Mrs. Bier’s Class Writes Science iBooks

Students in Mrs. Bier’s writing class researched and wrote interactive Science books on various topics like electricity, rocks and minerals, and magnets! Along the way, the took videos and pictures and even completed science experiments.

There are two versions of each book: epub and pdf. The epub contains videos and audio and can be downloaded in iBooks (on an iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch) or any other ebook reader. The pdf can be downloaded on a computer and printed but does not have interactive features. Check them out by clicking on the links below!

View all the Science eBooks here

 

High Tech Snowmen at night

Students in Mrs. Osburn’s writing classes introduced their new class blogs with high tech snowmen! They created snowmen based on the book, Snowmen At Night, and wrote short blog posts about them. Then, they created QR Codes to attach to their snowmen. When parents came for the 5th Grade Music program, they were able to scan the QR codes, read the corresponding blog posts, and leave comments for the students.

 

Check out their blogs here:

Rotation 1

Rotation 2

Rotation 3

Would you please leave a few comments for these new bloggers?

 

Diversity Pic Collages

Mrs. Chamberland’s Social Studies class is studying Diversity.  This past week, they used the iPad app, Pic Collage, to create digital posters showing what diversity in the United States look like.  Here was their challenge:

Create a Pic Collage that helps show what diversity in Virginia looks like.  Include pictures and words.  You must have 3 examples of ways you see diversity in your life. You must use pictures and words in your collage.

Their projects are below!

STEM in 4th Grade Virginia Studies at Clearbrook

Students at Clearbrook in Mrs. Schlosser’s class participated in a STEM project to learn more about the Regions of Virginia.  Students were divided into groups and given boxes and various art supplies (paper, Q-tips, playdough, puff balls, yard, beads, and a few other supplies).  Using the materials they had and research materials (textbooks and various websites), their task was to create a Mystery box full of clues about the region of Virginia their group was assigned.

They needed to have at least 14 clues, including clues about products, industries, land forms, water features, animals, renewable and non-renewable resources. At least four of the items had to be 3-dimensional, and one clue could be a written word.

At the very end, students created a QR code to place on their box with the answer to the “Mystery Region.”  Other students can now use the clues in the box to guess what region the box represents, and then check their answer by scanning the QR code.  They also wrote each day in their journals to describe what they had learned during their work that day.

Not only did students learn about the Regions of Virginia with this project, they used the 21st Century Skills of Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, and Problem Solving.

I can’t take credit for writing this activity.  It was written by a group of us during a STEM committee meeting.  Here are the handouts if you want a look!

It’s a Mystery Design Brief

It’s a Mystery Student Checklist

It’s a Mystery Journal Prompt

First Grade Needs and Wants

Students in Mrs. Atkin’s and Mrs. Glowenski’s classes created Needs and Wants Posters using Pic Collage on the iPads.  They used the camera feature to take pictures of items around their classroom.  Many students found creative ways to represent concepts, especially wants.  I love that most any age can use Pic Collage.  It is definitely one of my favorite apps. Check out a few examples of the First Graders’ work below:

Pic Collage in Fourth Grade

Students in Mrs. Mulvaney’s and Mrs. Downey’s class have been reading a book about the San Francisco Earthquake.  Mrs. Downey created an activity where students used iPads to demonstrate their understanding of the parts of a non-fiction book, as well as a few concepts from the book itself.  These students had worked with Pic Collage before when creating bat posters, but this is the first time they worked on a project without any technology support from me.  They did a wonderful job and even posted their creations on their blogs!  Check out a few examples below! If you would, while you are checking them out, leave a comment!  The student’s love to get comments on their work!

Kesha M

Merlin-S

Polar Bear

Tstey-Pooch

 

 

 

 

 

More Popplets!

Students in Mrs. Mulvaney and Mrs. Downey’s Language Arts Class are at it again!  This time they created Cause and Effect Popplets about the book Rosa Parks: Freedom Rider.   Many of them blog with different teachers, but you can see their work by clicking on the links below.

They were excited to learn how to post their work to their own blog too.  Keep an eye out for more projects by this class!

Learning about Rosa Parks with iPads

This past week, fourth graders at in Mrs. Mulvaney’s, Mrs. Downey’s, and Mrs. Wallace’s reading class have  been learning about Rosa Parks while reading the book, Rosa Parks Freedom Rider by Keith Brandt and Joanne Mattern.

To augment what they were learning in the book, they also practiced research skills to learn more about her. They used Mobicip, Popplet, and Videolicious to create videos about the facts they learned.

The project started with Mobicip. Because Safari is not filtered very much in our school system, we have opted to use Mobicip instead. Mobicip looks a lot like Safari (with tabs and a search box) and allows students to save images in the same way. Students practiced finding relevant websites to find facts about Rosa Parks and saved copyright friendly pictures of her to the iPad Camera roll.

Once students had saved pictures and done their research, they used Popplet to create a concept map. This concept map wouldserve as a storyboard for their Videolicious videos.
Finally, students partnered up. One student opened up the popplet they had created on one iPad and the other student opened up Videolicious on the other ipad. The students choose the pictures they wanted for their video. Then, the second student videoed the first student while he or she used their popplet as a guide.

  

 

It was great fun and the students learned a lot…and it was very easy. It was nice to be able to research, brainstorm, and create all on the iPad right in the classroom.

This project also made it easy to see where there were gabs in the knowledge of students, which teachers then could address.

Take a look at a few of their final projects!

Rosa Parks Example 1
Rosa Parks Example 2