This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: Kindergarten students explored chemical engineering principles by making play dough as part of an Engineering is Elementary (EiE) unit; First Grade students learned about lift and drag by designing their own paper "Copters;" Second Grade students created images of "Discoveries" in computer lab this year, to be part of a video I am producing for the Second Grade play next month; Third Grade finished reading their EiE Story, "Paulo’s Parachute Adventure" and are ready to begin designing and testing parachutes; Fourth Graders explored a database we created with survey data about themselves as a class using filter queries in Microsoft Access. Week ending 04/12/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: We made play dough! We started with a recap of the story, "Michelle’s MVP Award," which was read to the students by their Kindergarten teachers. After reviewing some key facts and understandings (including the properties of solids and liquids), I demonstrated the play dough making process. Back at the tables in the "Messy Area," we passed out samples of store-bought play dough and brainstormed describing words. Then working with partners, kids then completed the recepie steps on their own, (almost always) resulting in perfect play dough, which students brought home (hope it wasn’t too messy.) We managed to get everyone cleaned up and back to class right on time! What I observed / inferred / connected: Kindergarteners took to the ‘sharing’ aspect of this lesson like ducks to water. Without exception, they collaborated willingly, helped each other, took turns, waited patiently, etc. We talked quite a bit about Chemical Engineering and real-life examples, including … cooking! As part of one of our Engineering is Elementary units, this hands-on lesson was immensely satisfying. Everyone went home happy! What students can do at home: Make play dough! It’s very easy. Mix two tablespoons of salt into a quarter cup of warm water. Stir thoroughly, dissolving as much of the salt as possible. Then add half a cup of flour and stir. You may need to add a bit more flour to get the consistency right and reduce stickiness but you’ll know when it’s right! If you want to color the dough, add some food coloring to the water before you mix in the flour. Have fun! Image credit: Patty Fraser Photography First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: This week’s lesson was about drag and lift. We began by reviewing what we knew about how helicopters work (I have a toy chopper in my classroom too.) We looked at how  rotors are designed and how they push air out of the way on opposing sides. Using the PBS Kids Activity "Hang Time" printable guide, we cut out our rotors (and decorated them) before heading to the middle school atrium where we flew our creations! It was great fun and the kids really enjoyed bringing their creations home. What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson was fun and effective because every kid could be (and was) successful and the activity involved hands-on making/creating. Everyone worked at their own pace, following the instructions provided. Some got a little overzealous and needed tape but in the end everyone had a great time, and, most importantly, they understood that turning a rotor (in the opposite direction it falls) results in LIFT that makes a helicopter fly. What students can do at home: Check out the PBS Kids Activity "Hang Time" (the PDF template is on the page) and let your child make another! Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: This year’s Second Grade Play is a few weeks away. The theme is "Discovery." Mrs. McGrath asked me to help prepare something to be part of the show. We are still working on the concept (and I hope it comes together the way we’re envisioning), but I needed content for the show so we asked students to create original digital art illustrating something they discovered in school. (The images I’d hoped to use in this post are still at school, I will add them as soon as I can.) Students used ABCYA’s Paint Go application for the task, saving the results in .JPG format. What I observed / inferred / connected: As expected, the hands-on experiments that are now such a major part of the K4STEMLAB made the most powerful impressions and were represented most often in the artwork created. I’m looking forward to assembling the montage for Mrs. McGrath! What students can do at home: Have a conversation with your child about what they are learning in my class this year. I’d love to hear from you in the comments! Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We finished reading the Engineering is Elementary story, "Paulo’s Parachute Mission," setting up our first week of parachute design and testing (this coming week.) What I learned / observed / inferred: Kids loved the story (as did I). It featured characters kids could relate to, a storyline that made sense (and that provided a perfect context for this week’s parachute construction), and had a great ending. Another winning story from EiE! What students can do at home: Ask your child about the story - the main characters (Paulo and Lucas), the setting, the problem, and the solution - see what they remember. Ask them how they would have felt as either Paulo or Lucas. Let them explain how they would design their own parachute - they’ll be doing that in my class this week! Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Having created the database of student behaviors, interests and demographics we needed last week, we worked in the Computer Lab (my old room) using Microsoft Access to explore the structure of the database and get some insights from the data. I created a screencast explaining the key steps, which students watched at their own pace. We then placed copies of the database onto local H: drives so students could perform their analyses. The fun began when we started asking questions … how many boys make their bed before school? How does that compare to girls? How many girls reported Math was their favorite subject? How many boys did so? How many boys that said gym was their favorite class also enjoyed playing baseball? And, how did these trends change between classes (homerooms)? What I observed / inferred / connected: This is always one of my favorite lessons because it allows me to use "real" data to teach an abstract concept - databases and information management. Once kids understood how to write queries, they enthusiastically started writing their own, trying to find interesting tidbits about their class as a whole. (Note: no personally-identifable information is in the database - all records are anonymous.) What students can do at home: Databases are everywhere in our lives - we interact with them all the time - ask your child (based on our lesson) to identify the ones they use most often and why! Ask your child to identify the components of a database - table, record, field - and see what they say.

