As I mentioned in my previous post, Pic Collage is one of my new favorite apps! My students love it too. In fact, they have already started teaching me new tools and techniques that they've discovered. :)
Last week, we started using Pic Collage to enhance our vocabulary skills. Each morning we work on a Word of the Day in our vocabulary notebooks. My students start by sounding out and printing the word. Then, I model writing the word in cursive and the kids echo the process. Their cursive has vastly improved since we started this routine! After our handwriting work, the kids work in collaborative groups (at their table pods) to find an easy to understand definition and to write a sentence with the word in it. The groups share their definitions and sentences. Then the students create a sketch to help them remember what the word means.
(Click the image to view these notebooks in my TpT Store)
Usually when I discover a great new app, I try to think of multiple ways to incorporate it with my classroom curriculum. Pic Collage is a great tool that lends to a lot of flexibility of use. So far, I've used it for Book Clubs, Research Posters, Summative Assessments, and Academic Vocabulary.
At the end of the week, my students have learned five new vocabulary terms. To share their learning, the students can choose any of the words that they've learned and create a Pic Collage about the word.
Pic Collage is one of my new favorite apps to use in the classroom!
It's super simple to navigate so students of all ages can quickly master the features of the app.
Last week I borrowed one of the schools two ipad carts to teach this little treasure to my kids. This allowed each student to have an iPad in hand as we walked through the app together. My ipad was connected with my smartboard by using a VGA adapter (you can also mirror your ipad, or one of your student's ipads, if you have an apple TV in your room).
Before I turned them loose, I gave them a brief mini-lesson on the basic app features. This short tutorial will give you a basic overview of the app features. You'll want to familiarize yourself on these functions.
Since we have to share several carts with our entire student population of over 750 students, we've learned to be a little more creative to share our projects. We may not get the same cart each time our class checks out the iPads so we had to find a way to overcome this little obstacle.
Upper elementary students can use an email account and email their Pic Collage to you. But, if you have lower elementary students who don't have email accounts, you can try this option (*You will need to have a class Edmodo account):
Ask your student to create their Pic Collage
Once they're finished, they can take a screen shot of the collage by pressing the home button and power button at the same time. This will save their collage as a photo on the camera roll.
3. Ask the students to open the Edmodo app
4. Once they login they can create a new post by pressing the + button in the upper right corner
5. Choose the "Note" post
6. Select your class under "Send to", and then hit the back arrow to return to the previous screen.
7. Tap on "Attach" in the lower-right pop-up screen. Choose attach from "Album" or "Camera Roll". This will access your photo roll (*You may have to allow access for Edmodo to share your pictures under "Privacy" in General Settings, if it's not turned on)
8. Click the Pic Collage photo you want to share. Tap "Use".
9. Click on "Send" in the upper-right corner.
This procedure can be used for a variety of apps that may call for a little creativity to share student work. Now that my students have used this procedure independently, they are sharing a huge amount of digital products on our class Edmodo page. Not only is it honing their technology skills, but it has also motivated them to take charge of their learning. Now, they feel empowered to collaborate more with their peers and are so excited to share everything they're learning!
Stay tuned for my next Pic Collage post to see some specific lesson ideas using this sharing procedure.
Can you survive one of the worst disasters in New Orleans history?
The whirlwind action in "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis is sure to keep your students on the edge of their seats and engaged in this historical event!
This short video by National Geographic will put your students in the eye of the storm and give them a better understanding of the events unfolding in the story, as well as important science concepts.
Click on this link for another great video from Kids National Geographic http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/kids/forces-of-nature-kids/hurricanes-101-kids/
While your surviving the hurricane in class, you could also tie in these science concepts such as force and motion, water cycles, weather, and convection currents (thanks to my hubby for that idea~ he's a middle school science teacher!). Step into the storm of century with this Mega-Pack for "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis. This historical fiction is a leveled for 4th grade but could easily be used in 3rd-5th.
Use the 10 lesson plans to keep your students on track...
Engage students in higher-level thinking with reading comprehension questions.
Assess their understanding with multiple-choice/short answer quizzes.
Go more in-depth with a variety of extension activities for the novel and historical event, such as: Hurricane KWL Character Analysis Hurricane Research & Writing Character Comparison & Writing Making Connections Story Elements Story Cause & Effect Story Sequence Story Summary Book Report
Generate a storm of learning with more super sites:
Do Something.org
Kids Health- Hurricanes
Ready.Gov
Add to your students' digital journey with these apps: $3.99 Yesterday We Had A Hurricane has earned the prestigious Mom’s Choice Award and the Teacher’s Choice Award, and it has been featured on C-SPAN and The Discovery Channel. ★ “Yesterday We Had A Hurricane is a fantastic story with wonderfully creative and unique illustrations. It takes a scary topic and explains it in a child-friendly way.” -- Jay and Liz Scott, award-winning authors of Alex And The Amazing $1.99 Kids Weather is a true weather app for kids designed by a 6 year old boy (and his meteorologist dad). Power packed with real time weather conditions, forecasts, science and fun facts about the weather, plus it is interactive making it fun for the kids. This includes math and science with S.T.E.M in mind to make parents and teachers happy as well.
