder under stickers.

Next, we rounded numbers to the nearest ten.  Using the paint tool, students underlined the number in the ones place.  If that number was 5 or above, we’d give the number in the tens place a bump up to the next ten.  If the number in the ones place was 4 or below, we’d let it go and leave the number in the tens place the same.  The students then typed the rounded number into the text box.

Promethean users can use the pen to have students use the features on the board.  Non-Promethean users can project on the white board and use the Expo markers to draw, or you could have the students come up to your computer and draw on Pixie.  The possibilities are endless with Pixie!

3rd Grade Adaptations & Habitats

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The third grade students in Mrs. Hatfield’s class at Glen Lea have been studying animal adaptations and habitats.  As a fun culminating activity, her students went to the Build Your Wild Self site to create their wild self.  First, the students tried to create a character that looked almost identical to themselves.  Next, they could select the different animal parts to turn themselves wild.  Finally, the students had to select a habitat that they thought would be appropriate for their wild self based on its characteristics.  When they completed their wild self, the website did a fantastic job of explaining the benefits/purpose of each of the animal parts that they selected.

The students then took a screen shot of their wild self and pasted it into a Pages document.  From here the students will be able to type a paragraph explaining what kind of animal they are, what habitat they live in, and what body parts allow them to adapt to this habitat.

From Wild Self

Kindergarten Past & Present Pixie

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The Kindergarten students have been studying the difference between past & present, so I created this activity in Pixie where students can sort the objects into either the Past or the Present.

I would call out a topic such as Presidents, transportation, communication, cooking, etc. and they would have to find the pictures and sort them as either past or present. By going through the pictures one category at a time, we were able to discuss the difference between the past and the present for each topic. In our discussion we talked about how some items, for example the newspaper, is still available today, but that in the past they only had the newspaper, letters, word of mouth to inform them what was going on in the world. In contrast, today we have the television and internet where we can find the news very quickly. This activity was not only a great way to practice sorting, but also led to meaningful discussions on how life was in the past.

1st Grade Fall Pixie Lesson

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The 1st Grade students have been practicing with all of the cool features in Pixie. We began with a template. The students then took their picture and put a hat on their head. Next they typed a sentence about fall and put it in a speech bubble. Last they spray painted leaves and pumpkins on their page. Some students even had time to add clip art. Great work 1st Graders!

Kindergarten Track Pad Lessons

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Over the last few weeks I have been using this great site to introduce Kindergarten students to the laptop:
http://www.poissonrouge.com/bugs/index
Here students can practice using the track pad to move the arrow and click & drag. I’ve been very impressed by the number of Kindergarten students I have seen practicing using only one hand! Way to go!!

Remember to allow your students time to continue practicing on the computers. Keep up the great work!

2nd Grade Pixie Lesson @ Glen Lea

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The 2nd Grade students in Mrs. Whitlow’s class at Glen Lea did a fabulous job creating a Pixie to practice solving word problems using subtraction. They practiced clicking and dragging to pull animals into their farm. The were asked to choose the same type of animal, but they could drag up to 10 of the same animal. Then they divided their animals so that some were in the field and some were in the barn. The students pulled in a barn sticker to cover hide some of the animals. Finally, they filled in their word problems with the correct information. We ended our lesson by practicing saving the work to their student folder. Now Mrs. Whitlow has a whole folder of practice word problems that she can project on the board and have her students solve. After they work out the answer, they can drag the barn to the side to reveal how many animals are in the barn.

Thanks for the great idea and template Jessica!