Are you smarter than an angry bird?

The little red angry birds app. is more popular than t.v. at my home. My four year old has passed all the levels from the free trial version and he did this faster than I could! As an educator and mother of three, I refuse to believe that technology dulls our children’s brains. On the contrary, their higher order thinking skills are enhanced by apps. on the iPod and iPad, learning videos and games from educational websites such as www.starfall.com and www.brainpopjr.com. Now, getting back to our topic of angry birds…what could one possibly learn from these virtual stuffed flying puppets? First of all, I learned persistence. The average person will find it difficult to pass a level in just one try. For the first few days that I played, it took me five to ten attempts to move on to the next level. I admit that I could mad and quit for twenty minutes and decided that angry birds was just plain strange. Then, I kept trying with the side by side tutoring by my four year old…and then, I mastered the game! Lastly, the little red bird taught me that there is more than one way to solve a problem (knocking down monkeys and pigs with hats). If I aimed high, I would catapult too far and not hit my goal. However, if I aimed at the bottom, I could knock down many blocks and sticks and wipe out half of the green pigs. Each time I played, I became a better problem solver! So, if egg dropping birds can teach a thirty-two year old how to be more persistent and become a better problem solver, than what could it teach elementary students? Well, check out this image posted on facebook by a student from Pakistan. His teacher used angry birds during math class to teach several concepts. He met the students where they were at in their learning. In these students minds, they probably were thinking about angry bird strategies during math class instead of listening to a lecture. So, my friends, will you be as smart as an angry bird and meet kids where they are at to teach them? Will you allow an inanimate figure to teach you?

20110716-030008.jpg

The Appeal of Angry Birds- http://iphonefreakz.com/tag/angry-birds/page/2/

Other Articles on Angry Birds in the Classroom- http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/01/07/3768358/education-and-video-games-are.html

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!

Welcome to my brand new blog and thanks for coming!

I have created this blog to communicate more effectively with fellow teachers from around the globe, parents and my students. In our world today, so many of use use facebook, twitter, teacher websites and blogs as way to communicate with one another. E-mail and texting is now a substitute for phone calls (for me anyway)! This blog will be a way for me to tell everyone our most up to date happenings in our classroom. Blogs are simply a more effective way to share ideas because websites take a little more time to share postings.

So, why is this blog so important to me? I am a recent Master’s degree graduate of Walden University and our motto is to become a “scholar of change.” As I reflect upon my classroom last year, I realize that I have the power to bring positive social change to my classroom and home by using technology more and incorporating many more practices of conserving and re-using classroom things.

I would love for you to join me on this adventure as we commit to incorporating at least one “green” idea into our classroom and home this year. So, what will you do? I am excited to hear and I will be posting pictures soon!

Ways not to be “green”…that I am guilty of, and what I can do differently.

1. Throw away trash from cutting in a trash can, instead of a recycle bin.

2. Not re-using containers, such as plastic soda bottles and milk boxes, but instead, throwing them away.

3. Not always turning out the lights of my classroom when we leave the room.

4. Using paper more than the interactive white board, dry-erase board, or mini-chalkboard.

5. Throwing away newspapers and advertisements from the mail, instead of re-using them int a learning station.

Now that I have identified ways that I am not “being green” in the classroom, I have ideas of ways I can be green.

1. Compost paper trash and make new paper with it..

2. Use cans, soda bottles, juice boxes, and milk containers as crayon and pencil holders and craft items.

3. Have a student be in charge of turning off the lights each time we leave the classroom.

4. Have mini-dry erase boards, mini-chalkboards or laminated white poster-board pieces (cheaper than mini-white boards) for students writing response. I could even have them turn in thier writing/drawing and grade it. Not everything graded has to be sent home, right?

5. Lastly, for now, I will use newspapers with the die-cut machine, as book covers, and for finding sight words with highlighters.

I think I can commit to these simple, yet dramatic choices, which will benefit our world one classroom at a time. My goal is to have students master our Texas Kindergarten standards of practicing ways to be a conservationalist. I also want my students to teach and encourage their families to conserve, re-use and recycle at home too!