We are lighting up our poems in second grade! During Poetry Month in April the second graders spend time using ReadWriteThinks interactive poetry websites. They wrote Acrostics, Diamantes, and Haikus. After learning about these 3 types of poems and others in their classroom students worked in small groups to brainstorm as many sources of light as […]
STEM Roller Coasters
My favorite part of the school year this year is probably teaching STEM/STEAM. The curriculum concepts, the thinking skills, and the personal skills the students have learned have made STEM days my favorite days of the week. The last few weeks the fourth graders have been learning about basic physics concepts by building roller coasters. […]
Mother’s Day Coding
I’m loving coding this year. I plan to post about using code.org with the younger students soon but today Tynker put out a tutorial to code a Mother’s Day Card. Tynker Mother’s Day Car Tutorial It is super cute and easy to follow. Students have a choice of three backgrounds to choose from. Then they […]
PearDeck
A few weeks before PARCC PBA I introduced the 4th graders and 4th grade teachers to Pear Deck. It was not only a great way to practice our technology skills for the upcoming online assessments but an excellent pre-test math review. Pear Deck is a simple yet engaging presentation tool. Teachers create a presentation to show their […]
NetGeo Young Explorers
Over the last two years, with the implementation of the Common Core Standards, there is a large push to read more informational text at all grade levels. It has been a struggle for students and teachers alike. I am always happy to find fun and educational books that read aloud to the students, especially the younger […]
Wordsmyth Kids Wild Online Dictionary
Interactive, Fun, and Educational. There are so many amazing uses for the Wordsmyth Kids Wild Online Dictionary. Broken down into the 3 parts this website is not just a dictionary but “interactive multimedia environment for learning about words and the world.” World: The world is an interactive picture dictionary split into city and nature. By selecting one or the […]
Newsela
All school year I have been emailing my colleagues about the website Newsela.com. When I was introduced to at the beginning of the school I instantly saw how beneficial this tool could be. Benefits: Students reading for comprehension online Students can annotate Students reading current events A class is able to read the same article on […]
…Testing…
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Actively Learn
Actively Learn, www.activelylearn.com, is an interactive online eReader with bells and whistles. Students can highlight and take notes, and the teacher can assign text, insert questions, and have the students actually interact with the text. This websites helps transform reading and develop students into critical thinkers. With some of the great features, students will think, […]
Coding and STEM in the local paper
While the details are not always right, it is nice to get the recognition for my program. http://newjerseyhills.com/echoes-sentinel/news/kindergarten-students-learn-basics-of-coding-in-watchung/article_eede83cd-37dc-5c80-b160-9fa2d1a497b0.html Hour of Code went great. Classes discussed the meaning of computer science and different jobs of computer scientists. They then moved me through lines of “code” around a grid had I taped out on the floor. We debugged […]