Candy Land CVC Bee-Bot

My students have become fascinated with robots.  Using Donor's Choose, I was able to purchase 2 Bee-Bots that are a perfect introduction to robots and coding.  I wanted to incorporate my students love of robots into our literacy centers so I created Bee-Bot CVC Candy Land.  The students get to play Candy Land and practice decoding CVC words while using their Bee-Bots.  It was a huge success.   

The students would pick a card read the word and then program their Bee-Bot to move to the correct square on the game board. They would get frustrated when their Bee-bot would not go the way they wanted.  

We built a lot of perseverance and problem solving.  This game can also be used to practice other skills like sight words, blends, contractions, math facts and more.  

Click below for directions on how to build the game board and game cards.  I hope your students enjoy this as much as mine.  

Click here for the Bee Bot directions and cards.  

Using Storymaker with Chromebooks

When I was struggling with ways for my Kindergartners to create on the Chromebook, I found Storymaker from ABCya!  It was super easy and the kids could easily use it.  The students loved it.  First I showed the students how to draw a picture using the tools at the bottom of the screen. 

We have touch screen Chromebooks but even still drawing on a touch screen seemed a little challenging so I gave my students a stylus that I purchased from Amazon.  They were very inexpensive and I have used them for years.  I originally used them with my iPads.  For many of the students it was much easier to draw on the Chromebook.  

The next step is to write a sentence about their picture.  This is when we discussed how to make a capital letter and use the space bar.  And if you are not a Kindergarten teacher you will not understand how even that was a challenge.  

Now you can make several pages but in my experience we had very little success when saving.  It seems to only save the first page and not the rest so if you want them to do a book you may need to save each page separately.  

When finished it looks like this.  

The students then click the green button with the down arrow to download.  We then save it to their Google Classroom folder and then we put it on Seesaw to share with parents. 

I use this a lot in writing but you could have students write a response to a book you are reading, write a prediction, or draw a math story and write a math sentence.  I hope this is easy for you to implement and the kids love it. 

Enjoy!

Dina

Stop Motion Video

I tried something new with my Kindergartners.  We made stop motion video with iPads.  It was a lot of fun.  We did it with CVC words.  We used the Lego Movie Maker App which unfortunately is no longer available.   Here are other apps you can use instead: iMotion, I Can Animate, and Stop Motion Studio. 

To make it easier for movie making, I took a plastic crate and added a tape outline to the top to show the students where to lay the iPad and then laid a background piece of paper or students to lay a CVC picture card and then each of the magnetic letters. 

I showed the students how to make the letters look like they are moving by themselves by moving the letter a little at a time and taking a picture.  They caught on quite quickly.  Here is an example:

Technology Award

I know that it has been awhile since my last blog but I have been very busy.  While I was gone I was awarded the Technology and Innovation in Education Technology Educator of 2018 award. 

I was nominated by a colleague because I am always helping and trying to inspire other teachers to use technology in their classrooms.  Here is the video they created. 

Ten Frames and Chromebooks

I have found several great apps from Math Learning Centers but my favorite is the Number Frame App.  I have used this on my iPads and was so excited to find out they have a web based app also.  It works great on the Chromebooks. 

You can pick many different sized frames but the one I use the most is 10 frames. 

You can also pick several different kinds of counters. 

There are several different Ten Frame activities that work great with this Chromebooks App. 

Here are some of my favorites:  

Ten Frame Flash

Flash a ten frame card at the students for one second and then ask them to build it on their Chromebook.  I then say “Show Me” and the students turn their Chromebooks to show me what they saw.  I scan the students Chromebooks and assess, then show them the card again.  Sometimes they are surprised.  I have done this with 5 frames and even 10 frames to 20. 

Variation- Just flash a numeral and they have to build it on the ten frame. 

Ten Frame Flash Plus One

This is played similar to Ten Frame Flash but students build the number flashed plus one more. 

Make 10 Flash

Flash a ten frame card at the students and ask them to build what we need to make 10.  For instance, if we flashed a 6, the students would build 4 on their ten frame. 

Race to 10 (or 20)

In this activity students will need a partner.  You can use one Chromebook and each person picks a color or each student can have their own Chromebook.  Player 1 rolls a die and places that many counters on his or her own ten frame.  Then Player 2 rolls a die and places that many counters.  The first player to fill their 10 frame(s) is the winner.

Roll and Build

Students roll a dice and build that number on their ten frame. 

Roll, Build, and Compare

Students will need a partner.  Player 1 rolls a dice and builds the number on their Chromebook.  Player 2 rolls a dice and builds the number on their Chromebook.  Then students look at each players Chromebook and compare the ten frames.  Who has more and who has less?  You can use 6 sided dice or a ten sided dice. 

I will share some of the other great apps from Math LearningCenters in the near future.  Hope this gives you another way to incorporate technology in your classroom.  

QR Codes

       QR Codes were my next challenge after losing all my iPads.   I use QR Codes for my listening center which I call my Readbox.  (Yes the idea is similar to Redbox but for books not movies)

        Our “Readbox” has book cover icons with QR codes that students scan and then listen.  Most of the books are videos from YouTube,  but most of the YouTube videos are viewed through the website Safe Share TV.   

I was not sure how it was going to work with a web cam but I was fortunate and received Chrome books with a camera that could flip from front to back. I did some searching for a QR Scanner for Chrome books and found this QR Scanner.   It worked great.  My students quickly caught on to how it worked.  

   Many of the books and qr codes I have used were found from free resources on the web and Teachers Pay Teachers.   I am all about free.  I have also created a few on my own.  The kids just love our “Readbox”.  

'Til next time,

Mrs. Vander Wilt

Symbaloo

To continue my adventure, I needed my Chromebooks to fill areas of my day that I usually used iPads.  The first was my Reading Centers.  My iPads had several apps that covered many areas of Reading.  As I was looking through the Chromebook Apps I soon realized that it did not have many apps that would replace the wonderful apps that I had on my iPads. It was very disappointing. I also liked the icons that students just had to click or tap on to get to the app or website I wanted them to work on.  So I brainstormed ways that I could do the same on my Chromebook. Even though this tech is dated, a Symbaloo came to mind.  A Symbaloo is a start page that allows you to easily navigate the web and compile your favorite sites on a tile grid similar to icons on an iPad.

I started by signing up for a free account in the top right hand corner.  

I explored other teacher's Symbaloos by clicking the plus sign in the right hand corner of your screen. I was so excited.  I had found so many new websites that I had not seen before that would be perfect for Reading Centers. 

When searching other Symbaloos (webmixes) I put in a search criteria like:
Kindergarten

Reading

Phonics

You have the option to save those webmixes and use them as your own or you can copy some of their links and make your own.

To Create your own tile, click on an empty tile

Find the website you would like to add and copy the URL Address. 

Insert the URL here.  Then you can design the tile with a title, color, picture, etc.

To copy a tile from another webmix,

Find a tile to copy

Then click share button

 

Then click Stop Updates.  Then the little lock disappears and now you can copy a tile.

Right click on a tile

Then click Copy/Move

Then choose which webmix you would like it to copy to or move too. 

 Here is my completed Symbaloo.  I have a Reading Symbaloo and a Math Symbaloo.  It has worked very well.  It has been great for my kinders.  I placed it on my class website and made it my start page on the Chromebooks for each of my students.