Thursday, October 30, 2014

Extra! Extra! Communicating Classroom Happenings

Want to switch up your classroom newsletter? I've heard more and more comments from teachers jokingly questioning if parents even read their newsletters or online updates. You all work so hard to communicate classroom happenings, updates, and reminders ~ your newsletters and site updates are awesome! If you have any doubts, why not give them a reason to tune in that they can't resist?! Whether you want to make your class news more interactive for families or transform it completely, there's an idea here for you. Be sure to share your own for your fellow teachin peeps as well.

Student Voice! Empower your students by putting them in control of communicating the incredible learning adventures taking place in your classroom or grade. Think about all of the skills and strategies that can be developed and strengthened by student-led news. Students will be so motivated to share with an authentic audience outside of the four walls of their classroom. Families will be excited to tune in to see what the student leaders have to share!

Consider:

Student-Led Newsletter ~ Have your students create and share the news! Students can collaborate on a shared GoogleDoc to communicate classrooms happenings via pics and text. Students can go off of a basic template or switch up the format as they see fit. The doc can be uploaded to your class website or blog to share with families.

Student-Produced Video Newsletter ~ Put your students in charge of celebrating classroom learning adventures by creating a newscast. Rotate roles through your weekly job assignments or set up a special schedule just for the newscasting. Students can upload the videos to a shared folder in Drive and can be embedded right on your site or blog.

Options for sharing the above news (aside from embedding on your site/blog):

  • Attach a QR code to their take-home folder or assignment notebook that links to your class website. Families can scan the code to access your site quickly from their mobile device.
  • Blast a message via REMIND with a digital copy of the news attached.
  • Add a QR Code to a corner of your paper newsletter. The code can link to the student-created video or collaborative doc.

Classroom Twitter Account: You can make a private or public classroom account for families to connect with. Students can take turns sharing classroom updates. You can even add images or attach links to files, videos, student creations, and more! What an awesome, real-time way to keep families informed. Not to mention how this opens the door to really knock down the walls of the classroom and connect with experts or other classes...check out the bottom of this post for more info :) One class tweeted a question to NASA - NASA responded quickly with an amazing visual tweet. Another class ended up getting a NASA visit via a video-call too. Let's make these opportunities available at our students' fingertips too!!





Not ready for that transformation just yet? Bring your current newsletter to life:
  • QR Code : Add a QR Code to a corner or portion(s) of your newsletter. The code can link to a picture, online website, video, study guide, spelling list, weekly vocabulary, an answer to a question, a Google Form/Survey/Permission Slip, class digital story, student book trailers, an audio file and more!
  • Add a link to a brief, pre-recorded video of a talking avatar such as Voki, Tellagami, or Chatterpix. Utilize these to share special events on your own OR spotlight a student sharing a concept, must-read book, or highlights of the week.
  • Take your hard copy to the digital world. Either post it online at your class site OR consider blogging about classroom adventures and events. Print hard copies for families that request them.



Instead of telling families about the class activities, consider saying less and include essential questions or "just enough" to provide opportunities for conversations at home about classroom learning adventures. Many times, parents don't know what to ask kids about what's going on in the classroom. Adjusting your newsletters or class updates can offer an awesome opportunity to involve parents while also strengthening your students' voice.

SCIENCE example: Rather than telling parents about our buoyancy activities in Science this week, I might say: Ship Shape / Sink or Float? Be sure to ask your young scientist about his/her aluminum boats. How were the sinking and floating boats different? Based on what they know, have your student hypothesize and test out objects at home. Encourage your child share your family findings on our class blog! 

MATH example: Instead of sharing about the geometry concepts we developed and strengthened in class this week, I might spark a conversation with: Our Mathemeticians have been busy exploring Geometry in our world. Ask your child what examples his/her group discovered on our school hunt this week. Be sure to check out our collaborative book that displays our Geometry Graffiti around our school. Your child is invited to add on to our book to include pics of Geometry from around the house.   





Just a few ideas to enhance your home-school communication and empower student voice! Hope something here sparked an idea that started dancing in your brain ~ I'd love to hear about it. Share your thoughts below or give us a shout if ya want to collaborate on some ideas together.

