Using new technologies in the classroom

Students can blog too-read all about it!

Ok-I am sold! I will begin blogging with my students. Thanks to my “Kindergarten Teachers United” Linkedin group member, Sharon D., for sharing this idea with me. Kid blog looks so easy to set up and I am about to do it. I am excited to share me and my students journey with blogging in the classroom! Stay tuned for updates!

http://updates.kidblog.org/ “”Kidblog.org creator, Matt Hardy, was featured in the front page story for the Sunday Pioneer Press. Here is one quote from Matt, who is also a 3rd grade teacher in Minnesota:

“With blogs, it’s more about the ideas,” he said. “It’s not so much about the original post as it is about the discussion that follows, that trail of comments that comes afterward.””

School Construction Inspires Student Bloggers (hcdsbcatherine.wordpress.com)
Blogs as a Classroom Tool (Guest Post) (converstations.com)
14 Steps to Meaningful Student Blogging (mrspripp.blogspot.com)
Blogging with Early Years (trailsoptional.com)

What activity or lesson will your students remember?

Image via Wikipedia

Last year, my students loves our group recycling project. Parents sent in plastic containers and boxes, the week before and students were asked to create “anything.” While learning about conservation, they children had free reign to create inventions and toys. It was amazing to hear them confidently explain what they made and what its use was. One student made a machine out of a milk jug. It was the magic machine, complete with a red button to make it start! Now, I plan to make a “Creation Station” complete with recyclable containers, donated by parents. I am so excited to begin this station for the first time! At home, my daughter made a fashiony outfit out of the trash from the new crock-pot box. Children are so creative! We just have to give them the stuff to create with.

Chalkboard blogging

This is a great way to teach the concept of blogging to children. I found this picture and story on my iPhone at CNN.com and was SO impressed. Basically, teachers could use chart paper or a dry-erase board to list the daily news. Then, students could comment on each others “posts.”

Learning about wind power

Making a small parachute from a coffee filter and a used paper/ plastic cup, is the first step in teaching young minds about wind power. I was inspired by this activity at the children’s museum and I plan to use it in my classroom. (I have pictures to add, taken from my iPhone, but I am trying to figure out how to do so with my wordpress app). After giving my children some “think time” in the car ride home from the museum, they decided that we could build our own wind tunnel at home with either glass (yikes) or poster board. So, after payday, we plan to build a wind tunnel from poster board the has been rolled and taped into a tall cylinder. Then, our plan is to place a fan (whichever we can find) under the tunnel and drop our special made coffee filter parachutes into it. It should also be fun to experiment with fan speeds, location and parachute design to evaluate the power of the “wind.” I am getting excited as I write this! Is this something your children at home or school would enjoy? Please share!