Skype with Author, Kate Messner

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My students and I were thrilled to be able to do a free Skype with award winning author, Kate Messner last week.  We had just finished reading the first book in her exciting new series, Ranger in Time.  Ranger is a time traveling dog who travels to the Oregon Trail in his first adventure.  We enjoyed learning about that historical event as we read.  Many of the students didn’t realize how dangerous that trip could be and how much courage it took.  The students prepared questions in advance about both the book and being a writer in general.  We were excited to hear previews from Mrs. Messner about upcoming books in the Ranger in Time series including one that talks about the Underground Railroad and will mention a city we live near – Philadelphia.  We are now going to order a few of Mrs. Messner’s books which she will personalize for us.     Watch the video below to hear a bit of our Skype.  Thanks so much Kate!!

Skype with author Kate Messner from Tina Schmidt on Vimeo.

 

App Smashing and Creative Writing

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Our classroom was lucky enough to get a set of iPads a few months ago.  I’ve been looking for ways to do content creation with these devices rather then just using them for playing review games.  After reading Miss Yollis’ post about App Smashing, it inspired me to give this a try.  Since we had just recently made some flat friends to exchange with a class in France, I decided to use them for a realistic fiction creative writing piece.  This is what we did.

  1. Each student chose one of the states and researched places to visit in that state.  Then they wrote a creative story on Google Docs telling about how their flat friend went to visit that place.
  2. Next we used the Google Earth app to zoom in on each place and take a screen shot.  We then opened the Pic Collage app and took a photo of the flat friend.  They used the cutting tool in Pic Collage to cut out the friend and then uploaded the Google Earth screen shot as the background to make it look like the flat friend was in that location.
  3. We put all of the pieces together and published the stories on our Kidblogs.  It took a few weeks to complete and our many delays and days off from snow didn’t help, but our finished stories look great!  Here is an example of one that was written by Andrew.

 

Once upon a time there was a boy named Flat Bob. He was always asking questions about states. So one day his parents said he could pick one state and visit it.  It was so difficult  to pick.  He decided to pick Maine. He went to Acadia National Park and learned that it is almost completely surrounded by the sea.  Also he learned that  it occupies a major portion of Mount Desert.

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The second place he visited was Roosevelt Campobello International Park.  He learned that President Franklin Delano had a summer home there.  He went deep sea fishing and tried to catch lobsters there. He learned that it is famous there.  The final thing he did there is he watched people go snowmobiling.  He still says that was his most favorite trip ever.

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If you would like to read the rest of the stories written by my students, just visit our Kidblog and search on the Flat Friend Adventures tag.  Thanks again Mrs. Yollis and her class for a fun idea!!

Musical Math Word Problems

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We had a fun time doing Math on St. Valentine’s Day this year by adding in some music and dancing! I used Laura Candler’s ideas from her free February Activities and we played Mix it up Math.  The students were given word problems to work on with a partner.  When the music was playing, they danced around the room.  When the music stopped, they found a partner to do the problem with.  Each time the music stopped, they had to find a new partner.  Because some teams finished before others, I put Laura’s Valentine’s Day Word Challenge on the back  for them to do while waiting for the music to begin again (also in the free February Activities).   It was the perfect activity to do on this winter day when we were stuck inside and a little antsy due to the holiday.  Watch this video to see how much the students enjoyed it.

Musical Math Problems from Tina Schmidt on Vimeo.

 

Mystery Skype with Clues

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Last week we had our first Mystery Skype with clues for this school year!  Each class asked and answered the same 10 questions.  Questions 1-9 gave clues about our area like weather, crops, famous and people and places in the state, landmark clues, etc.  Question 10 gave information about the school environment.  The children worked hard to keep track of our clues and take our best guess as to where they were located.

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The class we Skyped with was Ms. Wilcox’s 6th grade from Jefferson School in Conception Junction, Missouri.  They only had 9 students in the 6th grade and only about 130 students in the whole school from PreK-12th grade!  And we thought our school was small with only 275 students from PreK-8th grade.  We learned that they live in a rural area with 3 small towns that are close together and have a strong Catholic influence with a Monastery, a Seminary and a Convent nearby.  We talked about their experiences with tornadoes and our experiences with hurricanes.  Some people born in their state are Jesse James and Brad Pitt.  Famous places from Missouri include the Gateway Arch and the Busch Stadium.  Thanks so much for a fun learning experience!

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Skype with Sharks4Kids

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Today we had a fantastic time Skyping with Jillian Morris from Sharks4Kids.  Jillian is a marine biologist working with sharks on the island of Bimini.  She founded Sharks4Kids as a way to create a new generation of shark advocates through education, outreach and adventure.  She showed us photos and told us all about sharks’ bodies, where they live, the different kinds and more.  Her enthusiasm really made the Skype fun and it excited the students about this topic.  Below is a movie showing just a little of what we learned today.  The children also made movies showing what they learned using the app called Educreations.  You can view those on our Kidblog.  Thanks again Jillian for a great Skype today!

Skype with Sharks4Kids from Tina Schmidt on Vimeo.

 

Mystery Number Skype

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This week and last week we had the pleasure of Skyping with 2 third grade classes from St. Joseph School in York, PA.  We played 2 games each week with 2 different teams.  The children could only ask Yes and No questions to gather clues and try to guess the Mystery Number of the other team.  Some examples were:  Is your number even?  Is your number higher then 50?  Is your number a multiple of 5?  We used a hundreds chart to keep track of the clues we were gathering.  Then we narrowed it down until we could take a guess.  We lost the first 2 rounds last week and then learned from our mistakes so we were able to win the last 2 rounds this week.  We had to stay on our toes and think carefully to ask a good question.  Watch this movie to see some photos and videos from the Skype.

Mystery Number Skype December 2014 from Tina Schmidt on Vimeo.

 

QR Codes Math

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Today we had a good time using QR codes in math class to practice our subtraction skills. Each student wrote their own problem and Mrs. Schmidt turned the answers into a QR code. The class then walked around and solved each problem using devices to check their answers. What a fun way to do math!

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