Leveraging Seesaw for Problem Solving

“Problem solving is for students to dig deeper into their thinking about math. They take the problem and break it down. The most important piece of problem solving is getting the students to talk about it using mathematical vocabulary and getting them to explain and justify how they worked the problem and how they arrived at the answer. Sometimes there is no defined right or wrong answer. It is more for them to explain to me how they got their answer.” -Mrs. Mancino.

At Haslet Elementary, Mrs. Mancino’s 2nd grade classroom uses Seesaw to leverage their problem solving in Math. It is truly unbelievable how quickly her students have picked up use of the Chromebook in the classroom. She did not return to the classroom from maternity leave until the second week of October. Before her return, the students did not do many activities on the Chromebook and did not use Seesaw at all. They started problem solving on Seesaw the last week of October. They now use Seesaw daily and have started learning to use Google Classroom, Google Sites, Google Slides, and Adobe Spark.

In their math journal, students explain step by step what they did to solve the problem. They write out the equation and the solution, take a picture of their work on Seesaw,  then use the record button to explain their thinking.

An example of a multi-step addition and subtraction problem. The students have to start by breaking the problem down into 4 squares (I know, I need to know, equation, and solution). They know Ava and Shelby say 42 geese. They also know when they got to the top of the hill they saw 25 more geese. Lastly, they know 15 flew away. The students then have to figure out what question they are trying to answer. They need to know how many geese were left after 15 flew away. 

Seesaw activities are another way they problem solve. The question is asking the students to find the quadrilateral with all sides a different length. Mrs. Mancino teaches her  students to connect the dots using different colors so they are better able to see how many sides each shape has well as how long each side is. By using different colors for each answer, it helps them learn to do this for similar questions later on. They used different colored pens to draw the shapes, then they had to record their justification of why they chose the answer they did.

The power of problem solving and having an authentic audience can change the way your kids look at their work! Seesaw has allowed these students to work hard, share their accomplishments with their peers and family members. Talk about motivation!

Book Snaps: Snapping for Reading

Walking into Mrs. Guy’s classroom is such a delight. She has set a goal to take risks this year and try new things that enhance student learning outcomes. With that goal, she is committed to incorporating relevant technology into her lessons to help students reach her yearly student learning objective, or SLO.

Mrs. Guy wrote, “When developing my SLO I noticed that students demonstrated weakness in the area of critically thinking about reading and that students had difficulty drawing conclusions with logical text evidence. This lead me to create my SLO as follows: When reading, students will draw conclusions, evaluate relationships within texts and provide text evidence to support their conclusions. Shelly brought the idea of book snaps as a way to have students showcase their evidence, so I introduced book snaps in one of my reading skills groups.”

#BookSnaps are a digital representation of the text with annotation. Mrs. Guy’s 3rd graders were given the task of choosing one difference from schools in the past and schools now in their reading skills group. They also used book snaps to showcase their favorite book with evidence on why they choose that book. Mrs. Guy said, “In my opinion, it is more than just a reading response. It is hits our SLO by having the student frame exact book evidence to support their answer in a way that interests them.”

Tyler said, "Books Snaps are fun, you can use them to tell about your favorite book.

Book Snaps is a great a way for students to find text evidence and make connections with their reading. Taking risks and finding relevant ways to get your kids learning and reaching goals is invaluable. By using Book Snaps and other useful technology integration tools, they can reach their learning goals easily and more often!

Surfing The Great Wave

Fourth grade students in Mrs. Rhoads Art classroom, at Haslet Elementary, have added a digital component to their most recent artwork. As an introduction to this project, discussions were had about various career opportunities in the “tech art” field. Students were familiar with the process of combining art with the digital world. They were able to make connections to this type of art by referencing popular movies, like Harry Potter, as examples.

Their project began with a study on the Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai. He is most famous for his print “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa”, part of the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Students were inspired to create their own version of the print using watercolors. Students worked on drawing and painting skills as they layered colors to create depth in their piece. Students discussed the way movement is suggested by the repetition of curved lines.

Then it was time to turn their artwork digital by adding not just the suggestion of movement but actual movement as they surfed their wave. Using the Green Screen app by DoInk, students worked in groups to insert themselves into their own “great wave”. This process involved taking a still shot of the painting and importing it into the Green Screen app. With their background set, the artists brushed up on their surfing skills and pretended they were surfing on the wave they painted.

Emily said, “It was fun to draw my own waves and it took a lot of time. When Mrs. Rhoads told us we were going to use the green screen I couldn't wait”. Riley added, “Adding the technology made me like art more and made it more interesting. I liked seeing myself in the picture I drew”. Emily and Riley, two of the fourth graders who will be presenting this project at Techno Expo 2016, were excited to talk about this project and are looking forward to showcasing their talents.