There are lots of great webinars happening in May. This is your chance to learn something new and contribute to the ongoing conversation.Post from: The eLearning CoachWebinars In May 2010

On my school’s staff blog this summer, there have been some interesting topics discussed.  One that has always been nudging me to find answers to in my classroom is poverty … Continue reading →

...in some of the thoughts I shared with my WCET crew today about learning analytics and lessons we can learn from Moneyball. It's an extension of my eLearning Roadtrip post on the same general topic. I suppose this gives you...

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: KDG Days of the Week & Caterpillar; 1st grade WP easytech; 2nd grade PC’s & Word; 3rd Chute making; 4th DB easytech Week ending 04/19/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: This week’s lesson involved work on days of the week. We warmed up with a couple of  "days of the week" games demonstrated on the SMART Board (here and here). Then we all watched The Hungry Caterpillar as a class as kids listened intently to find out what that pesky caterpillar ate on what day of the week - recording their observation (as shown above.) What I observed / inferred / connected: The movie is great; the animation, sound and narration are terrific (if not a little blurry). Kids were seated at the tables in my room and used crayons I provided. Looking back at the results, it appears I wasn’t clear enough about the procedure, and many kids ended up circling more (or all) of the foods the caterpillar ate, rather than what he ate on the single day they were "watching" for. There was also still quite a bit of confusion between Tuesday and Thursday (more than I’d expected.) I think I need to rethink the activity to make it clearer. What students can do at home: Working on the days of the week is easy and fun and can be done in many different ways with simple props! There’s always the Kindergarten Symbaloo for practice, too. First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: After students warmed up with an activity of their choice on the First Grade Symbaloo, kids fired up Learning.com’s EasyTech service for a few computer based tutorials on the topic of Word Processing. This is in preparation for some work we’ll be doing next week. What I observed / inferred / connected: As usual, the kids tore through these with focus and energy, at their own pace, gently getting redirected when they got a question wrong, ultimately providing them with better individualized task-based instruction than I ever could. Love, love, LOVE this service. It’s great for foundation skills. What students can do at home: I sent home the learning.com login information at the start of the school year, if you need it, let me know! Check out the First Grade Symbaloo, I almost have all the tiles filled now, and there are lots of new activities for fun and learning/skill practice. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Using the PCs in my old lab, or the Dell Laptops in our Cart, kids worked through what was essentially a review of PC login procedures and basic document creation, following up on a lesson we’d done several weeks ago. My second grade team needs their kids to be proficient with writing on the computer, whether that means Google Docs, Stationery Studio, or Word, and it’s my job to get them there. What I observed / inferred / connected: After all the keyboarding practice we’ve had all year - and solid proficiency rates (9 wpm @ 92% accuracy) vs. our grade-level goals (10 wpm @ 90% accuracy) - I think it still takes too long to get a basic document created. We’ve got to work on this, especially for next year. Getting the kids more exposure to word processing outside of my class has to be a priority. What students can do at home: Regardless of the tool used - kids need to WRITE on the computer as much as they can. I don’t care WHAT they write with - Word, Google Docs, anything - they just need to write using the keyboard as much as they can. Keyboarding skills also matter - our school keyboarding program, Typing Pal, is available here. Any practice they get will help, even using the fun keyboarding games on the Second Grade Symbaloo! Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: This was parachute creation week (actually, parachute material and size evaluation week). Kids had to work with a partner to design parachutes using different canopy materials and sizes (and 21″ suspension lines) to determine which was the most effective (slowest falling). We even got to work some ART into the lesson (the Engineering is Elementary unit doesn’t mention adding art to the parachutes but I couldn’t help letting the kids have a go at personalizing their creations.) {I’m resisting the urge to insert a "What Color is Your Parachute" joke here.} What I learned / observed / inferred: This lesson was great fun, but had to be modified somewhat from the EiE approach, as we only had 40 minutes or so to design and test the various chutes. We also did not receive the second of two boxes of required materials - another is on it’s way here but I found out too late for it to matter this week. We did the best we could, and the lesson worked overall. What students can do at home: These parachutes are super easy to construct, coffee filters make small but effective canopies (other materials can be used as well.) Add masking tape and some string for suspension lines, and a binder clip to tie it all together, and off you go! The Third Grade Symabaloo has some worthwhile activities for skill practice, too. Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Following our hands-on work last week with databases, students made their way through several Learning.com EasyTech modules to solidify their knowledge and hone their skills further. I’ve got more plans for database work later in the year, after ASK testing. What I observed / inferred / connected: Again, the kids dive into these, heads down, performing the tasks as presented, getting help when they can’t, and working at their own pace. What students can do at home: I sent home the learning.com login information at the start of the school year, if you need it, let me know! Check out the Fourth Grade Symbaloo, I almost have all the tiles filled now, and there are lots of new activities for fun and learning/skill practice.