As always, Take, Tweak, or Toss!






Thursday, October 2, 2014

Fall Fun!

Just a "few" ideas to sprinkle throughout your learning adventures (I can't help that it's more than a few. My brain is dancing with ideas for you and your kiddos! Let's meet to talk more because I'm holding back on here). :)  Hopefully you'll find something new your students may want to explore OR you can take anything you're already doing (your construction paper spiders, leaves, pumpkins, etc) and enhance it with your students' digital creations.

You (OR your students!) dream it ~ We will help you make it happen!

1. Bring Learning to Life! Think: your spiders, pumpkins, leaves, haunted houses, ghosts, and anything across the curriculum! Students can take a picture of their writing and/or construction paper creation (or make a digital one) and make the still image come to life. The "characters" can : read aloud a poem, discuss its characteristics, share adjectives to describe itself, retell a story from its point of view, interact with the viewer and ask questions to engage him/her on a quest, and so much more. These can make your bulletin boards and displays interactive too!


Other ideas:
Synonym Spiders
The Web of Writing
Pumpkin Patch Personalities
Ghastly Ghosts 
Spooky Sentences
Monster Math
Haunted ReadBox (link to student-created video reviews of spooky stories)
Boo-tiful Books
Scare Up _____.....(a good book, spooky writing, fall fun.....)
Trick or Treat, ____ is Neat (geometry, reading, writing, astronomy....)
Haunted House for Sale (Persuasive Writing)
Brewing Up _____ (Magnificent Math, Spectacular Spelling, Incredible Idioms)
Howling Hypotheses (science)
Fang-tastic Figurative Language
Ve Vant to Share our Batty Vriting Vith You


Bring these to life with:





 
Camera app
 (use a QR Code or Aurasma on image)



Transform these into Digital StoryTelling:

Engage your students and empower their voice by providing opportunities for them to create and publish their work for a larger audience! Most importantly, give students options ~ let them choose how they want to produce their writing:
    • MyStoryBook (app) Students create a book with options for text, audio, images and drawings.
    • StoryBird (website / use computers)
    • 30 Hands - (app) Produce an audio tale
    • Chatterpix - (app) Fall Poem or Pumpkin Poem (short, 30 second voice recording)
    • BuildYourselfWild (website) Creative writing opportunity to go with their "Wild Self".
    • Use any of the above options for students to collaborate on a story together.
    • GoogleApps - Students can collaborate on a shared Document or presentation
    • Share their creations on a blog for a larger audience.
    • many more ways..........





2. Pumpkin Patch Tales : A fun twist to engage your students in writing. Students color the pumpkin-theme sheet from colAR (AR stands for Augmented Reality) and write a story to go along with it. Put their tales on display in the classroom or low-bulletin board. Students can read one another's' tales and, with the colAR app open, watch the pumpkins come to life and dance around the "paper" along to music. Check out CoolKatTeacher's awesome post with resources and more information about Augmented Reality!







3. Interactive Bulletin Boards: This is where QR Codes and Augmented Reality can really come into play. You don't have to have a "bulletin board" either. A spot in the room, a tub, a sheet of paper, or any object in the room can house the interactive activity.

  • Halloween / Fall Stories Listening Center 
  • Scavenger Hunt 
  • Math POD or other station on any concept (make it a Math Monsters theme for the season)
  • Fall Fact Word of the Week/Day : Students scan a QR Code of the word and use the iPad to discover and share facts about the word.
  • Any bulletin boards, student display, or activity shared throughout this post (or already in your room) can become "interactive" and enhance student learning.

4. Responding to Reading
  • Spookley the Square Pumpkin - After reading the story, use Camera on iPad to take pictures around the building of shapes (groups can be responsible for a specific shape) and create a digital story.
  • Room on the Broom  OR any story:  Use 30 Hands or MyStory to create an illustrated retelling, sequencing, or summary of the story.
  • Switch up you Literacy Menu for the month and incorporate Fall/Halloween apptivities.




Take, Tweak, or Toss anything! 

Don't forget the countless ways your integrationists can work with you to support and enhance your teaching and learning adventures: