Category Archives: Springfield Park

Collecting & Graphing Data

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The 5th Grade students in Mrs. Stoner’s math class were beginning a unit on graphing.  Springfield Park is a pilot school for ActivEngage, so we were able to utilize this program.  ActivEngage will be available at all elementary schools soon!  In order to collect data, we asked the students when their birthday is and had them answer using the text response in Engage.  After all students responded through Engage, we were able to show the entire classes responses on the screen.  The students transferred this information to a graph using Keynote.  We discussed how to use enter the data in the cells, and then use the inspector to create and label our graph.  We focused on how all graphs need a title & x-axis and y-axis values and labels.  What a quick and easy way to collect data!

From Graphing Data

Discussing Plants Using VoiceThread

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The students in Mrs. Lang’s Kindergarten class really impressed their teacher on this project. They were each given a sentence about plants. They read their sentence and then used Pixie to illustrate their sentence. When all of the pictures were complete, we uploaded them to VoiceThread. The following week we made Avatars using myavatareditor.com. Finally, the students recorded themselves reading their sentence on their own picture with their avatar in VoiceThread. This was their first time using VoiceThread and the biggest thing we learned is that we really need to speak up in the microphone so that our classmates can hear us when we play it back. Overall, I think they did a fabulous job creating their pictures and avatars and learning how to record voice and draw on VoiceThread. Way to go boys and girls!!

2nd Grade Famous Americans Keynote

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The 2nd Grade students at Springfield Park did a great job creating a Keynote from scratch to demonstrate their understanding of various famous Americans.  The students chose their theme, typed their facts, and then added a picture of the famous American.  As students finish their Keynote presentations, they will be able add voice overs to each slides and transitions between slides.  Take a look at an almost finished product:

Famous Americans – 2nd Grade from Karen Hues on Vimeo.

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.

Identifying & Counting Money

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The Kindergarten students in Ms. Buff’s class at Springfield Park Elementary really enjoyed counting change on Pixie.  We started by reviewing the coins by matching the coin with it’s value.

Next, the students went to the “virtual store” and had to stamp out the correct amount of change to purchase each of the 6 items that I dropped into their folders.  It was very neat to see the different coin combinations that the students would come up with the solve the same problem.  There was a lot of great discussion!

Review Using ActiVotes & QUIA

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As the benchmark testing is quickly approaching, many teachers are asking for fun activities they can do with their kids to review.  I really like the idea of using the ActiVotes because the students tend to be more engaged and excited about review whenever the ActiVotes are in the room.  My students always loved using my Quia website too, so why not put the two together? In this review lesson, I projected the teachers Quia site with a rags to riches activity on 2nd Grade map skills.  Rags to Riches is similar to “Who wants to be a millionaire” so they kids get excited that they are earning pretend money as they answer the questions correctly.  You can also change the currency.  In this activity, they were trying to win a million Skittles rather than dollars.

From QUIA Review Game

All teachers in Henrico have access to a Quia site.   Quia is a nice  option for review because you can create your own activities with the specific questions that you want your students to know the answers to.  You can also borrow activities from others if you find a great Quia activity that you like on other persons page.   If you love their activity, but there is a question or two that you dislike, you can always edit the other persons work and make it fit your needs.  If you would like help setting one up for your classroom, please sign up for a consultation.

American Indian Sorts

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The 2nd Grade students have been studying the First Americans.  They have to know the characteristics of three tribes, the Lakota, the Powhatan, and the Pueblo Indians.  In the first Pixie activity, students had to sort the characteristics of each tribe into the proper category.

In the next sort, students were asked to place the pictures with the correct tribe.  Some pictures applied to more than one tribe, so we practiced how to copy (apple + C) and paste (apple + V).

The 2nd grade teachers said that this was a fantastic review as they prepared for their Unit Test.  Thanks for the templates Suzanne Whitlow!  If you would like a copy, I’d be happy to e-mail it to you.

Thanksgiving Pixie Activities

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In preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday, some of my Kindergarten and first grade classes have been completing these Pixie activities.  In the first activity, the students delete one of the pilgrims, so that only a boy OR a girl pilgrim are left.  Next, they take an oval shaped picture of their face and put it on the pilgrims face.  Then I had the students complete the speech bubble “I am thankful for…”  Finally, the students used the paint can and spray paint to add a fall scene in the background.

On the second activity, we discussed how the First Thanksgiving was a celebration of the harvest among the Pilgrims and Indians.  Students searched through the clip art folders under the stickers tab to add foods to the table that would have been served at the Thanksgiving celebration of 1621.  We discussed how some of the foods we eat today at Thanksgiving are much different than the foods that were available to people at the First Thanksgiving.

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.

5th Grade Debate Blog

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The 5th Grade students in Mrs. Nowicki’s class at Springfield Park wanted to talk with other students within the county to get their opinions on cell phone usage by kids and school uniform policies.  In their research, the students discovered that Laburnum Elementary has a school uniform policy in place, so we asked the 5th grade teachers at Laburnum if they would be interested in blogging with us.  They agreed, so the Springfield Park students came up with the questions they wanted to ask on each topic.  Then Mrs. Grubbs, the school librarian, created a blog through blogs.henrico.k12.va.us so that the students at Springfield Park could communicate with students at Laburnum.  The Springfield Park students really enjoyed seeing and responding to the comments made by their peers at another Henrico County school.

Blogs are a great way to take your students ideas outside of the walls of the classroom and even the school.  Some teachers even have their students blogging with kids at schools in different states…and countries!  Sign up for a consultation if you would like to learn how to create a blog for your students through blogs.henrico.