Celebrating South Carolina Day

March 18th was South Carolina Day, in honor of John C. Calhoun's birthday.  In all classrooms across the state, students learned about South Carolina.

In one third grade classroom, the students independently researched South Carolina on the CultureGrams website during the reading lesson.  The teacher had posted the link in Edmodo and the students accessed the South Carolina page from the States Edition section of the website with his/her iPad.  

Then during writing, the students used his or her research to create a digital project about South Carolina.  The students were to showcase five facts about South Carolina for the second graders in either Book Creator or Explain Everything.

In a second grade classroom, the class read the book P is for Palmetto for the interactive read aloud for the day.  Then students created a Popplet with pictures and sentences about different SC symbols. The students posted his or her Popplet to the class Padlet wall.  The teacher had created a QR code to help students access the padlet site.  Then they shared their Popplets with the class from the Promethean Board.

Telling Time on the iPads

Our first grade standard for telling time is tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks (1.MD.B.3).  One way we practiced on the iPads was in the Explain Everything app.  I sent the students a blank clock face in the Showbie app.  My students opened the blank clock in the Explain Everything app.  Then I would tell them a time and they would create the hands on the clock to show the correct time.  We also sang "What does the Clock Say?" as we practiced telling and writing time.

I found this blank clock face as a freebie on TPT.  Click here to grab a copy for yourself.

Equality of Equations on the iPads

We have been working on equality of equations in math, CCSS 1.OA.D.7 - understand the meaning of the equal sign, and determine if equations involving addition and subtraction are true or false.  I created a QR code task card activity for my students to use in practicing this skill.  My students love everything about QR codes. I had the early finishers create their own equations for everyone else to solve for equality on the iPads.  Here are some of the student created equations.

 

 We used the Doodle Buddy app to create our equations and saved them to the camera roll.  They submitted their finished products to me in the Showbie App.

A few students decided to use the PicCollage app to create their equations.

Then I had a few students who decided they wanted to add their voice to their equations.  They uploaded their equations into the Explain Everything app and the Tellagami app.

From the Showbie App, I uploaded the student made equations to Dropbox.  Then I created a QR code that linked to each problem.  We used the student created equations to practice this skill again. 

The students LOVED solving the problems created by themselves and their own classmates.  

This activity was a huge hit that we will be repeating!  My students were totally able to create the problems for our task cards.  Why didn't I think of this before?!

To download a copy of our student made QR code equality of equations task cards click the picture below.  

Rudolph Stories in Book Creator

This past week at school we had many festive activities as we approached Christmas break.  On our reindeer day we read several fiction and nonfiction reindeer books. 

 

Then we began to create our own reindeer stories to publish in the Book Creator app on the iPads.  We have the free version of the Book Creator app.  It allows you to create one book at a time.

First we used a graphic organizer to plan each page of our story.

This was our first time using the book creator app.  The students caught on to the tools within the app very quickly.

The students found it very easy to use the drawing tools within the app to add details to their pictures.

They were thrilled to make a cover for their stories.

When the books were complete, we exported them to the Explain Everything app.  In this app, the students recorded themselves reading each page of their stories.  We then saved this project as a video to the camera roll so we could upload them to our Kidblogs.

Here are a few of the finished stories. They are very simple stories since this was our first time using the app.  I'm hoping our next books will contain more details.

 

 

Adjectives and iPads

We have been learning about adjectives this past week at school.  We read a few great adjective books. My class really got into The Bug Book.  It had great illustrations of bugs demonstrating different adjectives.  This lesson definately increased our vocabulary as we talked about different shades of meaning for various words in the book.  We also sang several adjective songs and made some adjective charts.

We then used the iPads to demonstrate some of our learning about adjectives.  Our first activity stemmed from these great read alouds.  We used the Explain Everything app in our first activity.  This app is a screencasting, whiteboard app on which you can draw and record.  It is only $2.99 and was very easy for my primary students to use.

My students each chose an animal to draw in the app.  Then they wrote some adjectives to describe their animal in the pictures.  Last they recorded themselves talking about their adjectives.

Another activity we did involved the skitch app.  The students took a photo of themselves in the skitch app.  Then they wrote adjectives that described themselves around them on the photos.