First Weeks

It has been a busy first couple of weeks of school. A lot of routines to be taught--to a lot of classes. This week, classes started checking out books. It has been fun to see how excited out students are to get books in their hands.

In fourth grade. Teachers asked me to collaborate with them to use our iPads to create a presentation for students to share with their classes.

We used Haiku Deck a free presentation app. It was great to get technology in the hands of kids right away this year.

We were able to learn about using the iPads, how to take photos, and how to insert them into a presentation. We also discussed what we had learned in third grade about using images that were appropriate for the message we were trying to send.

We had fun--It was a great intro to the other tools we are going to experience this year.

Kindergarten Research

Kindergarteners Rock at Research! Check out our completed projects. They are awesome!

Mohamed
Showalter
Tyrer AM
Tyrer PM
Vang

In Kindergarten students have been learning about Minnesota in their Social Studies Unit. I collaborated with our Kindergarten teachers to have students research an animal from Minnesota.

Recording Facts

First, I worked with each class to practice using pictures and words in a non-fiction book to find out "What does my animal look like?," "What does my animal eat?," and "Where does my animal live?" We practiced this skill with me modeling using an eBook, and then having the students practice with a hard copy text.

Taking Notes About Minnesota Animals

The next time I met with students, I modeled note taking skills using a book about a Minnesota animal. In two separate class periods students were able to record all that they had learned about their animals on their note taking sheet and draw a sketch of them.

Using the iPads to create images of our animals!

When classes came back to the library, we used the iPads to draw images of our animals to create a multimedia report that can be shared at their kindergarten program. While students were working, their teacher and I took photos of their written work (with the iPad) to create a page in their report with all the facts that they learned. I then used the iPad version of Little Bird Tales--and then teachers uploaded the tales to their class home pages after we recorded their voices reading their reports.