Prepare for a year of productivity in 2012 by try out these online apps.Then you can leave work early. Post from: The eLearning CoachBest Online Productivity Tools for 2012

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: Kindergarten students "saw doubles" with a fun Math activity. First Graders took their fresh knowledge of Word Processing into our PC computer lab and worked on some basic documents with Stationery Studio. Second Graders also worked in the PC computer lab, getting further into Microsoft Word. Third graders tested the effect of different line lengths on their parachutes’ fall times. And in Fourth grade, students did a mixture of projects, including acrostic poems for Mother’s Day, a special STEM activity involving earthquake resistant housing (thanks to Mrs. Shenkus), and more. Week ending 04/26/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: Our lesson put the "M" in STEM for us this week in my classroom! I recently came across the NCTM Lesson "Seeing Double." It looked like fun so I knew I wanted to try it. Mrs. Bonsall gave me our copy of "Two of Everything" from the school library, along with a DVD that goes with the book. We started the lesson with a segment from the DVD that told this Chinese folk tale. It was called "The Magic Pot;" the kids LOVED it. Once they got the concept, we talked about and practiced writing some math doubling sentences, then we introduced them to our "Magic Doubling Mirror." Working individually, the kids took objects from a collection I provided, used the mirror to "double" the quantity, then completed and colored a worksheet to show what happened. What I observed / inferred / connected: Students get the concept of doubles and easily handled the mental math with doubles up to 10. Above 10 was a struggle. This lesson was a lot of fun and more interesting than I thought it would be. It started with the story; the kids immediately understood it and found it amusing too. They had already worked on doubles in their regular classrooms so that concept was not new. The collection of "junk" I had for each table also proved ideal as kids found it easy to select and manipulate the objects to get the desired effect and give them the context to complete the worksheet. Some even went above and beyond: one child decided to build a structure (future engineer, no doubt) and another drew a picture of ME going into the Magic Pot - with TWO of me coming out. What students can do at home: This project is easy to recreate at home. The NCTM Lesson "Seeing Double" has everything you need besides the mirror and items. Give it a try! There’s always the Kindergarten Symbaloo for practice, too. First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: After learning the basics of Word Processing last week, we headed to my old room, the PC computer lab, for a lesson utilizing a great writing program called Stationery Studio. This program is one of our favorites and is on every computer in the school (except the Chromebooks, sadly.) Students brought their writing journals and chose a sentence to illustrate. They logged onto the PCs, opened the program, selected an appropriate background to accompany their writing, then created the document, saved and printed (if finished). We will be heading back to the lab next week to continue working on our creations. What I observed / inferred / connected: Students know their "lunch numbers" which is a huge help; those numbers are their network IDs. We started the lesson with a quick review of the logon process and found the kids were able to get going quickly. Things kept moving quickly from there as they took to Stationery Studio with ease. We love how easy it is to use; the menus are logical, the graphics are pleasing and helpful, and the program can even be set up to look like the writing paper they are used to. They, almost without exception, correctly spaced their words (single press of the space bar), added their text, using capitals and proper punctuation. It went really well. What students can do at home: Write, write, write! If you have a computer at home, have them "publish" their writing with a word processor (every computer has one!) Check out the First Grade Symbaloo, I almost have all the tiles filled now, and there are lots of new activities for fun and learning/skill practice. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We continued our work in Microsoft Word with additional writing and by also incorporating images. Students had to locate the file they’d saved on the server, open it, check their writing for accuracy, add new text, locate and insert clip art, then manipulate it (size, position, etc.) and then finally print. What I observed / inferred / connected: Students are largely capable with regards to basic word processing, and our emphasis on keyboarding continues to pay off. (We certainly still have work to do, but, the kids are progressing.) I would love to see the kids writing all the time (in other words - outside of my class) on the computer, but, time is precious and there is only so much teachers can fit into the day. What students can do at home: Write, write, write! If you have a computer at home, have them "publish" their writing with a word processor (every computer has one!) Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: This week was all about testing suspension line length and its impact on drop times. Students made some design improvements to their parachutes and then we tested each size chute with line lengths set to 7″, 12″ and 21″. Due to time limitations, we only tested one of each size chute (Small, Medium, Large); several re-drops were necessary. We are compiling the data from all classes this week into a Google Spreadsheet to answer the questions at the bottom of the worksheet above. What I learned / observed / inferred: Students continue to love this unit and everything about it - the hands on work, the creativity, the ability to ‘see’ the impact of a design change on the performance of the chute. Teamwork continues to be productive also, which is always great to see. What students can do at home: These parachutes are super easy to construct, coffee filters make small but effective canopies (other materials can be used as well.) Add masking tape and some string for suspension lines, and a binder clip to tie it all together, and off you go! The Third Grade Symabaloo has some worthwhile activities for skill practice, too. Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: We had several different lessons this week, including one make-up database lesson, Mother’s Day Acrostic Poetry projects in Word, and a special lesson designed by Mrs. Shenkus regarding building earthquake resistant structures. What I observed / inferred / connected: For many kids, following directions continues to be a developing skill, even in fourth grade! What students can do at home: Check out the Fourth Grade Symbaloo, I almost have all the tiles filled now, and there are lots of new activities for fun and learning/skill practice.

