Mr. Cochran’s 4th graders used Scratch to demonstrate their understanding of the planets in order based on their distance from the sun. First students went to Britannica Image Quest and selected an image of the planets. They saved the image to their desktop and then imported the image as a background in Scratch. Next they selected the rocket ship sprite from the library. Then it was time to code! The students started by using a pattern of motion blocks (glide to x:#, y:#) and the Looks blocks (say “hello” for “2” seconds). Students programmed their sprite to move to each planet and then say the name of the planet. After all of the planets were identified, students went back and inserted additional say blocks to give some details about each planet. The completed tours were shared with a Scratch studio so that their teacher could easily see all of the students work in one location. Take a look at one of the finished tours!
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The students in Ms. Stacia’s class used Seesaw to draw an animal in their habitat. Then they used the voice recording feature within Seesaw to explain more about the habitat, their animal, and any adaptations their animal has that helps them to survive in their habitat. By using Seesaw, students could easily share their work with their teacher by sending their work to their portfolio in Seesaw. Check out some great examples from the Arctic and the ocean habitats!
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The 4th grade students at Greenwood Elementary worked with their art teacher, Ms. Barlett, to learn more about dogs in need of adoption at the Henrico Humane Society. Students selected a photo and story of a dog and created an original pet portrait clay ornament. The students painted their ornaments and they were fired in the kiln. Students also wrote several paragraphs in first person to describe the dog that is up for adoption. They used the ChatterPix app on the iPads to record their dog talking about himself/herself and how they can be adopted. The finished videos were uploaded to Seesaw. From Seesaw, Mrs. Barlett was able to print out a QR code to include with the ornament.
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The ornaments and QR codes are displayed on a holiday tree at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens and will be there through January 8th. If you are heading to Lewis Ginter to see the GardenFest of Lights, make sure to stop by and learn about these sweet dogs that are looking for a forever home. Check out Ms. Barlett’s Art Blog for more information about this awesome project!
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The students in Mrs. Bowles’s 4th grade class at Longan have been learning long division. For this activity, students created and solved a division problem of their choice. I challenged the students to use a variety of backdrops in Scratch to show step by step how to solve their problem. Then they programmed a sprite to walk through the steps of solving a division problem. Students worked with a partner to create these tutorials and did an awesome job drawing the backdrops and coding. Their finished projects were shared in this Scratch studio. Take a look at some of the finished products!
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Computer Science week was December 4th-8th this year. In celebration, the librarian at Montrose offered a day of code in the library. We taught lessons to 7 classes ranging from Kindergarten to 5th Grade. With the younger coders, we used Scratch Jr. on the iPads. The older students created accounts in Scratch and built a project based on what they study in their curriculum.
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Take a look at some of their finished projects:
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The 4th grade students in Mrs. Bennett’s class at Jackson Davis have been studying the relationship among the Earth, moon, and sun. Today we focused on seasons and created a quick presentation in Scratch to explain the reasons why we experience winter and summer. The students remixed this Scratch template and coded the images of the winter earth and summer earth to explain how the Earth’s tilt on it’s axis and revolution around the sun creates seasons.
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Ms. White’s 4th grade students at Jackson Davis have been practicing with collecting and graphing data. The students were given a few minutes to think of a scenario where they would need to make a decision. For example, when I go to Gelati Celesti, I have to choose what type of ice cream to get: Just Ask, Chocolate Peanut Butter, or Strawberry. After they had an idea, they went to wheeldecide.com and modified the wheel to reflect their own title/question and possible choices. Next they were asked to spin the wheel 25 times to collect data. After each spin, they recorded the results.
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Then we went to Google where they opened a new Google Sheet and entered their data and inserted a graph. They used the chart editor within Google Sheets to modify their graphs. Here are a couple of the finished graphs:
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Mrs. Beam’s 5th grade students have been studying oceans in science. They conducted research in the library to learn more about ocean food chains. Based on what they learned, they worked with a partner to create their own ocean food chain by choosing their producer and consumers. Next they used a variety of craft supplies to create the animals and the ocean scene that would be featured in their food chain animations. Students also wrote a script to accompany their artwork. We used the Stop Motion app on the iPads to animate the ocean food chain and record their script.
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The finished movies were saved to the camera roll and uploaded to the student folder in Seesaw. Here are a few of the finished food chains!
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The students in Mrs. Green’s 3rd grade class have been reading the series “Who Would Win?” in their science unit on animal characteristics, habitats, adaptations, etc. For this project, they selected 2 animals to compare and conducted research in the library. Using a chart for comparison, the students determined which animal would win based on size, speed, diet, etc. For their final project, they decided to use Scratch to code the animals to talk and explain who would win. Students used the speak and wait blocks to create dialogue between the two animals. The finished products were uploaded to this studio in Scratch. Take a look at a couple of the finished products!
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The students in Ms. Kouri’s 3rd grade class used Seesaw on the iPads to demonstrate their understanding of homophones. They worked with a partner and used the draw feature within Seesaw to type and illustrate a word that is pronounced the same, but is spelled differently and has a different meaning. Then they used the voice record feature within the program to use each word in a sentence to demonstrate the meaning of each word. After each drawing and recording was complete, students sent their work to their folder within Seesaw so their teacher and classmates could see.
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