Wow! Over the last month my 4th graders have participated in many exciting technology projects.

 International Dot Day

My 4th grade class and a 1st grade class celebrat- ed “International Dot Day” together on Friday, September 16. This is a global celebration of creativity, courage, and collaboration centered around Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot. Students read the book then created beauti- ful artwork while they listened to The Dot Song. 

Oreo Project

The oreo project is an oreo stacking contest created by Jen Wagner.  My students were challenged by three other classrooms around the world through a Google Hangout to see how many oreos they could stack before the tower fell. I began the project with the anchor chart to the left and had students estimate about how many oreos they thought they could stack.

Then we began the challenge with the other classes via Google Hangout. 

Here's what a few students had to say about the project. 

The Math teacher even took the project a step further by using student's collected data to determine the average number of cookies that were stacked by classes. 

Poetry Project

The poetry Project is another project created by Jen Wagner in which students each month learn about a different form of poetry or poet. We participated in a Google Hangout with two other classrooms and shared poetry. We read a poem about Hurricanes which is the topic of our current unit of study in Reading. Then we played a Kahoot game on poetry with the other two classes.

Techie Club

Today I hosted my first techie club which will last for approximately 8 months. My club's theme is Game Design using the platform Google CS First. Students will learn how to code and create their own game. 

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Mrs. Shepherd

On February 17, my students and I participated in Digital Learning Day.  I first heard about this day which is celebrated around the country through Twitter. During my weekly participation in the Monday night #4thchat on Twitter, teachers were tweeting how they would take part in this day. There were so many awesome ideas shared which empowered me to become involved. About 15 minutes into the chat, I networked with 3 other teachers. We decided to have our students participate in a Kahoot game. @plnaugle hosted the game and set up a google hangout for us to view the game and each other's classes. We played against 3 other classes from Texas, Indiana, and Louisiana. It was exciting!! The first quiz was on identifying different types of Oreo cookies. @plnaugle's class won that game. Then we completed a quiz on logos. It was a win for us! Many of my students had not participated in a Kahoot game against another class let alone a Google hangout, so they were in awe of how cool it was to be live with other classes around the globe. It really was an awesome experience for everyone. Here are a few pics from our day. 

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Mrs. Shepherd

So, I thought for sure I'd be back at work today, but due to the damage brought by Hurricane Isaac my school district has decided to keep school closed till Thursday. That means I have two more days off! We will have been out of school for a total of 8 days by Thursday. That's a lot of days to make up!

I am saving our Unit on Plot for next week, and I am going to spend Thursday and Friday discussing, writing and describing our experiences through Hurricane Isaac. My goal for Thursday and Friday is for students to complete a well-written essay describing what they did to prepare, what they did during the storm, and what they did after the storm. I am also going to build on how the setting impacted our feelings and motivations and also have them choose a few character traits to describe their feelings throughout the last two weeks. These are previous skills we've done during the first two weeks of school.



I plan to begin the lesson Thursday by having students watch a video I created on Animoto and then discuss how the video has a beginning, middle, and an end.

   

 Students will then draw a "Flee Map" listing out what they did to prepare for the storm, what they did during the storm, and how they have recovered from the storm. We will also discuss how this made them feel and how their feelings and their families feelings changed with the setting and add this to our Flee Maps, as well. We will also add a simple question hook such as (Do you want to  know why I've been off of school for 8 days? or Do you want to know what happened in southern Louisiana?), and a conclusion such as (Now you can see why.......). I will show students my essay written out on chart paper first showing them how I took my information from the Flee Map and transferred it into an essay format.Then students will begin writing their rough drafts putting their thoughts together into a two-paragraph essay.

Friday, I plan for students to begin publishing their stories via Kidblog and would also love to share some of our experiences with you and your students through Google Hangout. Please leave me your email address in the comment sections below if you are interested!

On my day off today, I experienced Google Hangout for the first time thanks to my good friend Ms. Naugle. She introduced me to Google Hangout and some really neat effects and tools that can be utilized during a hangout. I really enjoyed the hangout today and the opportunity to meet some other educators in the states.

Here's a pic from the hangout this morning. That's me and my oldest son. You can see he is wearing a Dr. Seuss hat, one of the effects you can utilize with Google Hangout. You can also see Ms. Naugle below with the dog mask.

Don't forget to comment below if you are interested in learning a little about Hurricanes and hearing a couple of our personal experiences through Hurricane Isaac.

Hope you're having a wonderful Tuesday!

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Mrs. Shepherd