Learning and More Through Quarter Four

Traveling Letters (Flat Stanley Project)

Remember how special it is to get a handwritten note from a friend?  Some say letter writing is a lost art, but I’m here to say it is alive and well- at least in second grade at Columbia Elementary School!  We sent out 150 letters to family and friends around the globe.  Our return mail was posted on a large wall map stretching from California to Australia and many places in between!  Yes, the art of handwriting is indeed alive.

                   

 Are you in the green routine?  We definitely are in second grade!  This unit focuses on conservation of resources and environmental consciousness.  To get in the green routine, some students created inventions using recyclable materials.  Did you know a park bench can be made from 480 gallon plastic milk jugs?  The steam was really pouring out of the compost piles!  Everyone can take leaves and grass clippings to the Recycling Center to help build the rich compost!  This really wowed our students!

    

   Second Grade Classes Go “Prehistoric”

The second grade teachers have been doing this project for several years.  It makes the study of dinosaurs more interactive for students.  Students will start this project by researching the many types of dinosaurs from their iPads, in the computer lab, and from library books.

After researching their dinosaur, they will begin writing, drawing and illustrating.  The students will step into their character and vividly describe their dinosaur’s appearance, eating habits and habitat.  The students will love becoming teachers, as they present their dinosaur to fellow students, family and friends.

Toontastic iPads

I'd like to start out by saying that my second grade classroom  thorougly enjoys using iPads to learn. We have had many opportunities with many different Apps to explore learning to become stronger readers. Perhaps the most fascinating App for my second graders has been Toontastic. This App is a cartoon App where students can tell their own story and animate it with their own characters, voice and creative ideas. My students have had a great time creating their own stories or using stories and animating the characters. This App allows the students to choose characters, props and settings or create their own by drawing them. My favorite part is hearing the students voices as they begin to retell a story. I feel like my second graders are very motivated to use this wonderful App to continue to grow in the area of fluency.

Graphing Student Data

One of the things that we started in January was having the kids graph their own scores on the iPad.  We had  been doing some of this in notebooks and binders, but having it on the iPads provides a greater incentive for them to keep track of their own scores.  We found a free iPhone app called Dayta.  In this app, you can make up a new graph and name it whatever you want.  So, our primary graphing has been on Reading Counts test scores and 100 Facts Math test scores.  We would like to expand this to more skills, such as fluency, but we started with these two, because they have a very concrete, easy-to-read, score for the kids.  We knew that they could easily find their score and put it in the app.  Whenever the kids complete one of the tests and get their score, they go into the app, select the correct graph, and type their score in.  It only takes a few seconds, and it provides them with a line graph that shows if they are going up or down.  You can also set a goal on there, so the kids know if they have met their goal or not.  Here are a couple pictures of what the app looks like.

The first picture if a screenshot of how they put their score in.  They just tap the large number and type in their score.

The second picture is a screenshot of this student's graph of their Reading Counts scores.  The red line is the "Goal."  In this instance, it is the score required to pass a Reading Counts test.

The children are learning to use the Notebook on our Ipads. They are learning to create stories, poems, lists, and even practice sentence writing using their vocabulary and spelling words.
  Our students are learning to type a vocabulary word, hold their finger on it and touch select and define. The excitement of seeing a dictionary entry appear is wonderful to see. We observe and explore the number of syllables, what kind of word it is, as well as the definition or multiple definitions for the words.  They will be using this feature for station vocabulary-time and anytime they are exploring words.  Ipads have truly added an exciting dimension to our learning.

5 components of learning

In our second grade classrooms, at Columbia, we are focusing on the 5 components of reading.  We have leveled guided reading groups set up that we meet with Tuesday - Friday.  While the teacher is meeting with small groups and doing reading instruction, the rest of the class is working on stations.  Students rotate through 4 stations each day, consisting of: phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency.  With every second grader having an Ipad this year, we have worked the Ipads into many of our stations.  Below are each of the stations and a few apps that we use in those stations throughout the week.

Phonics –

                Phonics Phil

                Tic-tac Phonics

                Sticky Notes – students type their spelling words and sort them by the phonics chunks in them

                Magnetic ABC

                Phonics Genius

Fluency –

                Quick Voice

                K-12 Timed Fluency

                Sock Puppets

                Puppet Pals

Vocabulary Development

                Notes

Comprehension

                Learning A-Z

                Tumble Books

My Favorite Apps

As a classroom teacher all I can say is wow! These Ipads are the greatest teaching tool I’ve experienced. The students are actively engaged and wanting to learn. They are begging me to use the Ipads at every moment of the school day! The Ipad offers a variety of ways for the students to engage and learn through reading activities.