I have been asking friends if they had been startled at the strength of the emotions he or she has experienced at the passing of Steve Jobs. To a person, each has said yes. I've wondered if some of the...

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: Kindergarten students created picturebooks with a great, free web application; First Graders worked in the PC lab on writing projects; Second Graders began a Mother’s Day project utilizing PowerPoint or Google Presentations; Third Graders built Google Spreadsheets to determine which parachute line length performed best in our tests; and Fourth Grade started a STEM unit about Materials Engineering with a read-aloud of the story that begins the unit. Week ending 05/03/13 Made with ArisanCAM Picturebook Maker Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: After warming up with some keyboarding, we introduced the students to the ArisanCAM Picturebook Maker, a great, free, easy-to-use tool for creating picture books. The selection of characters and scenes is somewhat limited, and adding text can be tricky, but its overall simplicity and flexibility (and cost) make it ideal for classroom use, even by early readers. It’s very simple to add a background/setting, characters, and other objects to complete a scene. Text is added with the pencil tool (tip: scale down the text box that appears using the provided slider and entering text is easy.) Students created a front and back cover and six pages of picture book action before printing them. What I observed / inferred / connected: Students quickly mastered the basics of this program and were ready for more. I should create a "kit" with paper cutouts either for students to use in class before coming to mine (or as part of my lesson) to "storyboard" a book and then build it using the tool. This would make adding dialog easier as well. What students can do at home: Give the ArisanCAM Picturebook Maker a try with your child. He or she should independently be able to create a basic picture book, and, potentially, even be able to add simple text. There’s always the Kindergarten Symbaloo for practice, too First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Most classes continued our working on writing projects in my old PC computer lab, opening documents we’d created the week before. (Some classes were behind a week and did last week’s initial lesson this week.) We used Stationery Studio to complete and print the final products. We worked on spacing between words, ending marks, capitalization and more. Some of the writing was really impressive! What I observed / inferred / connected: We love this program! It’s easy, has lots of backgrounds for different themes/subjects and produces great printed output. It does not include "spell checker" functionality, which is actually a plus because it does not do the correction for them; they are forced (once the error is pointed out) to correct it themselves. What students can do at home: Write, write, write! If you have a computer at home, have them "publish" their writing with a word processor (every computer has one!) Check out the First Grade Symbaloo for skill practice and fun. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: With Mother’s Day approaching, it’s time for one of our favorite projects, which involves developing skills with presentation software by creating "coupons" for Mom. This was our first week working on the project, which will wrap up this coming week. Students brainstormed their "coupons" and created them in either Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Docs, adding text (and soon graphics & backgrounds). Use of spelling & grammar tools are also part of the lesson. What I observed / inferred / connected: As in the past, the biggest struggle with this project involves brainstorming the five coupon ideas. It might sound easy, but, for it’s not the students, many of whom want to do something original. That’s why we focus on the writing first. In some cases, kids were able to do that in their homerooms before coming to class. What students can do at home: These coupons are easily made on a computer with word processing software, encourage your child to give it a try and be there to assist if they need it. Check out the Second Grade Symbaloo for fun activities and skill practice. Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Continuing our STEM lesson on designing parachutes, this week students used Google Spreadsheets to determine which of the different line lengths yielded the best performance as measured by greatest average fall duration. (This is an adaptation [and something of a simplification] of the lesson, but I’ve learned this year that such changes are necessary for the units to "fit" in my classroom time and schedule. It’s part of the reason why we like Engineering is Elementary so much.) Students created spreadsheets based on data we compiled last week (I put all five classes’ observations onto a single chart for each size parachute.) Students entered text labels, data, and formatted cells to display two decimal places. After a quick visual explanation of "average" or "arithmetic mean" by using student heights (and my own), I showed the students how to enter a formula to calculate the average drop time for each line length in the final column. They created the formulas and determined which line length provided the best performance (maximum average fall time.) They then needed to use formatting to indicate or highlight their identified answer. What I learned / observed / inferred: Our emphasis on keyboarding is paying off. Most students had no trouble pounding the data into their spreadsheets. Those that did are the same ones who tend to struggle with keyboarding. I can’t stress this enough: keyboarding skills are the key to proficiency with technology applications. The Learning.com EasyTech lessons on spreadsheets we did earlier this year definitely helped students understand the basics. Kids find spreadsheets are fairly intuitive and they have a lot of application in other lessons, so, we’re going to use them more. What students can do at home: Spreadsheets are easy and fun to create with and can be used to organize lots of different kinds of data important to kids, like information about toy collections. Encourage them to give it a try! Students can access Google Docs at home using this link: http://docs.google.com/a/ncs-tech.org. Keyboarding practice is always good, if they can find some time for it every day, it will pay HUGE dividends in the future. Here’s the login link: http://school.typingpal.com/?NRTHNFES. Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Fourth graders began the Engineering is Elementary STEM unit Solid as a Rock: Replicating an Artifact. As with all the EiE units, we began with the storybook, in this case "Gayla and Natasha’s Rocky Adventure." The story centers around two twin girls whose archaeologist mother is spending the summer with a friend/colleague, preparing for a summer conference. The rich, vivid writing and fast-moving dialog between the sisters makes the story believable and fun. We finished half the book, and will complete it this coming week. What I observed / inferred / connected: Students did a fantastic job reading along with me for essentially the entire period. It’s really asking a lot of them; they are not accustomed to sitting still for that long, certainly not in my class. Our foam cubes’ comfortable seating helped. The "during reading questions" provided by EiE also sparked great discussion and increased interest in the story. For one thing, the story focuses on twins - and we have several sets of twins (fraternal and identical) in the school. These EiE storybooks are the foundation of the program and they are excellent. What students can do at home: Since students recently studied rocks in their regular science class, ask them what kind of rocks are around the house and yard (and perhaps elsewhere, like Birch Grove Park.) Discuss what an archaeologist does, what artifacts are, what materials engineering is, and even what tools would be needed to replicate an artifact. That’s what’s coming after we read the story!

Instructional designers might be interfering with the learning process. Here's how.Post from: The eLearning CoachNovice Versus Expert Design Strategies