First Grade Gardens: Using Green Screen and AR to Put Students IN their Artwork

"Our First Grade Gardens" has become one of my very favorite projects in the STEAM Lab. This week was our annual gallery opening and I realized that I never properly shared the project here.

My friend Cara started this project in her first grade classroom.  It started as a mother's day project. When Cara got a grant to expand the project to the other first grade classes, I got involved. While it started with painting the canvases in the STEAM Lab, I came back with a "what if" that would have sent most people running, and Cara worked with me to sort out the details.

Cara and I will be sharing a poster session called AR + Green Screen = App Smashing Success at #ISTE18 but here is an overview of this particular project. (Photo credit to Cara for the awesome posters!)

Each first grade class read the book "My Garden" by Kevin Henkes as part of their author study project.

In the classroom the students designed their own themed garden and then paint their imaginary gardens on canvas. The awesome first grade team delivered the sketches to me and my part of the project began.

In the STEAM Lab each student used his or her sketch to paint the design on a canvas using tempera paint. Students used paint pens and glitter glue to add the details.

Using Google Slides, students typed up their gallery descriptions. These were printed and posted in the gallery next to each painting.

I used the PhotoScan app from Google to take a good picture of each canvas. Using the Green Screen app by DoInk, we recorded a green screen video using the picture of the canvas as the background. Our green screen is a green bed sheet that we hang using clothespins. We drape a second green sheet over chairs to give the illusion that students are sitting on an object in the painting.

Using HP Reveal Studio, I set the photo as the target and the green screen as the aura. The auras are saved to a campaign that is shared with the parents.

The end result is something like this:

This year we were able to work with FAU's University Galleries to display the student work at the Ritter Gallery. It was AMAZING!

We had a family help us with the set up. Both parents are artists and had the skills and equipment that we lacked. They met us at the gallery last weekend to hang all 54 canvases.

Tuesday night was the big night. Our student artists got dressed up and came with their families to view the art in the gallery. It was the third year we have done this, and each year is better than the last. The venue was spectacular. We have already reserved a date for next year.

It was a lot of work, but it was a lovely way to celebrate our students!

NSTA 2018

I'm on my way back to the conference, but I wanted to post links to my sessions from this morning. Thank you to everyone that came!

STEAM in Action

Transforming Your Classroom Through Meaningful Technology Integration

Feel free to comment or email if you have any questions! I'd love to connect!

STEAM in Action at FETC 2018

Good morning from Orlando! I am at FETC getting ready for my first of two poster sessions. I have plans to update my blog with all my conference presentations, but it is going to take a little time to get that done.

So...here is the presentation I will share later today.



STEAM in Action at FETC 2018

Enjoy!

New School Year in the STEAM Lab

At the end of this week I sat down and realized that I had enough missed "tweets" to warrant a blog post. There were so many wonderful things happening in the STEAM Lab this week!

Full disclosure, I also saw this week that my blog bio said I had two children. My youngest will be two in the next couple of week, so I decided it was time to pay the neglected blog some attention! Either way, this week was blog-worthy!

Monday started with the eclipse. The school purchased glasses for all our students. The STEM coordinator also made these signs.

Once school was out for the day I was able to take my kindergartener and my second grader out to view the eclipse with me. It was pretty special!

I decided to bring back this project again this year. Instead of just self portraits like the onse in the picture below, I asked students to draw themselves as scientists. I started by asking what a scientist looks like. I typically got the answer I expected - a man in a white coat and googles. From there I showed the search results on PBS LeanringMedia for "Scientist Profile" and picked  few students to select a scientist to learn more about. Interestingly enough, very few of their drawing ended up wearing white lab coats! I have parent volunteers putting the project together next week. I'm excited to see how it comes out!

I always try to start the year with digital citizenship. A could of years ago I purchased the Nearpod version of the Common Sense Media curriculum. I love that I don't have to copy any pages before class starts. It is the perfect way to start the year in the STEAM Lab.

This year the elementary specialists got together and decided to try something new. I still see all elementary classes on a rotating basis, but we added a fourth day to the rotation. Instead of traveling to specials with the whole class, on the fourth day students go to Special Project Enrichment Classes (SPEC). Each quarter students have a different SPEC Class. We even had a team of teachers that have given up their planning once every four days in exchange for a stipend.

This quarter my SPEC class is all about LEGOs. My fourth and fifth graders get to travel into the high school STEM Lab. It has been a lot of work (and will be another post), but it has been worth it so far.

It was a full week, but it was the kind of week you look back at and feel good about. I've spent the weekend trying to distract myself from watching storm coverage and worrying about my mom and sister. I grew up in the Houston area and am praying for all those that are trying to deal with the effects of Harvey. Hang in there my Texas friends!

Have a great week!

ISTE 2017

I am so excited to be back at ISTE this year! Last time I was at ISTE I was 8 month pregnant. I'm excited to have a little more energy and many more friends with me with time!

Today I am presenting a 15 minute mini session at the Tynker Booth.  They asked the Tynker  Blue Ribbon Educators to sign up to do this so I figured I could talk about using "Using Tynker and PBS LearningMedia to go Beyond Hour of Code."

They've created this Tweetcard for the conference.

I'm honored to be included in such a group! If you are at ISTE you can sign up here for any of the session: bit.ly/2t4Fg1g

I'm also presenting a poster with the very talented Cara Pavek on Tuesday. We were up late last night preparing our poster.

 We present our poster on using green screen with augmented reality on Tuesday from 4-6.  We will be working again tonight to get the finishing touches just right, but we are still having a great time!

#NSTA17

I started a blog post a few weeks ago, but never hit post. I have it in my drafts waiting for another time. This week however, I'm at #NSTA17 in LA. There is nothing like presenting at a conference to make me realize how neglected my poor little blog has become. Something about teaching full time and having three kids makes that happen.

Yesterday I had the privilege to share STEAM in Action at the National Science Teachers Association Conference. It was a 30 minute session and went SO fast. I could have easily talked for an hour. I was pleased with how it went and I made some great contacts.

Now I get to enjoy the rest of the conference! So far I've heard Bill Nye and Andy Weir speak. How cool is that?

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!