Showing posts with label Kindergarten. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kindergarten. Show all posts
Monday, September 11, 2023
Monday, January 20, 2020
Seesaw Superpowers: Able to Read and Reflect with a Single Bound!
In Northwest ISD, our youngest learners develop life longs skills of selecting, reflecting, and sharing their work in a digital format called ePortfolios. The standard program our district uses for primary ePortfolios is Seesaw. In partnership with district ELAR Coaches and Instructional Technologists they were able to offer kindergarten readers the opportunity to utilize Seesaw to reflect and set goals for their reading superpowers.
Casey Dibenedetto, Kindergarten teacher at Roanoke Elementary, is definitely a Super Teacher who is out of this world! Casey looked over the activities provided by the coaches and added audio instructions so her kids could listen to them independently. Before students began the activity she reviewed the Super Reader Powers and gave students time to think about a power they used frequently with ease and a power they often forgot to use - basically a celebration and a goal.
Students leveraged the creative tools in Seesaw to reflect on their learning and set goals. Specifically, they were thinking about the “Reading Super Powers” they had learned in their most recent reading unit. As a Kindergarten Super Teacher she knows students can talk about their learning much easier than they can write about it. By using this Seesaw activity her students were able to easily share their strength and their goal with their teacher and their families.
Casey believes “Seesaw is absolutely amazing! I love that there are so many tools available for students to utilize as they communicate about their learning. They can draw pictures and add text and drawings to annotate work or a provided image. It is also easy for students to collaborate and complete work together. The aspect of Seesaw that most helps to augment my students’ classroom experience is that they can record their voice and I can listen to their responses. The multi-page activities have also been a game changer in the way I am able to use Seesaw with my students. Communication with families is another key feature of Seesaw. Parents love seeing what their kids are doing at school. I also use it to share newsletters, links, announcements, and other information with families.”
In Mrs. Di’s classroom, her students use the NISD Portal to access Seesaw and Google Classroom often. She provides visual instructions to help her students remember the steps and follow them independently. Students in Mrs. Di’s classroom use Seesaw almost every week to share their learning. Sometimes this is an open ended Journal prompt where students share a piece of work and talk about it and sometimes it is a preloaded Activity that they access and complete. Students also use Seesaw to practice reading aloud and sharing their writing. Her students really enjoyed this opportunity to reflect as Super Readers in Seesaw. They loved getting to color themselves as a Super Reader, and they loved sharing their strength and their goal.
Please check out Casey’s adapted version of the activity - verbal instructions, wording changed slightly to sound like her.
Below are student samples of the completed activity as well as Seesaw activities for future units of study.
Monday, October 22, 2018
"Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" Chromebooks in Kindergarten Classrooms
When first implementing Chromebooks with Kindergarten students last year, Library Media Specialist, Kelley Valdez, was focused on two main goals. Her first goal was to show that Kindergarten students truly were able to handle utilizing the Chromebooks and the Google Suite apps as long as the task were developmentally appropriate. Her second goal was to model for teachers how to use Google Classroom and a variety of other tools by integrating them with the curriculum. Kindergarten teachers worked closely with Mrs. Valdez and continued to implement Chromebooks to amplify the learning experiences currently happening in Kindergarten classrooms.
The Kindergarten teachers at Roanoke Elementary were amazed at the progress their students made in such a short amount of time during the spring. Not only were their students engaging in innovative learning experiences they were also developing foundational keyboarding and mouse skills as they gained exposure to the device they will be using in the upper grades. By the end of the school year Kindergarten learners were able to:
- Login to the Chromebook using the Rapid Identity QR code.
- Join a Google Classroom and learn to locate activities and turn them in.
- Click on the Google Chrome icon, "rainbow eyeball", and then tap on the red flag icon for the NISD portal.
- Practice keyboarding and mouse skills - through games and Google Slides activities that supported learning goals.
- Log out of the Chromebook using a simple 6 step process: Touch your icon, touch Sign Out, Touch your name, Touch the arrow pointing down, Touch the Blue words, Touch the Red Words.
Mrs. DiBenedetto says one of her favorite things about the Chromebook is the QR code option for signing in efficiently. She believes this is a big help for her students to meet their learning goals. Mrs. Valdez said Google Classroom was one of her favorite tools she used because she could easily assign activities and monitor work in progress and completed work. She also created Master Slide templates in Google Slides to build exactly what she needed to support learning goals. The Chromebooks were labeled with colored stickers on the left side to help with locating keys (red, yellow, green, blue). Round stickers in the top left and right corners with L and R These are just a few helpful tips adapted from Christine Pinto to help students navigate the Chromebook with success. Mrs. DiBenedetto helps her students stay organized by keeping their login QR code in a baggie in their book box. This makes it very easy for them to get their login cards quickly and get started using the Chromebook independently. As the 2017-2018 school year came to an end Mrs. Valdez created a Google Apps for Littles book study course for the summer. This book is an excellent resource for any PK-2 educators looking for ways to ease their way into the Chromebook and Google World. Skip scat scoodle doot. Flip flop flee. Everybody is saying a Chromebook might be the key.
Monday, May 14, 2018
Readers turned Vloggers
The practice of having students recommend books to their classmates is no new idea, however Kindergarten teacher, Jenny Stokes, recently decided to take this tried and true method and make it more engaging through the use of technology.
On any typical day, visitors can stop by Mrs. Stokes’ class during literacy block and find students actively engaged in a variety of tasks designed to increase fluency and ignite an excitement for reading. One of the most popular activities has quickly become the class book recommendations vlog. During this activity, students are either making book recommendations or browsing through their classmate’s videos in search of a recommendation matching their interests.
Students acting as consumers of the vlog, have been trained to independently login to a Chromebook using a QR code. Once active on their profile, students are able to access the class vlog easily through a link in Google Classroom. Students spend a few minutes watching their classmate’s videos before settling on a book. The latest featured books are displayed in a center so students can quickly locate them and begin reading. Their sweet grins and excited nature is evidence this practice is working wonders to build a love of literacy. Yahel shared, “I like it because you can see the other people’s books.”
Mrs. Stokes believes the activity provides students the “opportunity to use something other than tablets and an app.” She feels the process of working with the vlog “ is making them more independent and teaching them to solve problems.”
While the plan was for students to develop and grow, Mrs. Stokes found that she did too. In the original planning session with her Instructional Technologist, Jenny first hoped to develop and maintain a class blog. Once she saw how easy the platform was, she took it a step further and invited students to be not only consumers of the vlog, but also producers. It wasn’t long before students were taking videos on iPads and using QR codes to login to the Chromebooks independently. In the future, Mrs. Stokes envisions turning the vlog over to her students and allowing them to manage and organize their own videos.
This lesson is a perfect example of the learning that can unfold when a teacher is willing to take risks and learn alongside their students. The motto at Prairie View Elementary this year is “Move Mountains” and boy are these tiny tots learning what it means to put caution to the wind and tackle even daunting tasks!
On any typical day, visitors can stop by Mrs. Stokes’ class during literacy block and find students actively engaged in a variety of tasks designed to increase fluency and ignite an excitement for reading. One of the most popular activities has quickly become the class book recommendations vlog. During this activity, students are either making book recommendations or browsing through their classmate’s videos in search of a recommendation matching their interests.
When a student is ready to make a recommendation, they use the iPad to record a video explaining why they would recommend the book. With support from their teacher, the video is uploaded to Google Drive and added to the class vlog created in Google Sites. Videos are organized by genre and kept up to date by Mrs. Stokes. Students are anxious to share about books they love! Zanelly said, “I like recommending books so my friends can read them and I like seeing what books my friends like to read so I can read them again.”
Students acting as consumers of the vlog, have been trained to independently login to a Chromebook using a QR code. Once active on their profile, students are able to access the class vlog easily through a link in Google Classroom. Students spend a few minutes watching their classmate’s videos before settling on a book. The latest featured books are displayed in a center so students can quickly locate them and begin reading. Their sweet grins and excited nature is evidence this practice is working wonders to build a love of literacy. Yahel shared, “I like it because you can see the other people’s books.”
Mrs. Stokes believes the activity provides students the “opportunity to use something other than tablets and an app.” She feels the process of working with the vlog “ is making them more independent and teaching them to solve problems.”
This lesson is a perfect example of the learning that can unfold when a teacher is willing to take risks and learn alongside their students. The motto at Prairie View Elementary this year is “Move Mountains” and boy are these tiny tots learning what it means to put caution to the wind and tackle even daunting tasks!
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Kinder CAN Code: Exploring Computer Science Week With Our Youngest Learners
Library Media Specialist, Kelley Valdez, at Roanoke Elementary recently led her campus through a month-long exploration of Computer Science. When planning for kindergarten Hour of Code, Mrs. Valdez said she wanted to make sure that the exploration not only hit on aspects of computer science education but also incorporated kindergarten specific TEKS. The lesson had a hands-on Robotics component where students had to collaborate, problem-solve, and communicate with a team to move their robot mouse through an alphabet "maze" and then she provided an opportunity for "solo" time to put their hands-on learning to practice via the app Beebot and for some classes, the app The Foos.
Mrs. Valdez approached her library lesson with a few goals in mind for her youngest learners. She explained that she wanted students to understand that computers and robots do not work on their own. During the lesson, she shared with her learners that robots and computers need human interaction (programming) to give them the needed steps to perform the task. She also wanted students to have the opportunity to work with a team as well as working on their own.
Katelyn Cole is a Kindergarten teacher whose students experienced the coding lesson taught by Mrs. Valdez. Mrs. Cole explained that during the library lesson Mrs. Valdez talked about how computers don't speak English like us, they speak in a different way called code. Mrs. Cole explained that the kids were taught to program what they wanted the mouse to do with arrows and entry buttons. Mrs. Cole also shared that Mrs. Valdez taught her students that computers will remember all steps you tell it until you "clear their minds". The Foos and BeeBot were apps that carried over into the classroom and both incorporate programming and coding in order to make a character move to reach their destination.
Mrs. Cole continued what her students had learned in the library into her own classroom Her Students were challenged to think more critically and collaborate with each other in order to reach a goal. Mrs. Cole believes that “not only is this a growing job for our future kids, but it is also an opportunity to use our Ranger Learner Actions- Listen, Think, Wonder, Connect, Persevere, Collaborate, and Reflect. These are skills that are crucial to the development of young learners! At Roanoke Elementary we believe in instilling all of these learner actions early, to help develop well-rounded and problem- solving students.”
While working with the hands-on robot, Mrs. Valdez set her kids up for success by skillfully designing her lesson with great management and instructional strategies One key point that made the experience powerful was her use of color-coded jobs to allow everyone to participate in the activity. One student (color) might be the programmer, while others are in charge of positioning objects in the maze and providing feedback to the programmer as they work to figure out the program to get their robot to complete the assigned task. When Mrs. Valdez reflected on her coding lessons she shared, “It is always heart-warming to see how students really pull together during the Hour of Code to help each other out of the "pit" or a struggle."
For the learners at Roanoke Elementary their experiences with coding do not stop in Kindergarten Mrs. Valdez explains that she makes plans to build upon each grade level experiences during the Hour of Code to increases the rigor from year to year. All grade levels have a hands-on robotics component and a solo app/program based component. Each year students graduate to a more complex robot or a more rigorous task that increases the level of coding required to complete the task.
Mrs. Cole’s class practices coding during small group days in math and in the mornings before school starts. Mrs. Cole’s students look forward to their time working on The Foos and BeeBot. This has been a positive reinforcement tool she has used to help students stay focused on other jobs and complete work. It's also been a great tool to practice teamwork and collaboration. Mrs. Cole believes coding has been wonderful for emphasizing that talking about ideas solves the problem faster than arguing or trying to solve the problem alone. Mrs. Cole will be submitting this experience to Expo 2018, she said: “she hopes that she can share with a larger audience what our experiences have been as young programmers.”
According to Mrs. Valdez, the Kindergarten students at Roanoke Elementary were actively engaged in problem-solving throughout the hour and put their Ranger Learner Actions into practice. They were able to make the connection between their thinking and action to the way that their robot or app bot moved. Mrs. Valdez did a phenomenal job in December designing her lessons to use technology as a tool to enhance the learning experience for her students while building a bridge to what can happen in kindergarten classroom when we believe in the power of coding.
Monday, June 2, 2014
A Shape Is Not A Shape Unless You Add An iPad….
During Kindergarten Math workshop students listened to the story The Shape of Things, by Dayle Ann Dodds and Julie Lacome (Illustrator).
The class created a shape poster by looking around the room and finding objects that look like their shapes they chose. Students then incorporated the iPads by taking pictures of their shape and thought about what they could add to it to make it into a digital design. After they completed their designs, students wrote a sentence describing their picture. Adding the finishing touches students recorded themselves talking about their shape picture using the sentence:
“A ____ is just a ____ until you add _____, then it is a ____. “
Creating the project, sharing with others, and the conversations about the learning helped to solidify student learning and build a strong conceptual base for their understanding of two dimensional shapes. Additionally, because students saved their video in Educreations to be shared online, student projects could be re-visited time and time again to help refresh and review their knowledge of shapes.
When Mrs. Laura Janese and Mrs. Julie Peters set out to transform student learning through technology even they were amazed by the end result of 2 students in particular: Ally Peng and Kasey Dwyer. This product not only was a classroom experience that changed student learning it became an exemplar that became a showcase product at and at TechnoExpo 2014
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