Back on Track...with the American Revolution!

Whew! What a crazy past few weeks it has been. With all the goings on I have neglected my blogging and reflection duties...but now I'm back on track.

And I wanted to get back on track with this wonderful little tool I have discovered.  It's a newspaper clipping generator! Check it out.

My LBKs have been working their little fingers to the bone on their persuasive writing.

The assignment: You are a reporter in 1775 America and you have to pick a side. Are you crown or colony? You must write a persuasive newspaper article to tell your side of the story to convince your readers to join you. Thank you Liberty Kids for the idea!




So far we've gotten some wonderful writings! Look for some of the articles soon.

Until next time (and this time it will be sooner!!),

Mr. A

Collaboration-Day 1

Ahhh...Google Docs. Who doesn't love it?! (Well, I know a few. But they don't love tech of any kind.)  Now, I'm hoping to help my LBKs fall in love with it.

Today was Day 1 of our collaboration slide show project.

We have been studying the 13 original colonies and I have been racking my brain as to what we could do for a final project. So, off to do a search with no map...only a destination. With my trusty laptop by my side (well, on my lap...it's close to my side :-P) I went venturing into the world of the online educator and came up with...nothing.

Don't get me wrong, there was T-O-N-S of stuff out there. But I could never find anything that really struck my fancy. So, to Google I run. And as always they had the answer...Docs!

So, I divided my class into three groups for the three colonial regions.  Then each group divided up the project into the assigned sections and off we went following the yellow brick road to the computer lab. No, there were no lions or tigers or bears but there was one really grumpy teacher...

I linked up each slideshow project on our class website and off we went! They were excited to see that they could work on the same project together. In fact, I had some issues with some of my sweet LBKs going on someone else's slide and messing with them. Once we got settled down they really seemed to take to it, but all we could get done was a brief intro and they got their title on their page.

As we progress we are going to discuss more about aesthetics and animation...but for now we have our titles!

I'll keep you up to date on how this goes because this is my first experience teaching how to do a slide show and this is most of the LBKs first experience with making a slide show.  I love it when we get to learn together!!

Until next time,

Mr. A


Tweet

Babbling Explorers

Whew!  This has been a long week...

It began with a dead rat in my air conditioning unit...and, well, that's pretty much where it ended too!  It's always nice to walk into your classroom and be knocked over by the stench of something rotting.  It was later discovered that a little varmint had crawled into my unit and get electrocuted.  Anyways, as a result we had to switch rooms and have class outside.  Needless to say we got as much as we could get done the first two days of this week.

Now, because of the Great Rat Incident of 2011, we have finished our unit on early European explorers several days behind schedule...but we have finished!  And to be honest that rat served a purpose, because two days ago our media specialist introduced me to a fun new website!  If it wasn't for that rat...we wouldn't have our fun new project.  Thank you Mr. Rat for your sacrifice.

Anywho.

The website is blabberize.com and it is super fun!  It lets you upload any picture and talk through the picture.  The mouth moves and everything!  So...I took this site back to my class we became the explorers.

Assignment: Pretend you are an explorer telling a class about your voyages and explorations.

Result:  Super fabulous writing and this...




How flippin' awesome is that!  My LBKs l-o-v-e-d doing this.  They are actually wanting to do more research so they can do other explorers.

Now the question is...how else can I use this site?  Hmmm...

Until next time,

Mr. A

Tweet

A Finished Product

Okay, so apparently this blog is turning into more of a Social Studies project blog than a great fourth grade ideas blog.  Oh well...I'm having fun with some projects!!

Well...today our Native American Quadrama Projects were due.  After all the questions (and prayers!) they turned out well.  I had never assigned one of these types of projects before.  Sure, I've done regular ol' dioramas in a shoe box.

Don't get me wrong, they always turned out great.  But I always wind up wanting more from them...

Answer: Quadrama!  The students were required to show four different scenes instead of just one.  And it seems as if they had fun with them.  I got the idea from Shelley over at Blog Hoppin'.  Her examples were great and I thought this would fit perfectly into a Native American unit...and they did!

Anywho...check out some of the splediforous (yes, it's a word...I think) projects turned in today!!

A collection of my LBKs wonderful Native American Quadrama Project!

A view from one side.  Here is a student's view on the Hopi.

Here is a view from the top of one of the quadramas.

We had a wonderful time making these!  Presentations start tomorrow...please pray!

Until next time...

Mr. A

Tweet

Impromptu Social Studies--Results!

Hello all! Recently I published a post on a Social Studies project that I researched, worked on, and really prepared for...um, actually I just pulled it out of thin air! And because of that I was a little, or maybe a lot, hesitant to see the results.

But they came out wonderfully! The projects turned out great and the LBKs learned more with this project than they would have watching movies for four days in a row.

You can check out some of the presentations here! (We def need to work on our presentation skills!)

Anywho...check out the results.

Until next time...

Mr. A

Tweet

Impromptu Social Studies

Moving from little kids to little big kids one of the biggest things I have had to get used to is teaching Science and Social Studies.

Wait! Before you throw up the "I Can't Believe You Didn't Teach Science and Social Studies to the Little Ones" flag and wave it all around...I did teach them. There was just not a huge focus since they they didn't even know quite how to read yet.

Okay, now that we are all off of our respective soapboxes...Social Studies has turned into one of the highlights of my day!

We are currently doing a unit on Native Americans. For our standards they are to become experts on six different tribes, and so our grade level plans reflected this... But I got bored (and so did the LBKs)... As a result, Impromptu Social Studies project was born!

As I was getting ready to start the umptenth video for the students to take notes on I realized that I was really dreading the next hour. So I said to myself, "Self, this is boring. Let's do something fun that makes them learn how to work together."

Then I group the kids, randomly, and gave each group one of our Native American groups to create a poster on and WOW has it been fun!

First, we created a design for our poster on one sheet of copy paper.

Next, we took over the computer lab and did a little research.

Now we are in the process of completing our posters. And I think they can tell me more about the different groups now than they could have if we just had five straight days of videos and notes. They are even learning more about the groups they are not assigned simply by working next to each other. I can't tell you how many times one student has said to another, "Hey, look at this!"

They are excited and having, and so am I...finally! Fourth grade may work out after all.

Until next time...

Mr. A

P.S.  You can grab a copy of the rubric I'm using here.  Thank you Rubistar for the free rubric generator!