Aurasma Again?!

The last project went so well, we decided to do another!! To finish up our character unit, students are selecting a text, picking a character, and deciding what their character will say. They will then use Chatterpixs to make the character come to life. Some students are even disguising their voices as their character!! So FUN!! :) They will use the book cover as their trigger image for the chatterpix to come to life. These will be placed on students' desks for showcase at parent conferences. Be sure to check out our class web page for some other cool projects and updates in our class. Bit.ly/cusmith 

Aurasma Making Its Appearance

Today my class worked on making character selfies to describe the internal and external characteristics for the character they are creating to use in their Realistic Fiction piece of writing.  We will then be using their selfies as the trigger for our first Augmented Reality project. Students will be talking about their character and what traits they have. They have also been planning how they will include the text evidence in their writing to prove these character traits. I can't wait to see the finished porducts and share these at parent conferences!! 

Math Night Success

I had a great turn out last week!  My parents were very interested in what I had to say.  Their concerns were very valid and (I think) I was able to answer all questions that they had.  We discussed why it is important to understand the "whys" of math, not just the steps involved in the process.  One question was, "What do you feel is the most important thing we need to work on at home to help them?"  In an attempt to not overwhelm them all, I tried to think of the top things that students seem to struggle with but will be the most beneficial for them in class and at home.  My answer, "Knowing their multiplication facts, and being able to understand place value."  We looked at the difference between knowing that the 3 in 374 is in the hundreds place to being able to say that the 3 represents 300.  So many times my students come to me thinking that a number like 374 is made of a 3, 7, and a 4 when really it is 300, 70, and 4.  I was quick to also remind parents that they can access our "Show Me" videos on the class webpage for more support at home and "how to's" on some concepts.

The second part of our hour together (AFTER scaring them with fractions), we looked at some projects the kids have been working on and Google Classroom! YES! Google Classroom! I love the sound of those words together! :) I showed them what to look for in their child's Google Drive and how the kids complete/turn in assignments through Classroom.  They were excited to see that we have been doing so much with technology and several even said their child has shown them some of these things at home.  This made my heart smile! :) I love when students take their learning home with them!

Parent Math Night

Today is a very important day for my classroom! I am holding a parent help session to show parents the "new" ways that math is being taught explored. So many times parents come to me and say, "I don't know how to help them! I'm lost!" So this session will be used to help clear this up. I'm providing parents with the strategies that we use (or what the students come up with) to help them help the kids at home. We will be doing some addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I'm also going to show parents how fractions investigated.  This is a HUGE part of our End of Grade test so I think it is important to have them aware of these strategies as well.

In addition to the math concepts we are/will be learning, I'm going to be showing parents what technology we have used and projects we have been working on in class. This includes the genius hour that we started today. My hope is to see the excitement in their eyes as I see in their children's eyes!

Techy Fourth Graders

We have been so busy this year implementing and creating things with our iPads!! The year started off with orientation night. I had all of my parents complete a survey on the iPads so that I could collect some great info from them before school even started.   We use Remind for HW updates and class news, we use class dojo for classroom management, and we have a classroom Twitter account. One of my class jobs this year is "Twitter Manager" and that student gets to tweet our learning for the day.

The students have had a blast creating ShowMe's during Math Small Groups that I've uploaded to the class website to help explain how to solve their current math equations.  They have also used Padlet on the iPads during RW to share their thinking and during Shared to complete their quick writes.

I have used Kahoot a couple of times to get a quick look at their understanding of some math concepts. I must say that if you haven't tried this site yet, you're missing out!! It is so much fun for the kids and super easy on us teachers!! :)

Students have been finishing up their IMovie about the moon phases and explaining how we have day and night. They also will be working on their book recommendation videos soon.

I've been so surprised at how quick they are learning to access their google drive account. It has been a plus to have chromebooks available to the students this year. We have been working on even more projects through the chromebooks!!