$1.99 iDress for Weather is an easy-to-use, picture-based app that helps kids of all ages and abilities understand how to dress for the weather. The app was designed to support those with cognitive processing or memory dysfunction such as autism, developmental disabilities, brain injury, or dementia, but it can also be used by anyone to help choose attire based on current weather conditions. iDress for Weather has a simple and uncluttered interface. Best of all, the app can be customized for saved locations, personalized temperature settings, and photos, making it a fantastic assisstive technology choice to help anyone dress for success.
Check out more Hurricane Katrina ideas on my Pinterest Board!
Here's another great web resource for you and your students:
Can you survive the school year? Keep your students engaged with an "I Survived..." series book by Lauren Tarshis! These stories are very exciting to almost every student, and are terrific transitions into historical events.
My class started with "I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912". We began this story with a digital journey to explore various concepts from the ship's construction to how passengers survived the sinking, or succumbed to hypothermia in the icy Atlantic waters. Each boat crew was given a passenger card with basic information about a real passenger from the ill-fated voyage. Their task was to research various weblinks and use the info to create a survival plan to save their passenger. The students simultaneously worked on the I Survived book in "boat crews" (small groups). Each boat crew read and completed the novel study extensions together, while creating digital products. After we wrapped up the book, the crews presented what they learned to the class. The students evaluated themselves and their peers using project rubrics. Take a peek at my students engaging in this story and historical event.
This informational poster was created to share some general Titanic info with the class.
One boat crew made a poster to outline their plan to save their Titanic passenger!
Several crews created presentations using iPads and the Educreations app (It's free!) or the iMovie app
(This app isn't free, but the kids have created some REALLY cool presentations with it).
We can also share these on our class Edmodo page, in case students want to view the presentations again!
Other groups drew scale models of the famous ship.
Some groups tackled the technicalities of building the ship and some of the construction weaknesses that may have contributed to the sinking.
Still other crews created powerpoint presentations on the class laptops.
This group actually created two digital products: a powerpoint and an Educreations presentation!
Give your students the opportunity to dive into some non-fiction text with these DOGO News articles
My students soared to the stars during our solar system unit. Many of the science concepts are abstract and therefore tough for third graders to wrap their minds around. To help my kids out, we watched The Magic School bus take an adventure through our solar system on Discover Education (streaming videos). We also explored deep space on our ipads with several apps (FYI: We scored all these apps absolutely FREE through the "Apps Gone Free" app).
These are some of our favorites:
Britannica Kids: Solar System is the prefect app for exploring the secrets of the Solar System in a fun and engaging way. Learn and play at the same time through a variety of games like Memory Match, Jigsaw Puzzles, and the Magic Square among others. Explore the solar system through a wealth of amazing images (which you can e-mail to friends!) videos and informative articles. And as it’s from Encyclopedia Britannica, you can be sure it’s appropriate and safe for the whole family.
Interactive Minds: The Solar System
This app is one of my absolute favorites for exploring solar system concepts! The kids can visit all different aspects of our solar system (and beyond) with real satellite images and deep space video snippets. The visuals are stunning! Check out the video below for a visual tour of some of the app features.
KIDS DISCOVER: Galaxies
Kids Discover is always creating new apps on a variety of topics. Keep a sharp eye out for these little goldmines in the Apple Store! They usually have 1-3 free apps available at any given time. Once they cycle off sale, they'll cost you. I love to use these apps as research tools. We can easily generate written responses or research writing on a variety of solar system related topics.
This is just one of the great apps I have from Kids Discover (there is also a super "Sun" app available).
Each Kids Discover app will open with a dashboard like this one. Students can click directly on the subtopic they wish to see, or they can scroll through all the contents one screen at a time.
NASA has a large number of apps, but my top pick is the Space Place app for kids.
The "Planets" app is a great tool for teaching constellations and how the patterns in the night sky move. In the past, I've tried to use small planetariums (you can find these at Walmart, Hobby Lobby, etc.). However, it's next to impossible to darken my classroom enough for the stars to be very visible. This was a little easier option for me, and the kids think it's cooler since it's on an ipad. ;D I usually project the app onto my Promethean Board via a VGA adapter cable or by mirroring the image with my Apple TV.
If you're interested in using this app, check out this video tutorial created by the app creator:
There are fantastic new apps coming out ALL the time so feel free to comment below if you have any recommendations!
We're also orbiting around solar system concepts in the great outdoors (okay, it's our school parking lot). Once we got our inflatable solar system set blown up, we took them outside and explored orbiting. We started in the center of our solar system with the sun. Then we traveled to the edge of our place in space by naming each planet. As we traveled farther from the sun, my students used sidewalk chalk to draw each planet's orbit around the sun.
After we practiced orbiting, we talked about how the planets also rotate on an axis as they travel in their orbit. My students traded places and the new group demonstrated their rotating skills.
It's not as easy as it looks to rotate while orbiting!
Pumpkin Planets are a fun project idea if you want an extra extension to get your kids interested in solar system research. I saw a huge number of pumpkins that had been decorated as book characters for Book Character Day. It inspired me to use these seasonal squash to tie in some science concepts. Students can research a planet of their choice and then use a pumpkin to create a 3D model of the planet.
Next year, I'll recommend using varying sized pumpkins for larger/smaller planets so the models have a little better scale to size.
Recently I found an incredible site for kids called DOGO News.
Check out this super solar system link on their site:
If you're interested in more engaging solar system activities for your classroom,
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