One of my favorite apps that I use frequently is RAZ Kids. This app allows you to place your students at their reading ability. The students are able to read a story and take a comprehension test over what they read. What I love about this app is that the students can have the comprehension questions read to them. This is extremely beneficial for my struggling readers. The students can earn points to buy rockets to keep their motivation. What I love about this app is that the teacher can view how each child is doing online and watch their progress.

Another one of my favorites is Quickvoice Recorder. The students can record themselves reading a story or poem. Then they can listen back and see if they are reading fluently and with expression. I also challenge the students to see if they can read more fluently the next time around and see if they can beat their recorded time. The students love the idea of trying to beat their time from before

Second Graders Engaged in Learning!

It is exciting to walk down the second grade hallway and see the excitement of our students who are growing in their reading and math skills through the tool of the iPad.  As a principal, the true testimony of learning becomes evident when your students can speak to their "own" learning.  The greatest joy I have experienced has happened when I ask a student what they are working on and they can tell me with many details as well as expressing "what" they are learning, "how" it will help them, and "why" it is important to them.  There is nothing quite like it!!! :)

Innovation Grant

As participants in the Innovation Grant, we agreed to start blogging about best practices in the use of the IPAD. We are hoping teachers will share their ideas about the IPAD by writing in their blogs. We all know that collaboration is so important, but sometimes we don't have the time to meet up and discuss ideas physically. So this may be a place to do that when people get the chance to share what they know. Let me be the first to start up with a few of my favorite tips for using the IPAD. I got these from Randy Damewood, Director of Technology, Coffee County Schools:

Power Tips

Double Click the Home Button to switch to different apps

Search your iPad- use the Spotlight (swipe to the right from the home screen) You can find both content and apps You can go to the settings section and set what you want Spotlight to search

Lock Rotation - change the button option in settings for the side button

Quick volume mute - hold the down side of the volume button for 2 seconds

Typing Tips

Practice Typing with the on board keyboard, but you may find the wireless one very good.

cut and Paste from one app to another - Just tap and hold a word, then use your fingr to drag to select more text, and then Copy it. Go to the other application, tap and hold in the input box, and then use Paste. Easy!

Replace or Define iOS5 - You can now select a word and choose to replace it if there is a typo or get a definition of the word - just put your finger on the word and then choose select, and then your options will be there.

Select a whole paragraph the easy way? Just tap it 4 times to highlight the entire paragraph, then use Copy

Use the .com key to quickly get to other domains endings- hold it down and select one of the options

Magnifying Glass - Fine tune text selection- Hold your finger on text and then a maginifying glass will come up an allow you to place the cursor where you want it.

Split Keyboard - When the keyboard is up, hold finger on outside of the keyboard icon lower right and choose from the menu item. You can also have the keyboard located on a different place on the screen.

Easy Caps - Hold the caps button and slide to the letter that you want capitalized - Double tap the Shift Keys to turn on caps lock

Caps Lock - How To turn on - Tap the Settings app. and click on the General menu > the Keyboard. Then turn "Enable Caps Lock" on. Then just double-tap the shift key to enable caps lock once using the keyboard.

Quick Apostrophe and Quotes - if you want a quick Apostrophe key while you are typing, just hold down the ! key and then chose the ', for the Quotes - hold the ? key

Keyboard Shortcuts iOS5 - inside General Settings - Text Expander

Ubiquitous

      I took a tour of Columbia Elementary last week to see how iPads were being used and I went, I saw and I was amazed. My new favorite word right now is "ubiquitous". And that's how I saw the use of the iPads in the second grade classrooms of Columbia. Some students were being given the mCLASS test and some students were reading. A few students were studying vocabulary words using a hangman game. Some of the iPads were part of a station and others were for individual reading assignments. One of the goals of our innovation grant is to increase reading comprehension and this is obvious when you look at the level of student engagement in their learning. The official name we gave our grant was "TARGET": Teaching to Achieve Results and Growth using Educational Technology.

Now, I have a background as a high school English teacher and I'm not that versed in Reading Instruction. Fortunately, one teacher took the time to show me a handout listing the Five Components of Reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension strategies. That sounds complicated, but to look around the classroom, it was easy to see all of these skills steadily developing in each student. And it was the ubiquitous use of the iPad that made this process more fun, more engaging, and more lasting for the young people in these lucky classrooms.

One app I looked at was a storybook. I can’t remember the name of it, but basically what you could do is record your voice while reading the text. I got to thinking that this would be a great activity for a grandparent. When the student is visiting a grandparent, he/she could narrate the story, then the grandchild would listen to it over and over while hearing the narration; kind of a long-distance read aloud. It just goes to show that the uses of a tool like this for teaching reading are not completely known. More ideas are emerging every day. We certainly don’t want to replace the read aloud with a grandparent, but an app like this might add to the whole experience.