First Grade Garden Preview

It is hard to believe that it has been almost a year since my last post! I've been busy with these darlings.

I went back to work just before winter break. Working full time with three kids has been an adjustment, but it is going well. The baby is already 8 and a half months. My oldest finishes kindergarten in just a couple of weeks. Time flies!

I have some posts planned for this summer, but I wanted to share this video before then. I worked with the first grade team on an amazing project the last couple of months. This was the promotional video we put together before the big culminating activity.

I plan to share more of the behind the scenes once the end-of-school craziness dies down, but I couldn't wait to share the preview!

Five for Friday: The FETC Edition

I *should* be heading to bed right now, but I have several tabs open in my browser that I’m not ready to close yet. As a compromise to myself, I decided to blog about a few things I’ve discovered this week at FETC.

(I’ll be busy conferencing and driving back home, so I’m writing my Five for Friday on a Thursday night. )

1

educade.org

This morning we heard Lucien Vattel. He is CEO of GameDesk and founder of Educade. While I have dabbled with gaming in the classroom before, I had honestly tuned out previous mentions to this resource. When he started to show specific example during the keynote, I started frantically taking notes.

I already signed up for a free account and have filled my backpack with games and activities I want to try with my students. We saw examples of Motion Math, Dragon Box, Jason’s Rollercoaster, and Reach for the Sun being used in the classroom. I love how you can search for the games by age and topic!

2

BrainPop GameUp

Wednesday night at the exhibit hall opening event, I got to meet a celebrity.

For those of you who are not elementary teachers, that is Moby from BrainPop.  Today I went to a session on games and assessment. One of the resources mentioned was Game Up from BrainPop.



What impressed me most is that BrainPop has compiled games from other sources as well as their own creations. Again, these are easy to search and have many potential classroom applications.

3

Scan to Learn

I’ve been bit by the augmented reality bug. I am still so impressed! I posted about using colAR in the STEAM Lab earlier this week. I was even more impressed when they names colAR one of the four WOW resources at the Tech Share.

I plan to use Aurasma to add some augmented reality to our cardboard arcade, so I went to a session today about using augmented reality in the classroom.

Karen was fantastic. I do not yet have iPads in my lab, but I discovered some computer based AR sites, too. This video is one worth checking out.

I’m also thinking about using Heart Cam to give AR Valentines to my students. Nothing says, "Happy Valentine's Day!" quite like a virtual beating human heart from your STEAM teacher. I’m still working out the details, but I think it just might work!

4

Parallels Access

This was another WOW from the Tech Share. The idea is that you can remotely access programs from your Mac or PC on your iPad. The video explains it better than I can.

It is $49.99 for a year subscription, but as a conference attendee at the TechShare, I was given a subscription to try out through the end of the year. I’m excited to try it out once I get home. I’ll let you know how it goes!

5

The last one is too hard to pick, so I'll write about two. I guess that makes it Six for Thursday, but that's okay.

I went to an fantastic session on Google Apps. I just looked at the presenter info and discovered that one of the two presenters was Susan from The Digital Scoop.

Our eChalk subscription should be going live in a couple of weeks, so I was looking for ways to use Google Drive with my students. I was taking notes like crazy to keep up with all the fantastic things Jason and Susan have done with their classes. Thank goodness for Evernote!

I also went to a session about STEAM. I usually walk away from STEAM sessions disappointed because the presenter spent too much time talking about what STEAM is and not enough time talking about the ‘how’ and the available resources. Michael from 21Centuryedtech found a nice balance between the two. He said that he has a blog post coming up about STEAM resources that I can't wait to read.

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I’ve spent the last two nights in my hotel room pouring over the resources from the workshops, sessions, and speakers. I have quite the ‘to do’ list of things to try out when I get back.

I miss my two little ones and the Irishman, but I am going to enjoy one last night in a bed of my own without anyone to wake me up!

colAR Mix App Review

A few weeks ago I was on Pinterest when I came across a pin that caught my attention. The picture did not match the description, but it talked about augmented reality coloring sheets. I thought it was a neat idea, so I went to the website and printed a coloring sheet to try it for myself.



I could not believe it. I printed off all the free coloring sheets and took them home to my kids. I told my daughter that these sheets were magical.

My four-year-old’s picture went from this:

to this:

What you can’t tell from the screen shot is that the picture is turning and moving to music. It is really impressive!

I knew right away that I wanted to use this with my STEAM classes. The design above is for Chinese New Year. My kindergarten classes could not wait to see what “magic” I was going to do to their coloring sheets.



I’ve created a poster to go with the student papers to explain how to make the papers come to life. I left it for my sub to hang in the hallway while I am at FETC this week.



The free app and coloring sheets are available at http://colarapp.com. There are free sheets available as well as an in-app purchase to unlock the other coloring sheets. Most of the free coloring sheets are seasonal, but there are a few that you can use year round.

My first grade classes used the bird coloring sheet. They looked doubtful when I told them I was going to do magic, but they all were most impressed when the bird they colored ate their worm. I love that the coloring is exactly the same as the way the child colored it.



I only have one iPad in my room, so I called each student up one at a time to reveal the magic. It actually made it even more special.These are going in the hallway as well. I LOVE our poster printer.



I posted the picture of my daughter on Facebook and someone asked if it was for real. This app is really that good. Best of all? It is free! This one is worth checking out!

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I’m linking up: