Be In the Know:
Seesaw released Activities earlier this year. Just a couple of weeks ago, they added the ability for teachers to share their created activities with each other. Here is an example I made for understanding characters and one for a word sort. A fellow educator shared a fabulous creation of templates that can be utilized for the activities. And educators are sharing links to their creations that can be added and edited from your Seesaw Activity library. I hope you take advantage of this ability to layer student thinking over their Seesaw submissions. If you want to learn more, please ask your ITF, we will be happy to assist.
iPad App:
Scratch Jr for iPad - We are ending the Hour of Code week today, but my hopes are that our students continue to code. I was fortunate this week to be in classrooms where students were coding. I had the privilege of introducing a class of second graders to Scratch Jr. This app allows students to snap together programming blocks to make their characters move and talk. While programming, they are solving problems, designing projects, and expressing themselves creatively. They are using math and language skills in a meaningful context allowing them to not only learn to code but "code to learn."
Our lesson this week was on understanding characters in the story by knowing what the character thinks and feels throughout. So what better way to show understanding than to recreate the story's beginning, middle, and end through coded characters. Check out this lesson for the details.
Cool Tools Corner:
Escape Rooms are a great way to have some fun with friends and family. Perhaps you are thinking about participating in one over the holiday break. You can bring that excitement into your classroom tied to your curriculum. BreakoutEDU has physical kits with locks for boxes or you can do a digital breakout using Google Forms. You can create digital breakouts that use Google Apps to create and share a series of critical thinking puzzles to open the virtual locks in the Google Form. The ITFs have created some for the district and will be happy to help you create one specific for your standards.
If you want to give it a try before Christmas break, check out these options for elementary students. K-2 would need help and hints, but 3-5 could probably solve collaboratively. For K-2, perhaps you could do the breakout as a class activity. You are only allowed 30 minutes to solve the clues.
If you want to give it a try before Christmas break, check out these options for elementary students. K-2 would need help and hints, but 3-5 could probably solve collaboratively. For K-2, perhaps you could do the breakout as a class activity. You are only allowed 30 minutes to solve the clues.
Merry Christmas!
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