Animal Habitats

Grade 2 explored Habitats in a new fun, engaging, creative way!

After spending time researching and note taking, students were tasked with sharing their knowledge.
A choice board allowed groups to select their own end product.
Students worked collaboratively in small groups to choice and design their project. Many different options were given and students were creative throughout the process .

Here is a short video of the Big Expo students put on for the school.


Click on Mrs. McCarthy's Class Projects below.

GreenScreen/iMovie

Google Slides

Book Creator

  Google Slides

Dioramas

For the BIG EXPO students showcased their digital work with QR codes.
Scan the codes below to see Mrs. Ragan's Class projects.

Scan the QR codes to Mrs. Ford class Projects.

Oh Canada!

Students in Mrs. Gibbas' Class have been researching and learning more about our neighbor to the north, Canada.

Today we had a Mystery visit with a grade 5 class 5 hours/345 miles away at Townsview School, New Brunswick, Canada.

Because of Technical Difficulties we had to use whiteboards to ask our questions,

Students were actively engaged and used problem solving strategies to guess where they were.

We also had technical difficulties as they had never done this before and had no sound.

Solutions:

Use whiteboards and head nods to communicate.

Use a phone to call and listen to audio while looking at the image on the screen.

We tracked our answers to help figure out their location.

Students are continuing their connection by using FlipGrid to ask and answer new questions.
Click on the link below to view their answers.

Nonfiction Text Features

Nonfiction books often fascinate students. They love learning new interesting facts and get excited to share them.
Text features help us to learn more from the text.
Mrs. Corliss' Class jumped right into their nonfiction books both literally and figuratively with the help of the app GreenScreen by Doink.

Click on the video below to learn more about nonfiction text features.

BioPoems

BioPoems
Students in Mrs. Surprise's Class have been busy studying and writing poetry this month.
After researching a famous person they took these new facts and wrote Bio Poems from the point of view of the person they researched.
Their artistic ability was evident as students drew a detailed picture to represent the famous profile.
Using the chatterpix app, students recorded these poems from the first person of the famous person.

Mrs. Surprise helps prepare chatterpix recording.

I have 30 seconds to fluently read my poem.

I took a picture and now I am ready to record my poem.

Click on the video below to hear all these famous people.

Tech Tips:
Use a template of a BioPoem to help students prepare their poem.
Having students practice reading fluently before the recording makes the final product better.
Students record on individual iPads and airdrop to the one iPad for the final compilation in iMovie.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to Everyone!

Students in Mrs. Ford's Class had some fun celebrating their mothers this week.
The task was to use FlipGrid to record all the ways Mom is special. The challenge was to get Mom to take a selfie at the end.

The next step was to take these lovely touching videos and add them to Book Creator to create a class Mother Memory book.
Click on the link below to find out how special these Moms are.

Happy Mother's Day

Click to read this book, made with Book Creator

https://read.bookcreator.com

Grade 3 students shared their reasons to FlipGrid about their special mothers as well.
When added to Book Creator you also have the ability to share as a video to Google Drive.
Click below to see Kailyn's Mother's Day Card.


Tech Tip:
In FlipGrid Admin page you have the ability to download individual videos. 
These were added to Google Drive.
On the iPad open Drive click the 3 dots and open in Book Creator.
Open Book Creator. Click the + find shared media to add.
Add background color, pictures and videos.

Grid Pals

First Graders in Mrs. Dunn's and Mrs. Pickul's Classes from Topsfield have been writing to the First Graders in Miss Klipfel's and Mrs. Higgins' Classes from Middleton.
The students have shared letters, cards and notes all throughout the year. These students are excited to meet one another in June for the first time.

These pen pals have now become FlipGrid #GridPals. This is a fun way for the students to connect with one another digitally.

Click on the FlipGrids below to see their video notes to one another.

Mystery Skype

We love Mystery Skype!
Team Gibbas had the fun experience of visiting another school using skype. Mystery skype is a problem solving activity played much like 20 questions.

Materials ready for our skype visit

Students ask questions that begin with the Big Idea first. Are you in North America? Is your state east of the Mississippi River? Then as we narrow it done we become more specific. Does your state border Canada?
We traveled 1,473 miles from Proctor Elementary School in Massachusetts. to Mize Elementary School in Kansas.

Everyone has a job to make help solve the mystery

Students are also planning on sharing their experience on the FlipGrid below. Check out their questions and reponses How can you use technology to foster collaboration, generate solutions and make informed decisions in order to successfully solve a problem?