Coding Valentine's With Tynker

Even though our computational thinking unit is over, we are still working on our coding skills.  Using Tynker, it was easy to create our very own digital Valentine's Day cards.  Here are two students' cards.  They even learned how to copy the embed code and emailed the codes to me.

Watering two plants with one Hose: Accomplishing much with GAFE

Never heard of the idiom above?  Well, it is a nicer alternative to the idiom about birds.

The class has been learning about figurative language and each was challenged to make a digital book (using Google Presentations).  The book had to include original similes or metaphors, or explain commonly heard similes and metaphors.

The class creatively found ways to express themselves using Google image search, creative commons websites, and Google Drawings.  We had discussions on digital citizenship and how to access pictures that are allowed to be reused freely.  There are some great websites that feature images that can be used freely for non-commercial purposes.  Searching for images within a Google Doc (using the insert image function or research tools) automatically returns pictures that are free to use.  Greater care must be taken when searching generally.

When creating this book, students honed their skills with creating their own Google Presentation.   They learned from me and learned from each other how to change the back ground color, insert an image as the background of the slide, create a Google Drawing and then import into their presentation, and add transitions between slides.

Each student made their own book and we made a compilation of their work to make a class "book" seen below.  Their book  in their entirety are available for viewing on our website. Please note that you need to be logged into Google using your @ramapocentral.net account first before being able to see the books.

Mondrian Art for Introducing Area

Our recent unit on multiplication and division started with creating arrays to represent equal groups.  Now we are transitioning to learning about area (which the students will discover is really the same thing).  Last year's class really enjoyed connecting Math with Art so I decided that learning about Piet Mondrian would make a repeat performance.   Composition in Red, Blue, and Yellow was our inspiration.

After learning about Piet Mondrian and his work above, students turned blank grid paper into artistic and mathematical masterpieces.

The final result:

Illustrating Figurative Language

The beauty of using figurative language is the visuals they create in the reader's mind as they encounter new ways of viewing situations.  Today we had the opportunity to read poems by Valerie Worth and look at her use of metaphors and similes.  

After reading each poem we created our mental images using the A Web Whiteboard website. You can check out our creations on our class website.

First Blogger of the Week: KS

KS is our first blogger of the week for the 2014-2015 school year.  Here is her entry.

In Spanish we have been making paper book bags and writing in stuff that would be in them. Then we are writing what the word is in Spanish next to the word. Like lapiz is pencil but we would draw a picture. Then we colored the book bag in. In Spanish it is mochila.

In our classroom in math, we have been doing multiplication and skip counting problems.

Today we had the laser light show! It was cool! There were characters from shows and superheroes from movies in lasers!!! It was awesome! There were lasers all over the place.They played songs and showed laser pictures to go with the song! It was so fun! It was on Halloween, October 31, 2014. It was in the gym. We were sitting on the ground.The teachers were sitting on chairs. We saw the lasers on the board in the gym. It was amazing.

Hour of Code

 This week we had so much fun stretching our coding skills. We have already created several projects with Scratch as part of our STEM unit this trimester and this week we played around with Tynker.


















Tuesday night the district hosted an Hour of Code night where students got to share their experiences and more students had an opportunity to code, perhaps for the first time.













Two students from our class showed off their skills too!

Book Recommendations Using Voki

If you are in need of a suggestion for a great book to read, we can help.  We have created some book suggestions using Voki. Click below to learn more.