Fun and Easy Reading for Spring Break

http://www.amazon.com/Tricky-Twenty-Two-Stephanie-Plum-Novel-ebook/dp/B00TND3N7C

When I get some time off, I like to relax and read something fun and something that's easy to read.  If you haven't heard of the Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich, you should give this series a try.  This series is very entertaining! Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter in Trenton, New Jersey.  She works for her cousin Vinnie at Vincent Plum Bail Bonds.  Stephanie's side kick is Lula, who had quite the unspeakable career before she got into the bail bonds business. Of course, there's two men in Stephanie's life, Morelli, who is a cop, and Ranger, who is very secretive.  Book One is called One for the Money, and it was made into a movie, but the book is much funnier and better than the movie.  The latest installment in the series is Tricky Twenty-Two, and I plan on enjoying a morning or an afternoon during spring break to read and laugh!

A College Visit to ASU

Last month, in February, we took a college visit trip to ASU in Tempe, Arizona. We stopped along the way so I could take some photographs for my photography class, and here are three of my favorites.

This is a long-exposure photograph of the train bridge over the Tempe Town Lake.  I really enjoy taking long-exposure shots and experimenting with the length of time to leave the shutter open.  It is exciting to see the results.

We visited the Polytechnic Campus, and while we were on the tour, I noticed how this blue beach cruiser bike had such a nice contrasting color with the green background.  The sunlight and shadows really added to the soft tone of the scene.

Lastly, on the drive to Tempe, we came across the fields of windmills, and I took many photos, but I like this one the best because of how the windmills look so clean and white against the big blue sky.

Pi Day

Monday, March 14th, is Pi Day, 3.14.  March 14th is also Albert Einstein's birthday! It just doesn't get mathematically better than that!

What is Pi (π)? "Pi is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159."  Here is a website dedicated solely to Pi (π) - piday.org.  This website contains videos and activities you and your class can participate in on Pi Day. Here is a webquest on Pi Day, and here is one more resource from Education World. 

An idea that I came up with that students could engage in on Pi Day is having them learn and practice Google Drawings. Here is a simple drawing I made.  I inserted a circle shape and labeled the circumference and diameter.  Using the special characters, you can also add the π symbol.

I hope these resources are helpful to you, and that you have a fun time participating in Pi Day on Monday!

The Iditarod

I loved reading Balto and the Great Race every year with my third-graders. Balto is a true story that took place in 1925 about mushers and sled-dog teams delivering medicine to children with Diphtheria in Nome, Alaska, through blizzard conditions.  This story was the main reason the Iditarod began in 1973. This year, on March 5, over 80 mushers and their dog-sled teams will begin the race in Anchorage and cross the finish line in Nome, a total of 975 miles.

A few years ago, I decided to have my students choose a musher to follow throughout the Iditarod, and this began a classroom tradition that evolved into many different activities culminating in my class participating in our annual literature parade as a dog-sled team pulling their teacher as a musher.  Here's a VIDEO of my class.

Since this tradition of following the Iditarod was such a great learning experience (and a complete blast), I wanted to share some activities and resources with you.


First of all, there are many different leveled readers about Balto to introduce how the Iditarod came about. Balto and the Great Race and The Bravest Dog Ever are the two books I used in my class, but there are plenty of others out there.  After reading and discussing the stories, I would introduce the students to the Iditarod website.  Under the Race Center tab, students can read all about the mushers participating in the race and view maps and checkpoints of the race.  I would have the students carefully choose a musher and fill out a form giving information about their musher and why the musher was chosen.  Here is an example of a musher form.  After the students chose their mushers, I would decorate my classroom with a race course by simply drawing a line using sentence strips and place the 23 checkpoints along the line (kind of like a long number line).  Then I would write the name of the student and the musher they chose on a paw print from a package of paw prints you can purchase at the teacher store. I would place their paw print markers at the starting point on the race course.  I also purchased a map of the Iditarod race course from the Iditarod website to post in my classroom.

On the day of the race, which is always on a Saturday morning, it is broadcast live on the Internet, and some or all of it is always recorded on the website.  So on the Monday morning after the start of the race, I would show some of the video to the students, and they really enjoyed it, and that let them get a better visual of the race.

Then during the race, every morning we would check the stats of the race, and the students would move their paw to the corresponding checkpoint.  Also during the race, I would pretty much theme every subject area to the Iditarod.  There are many activities that you can search and find on the Internet.  There is also an Education tab on the Iditarod website that provides many ideas and activities. Additionally, the Iditarod chooses a teacher every year to be a part of the Iditarod, and the "Teacher on the Trail" posts a blog along with lesson plans for every subject area, which are pretty amazing. This year's teacher on the trail is Laura Wright, and here is her blog along with curriculum links.

All in all, following the Iditarod is a great learning experience, and I highly recommend it!  Feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions for implementation and ideas.

Multi-Media Text Sets

Do you have a collection of online resources that you would like to share with your students?  Well, one way to make a convenient document containing resources and tasks for students to view and complete is by creating a multi-media text set.  I learned about multi-media text sets while I was reading in the Google for Education Training Center.  A multi-media text set is simply a Google Doc that you can share that contains links to videos and websites that you would like your students to visit.  Also contained on the multi-media text set is a list of activities you would like students to complete.  For example, you can have the students make their own copy of the multi-media text set and have them type answers to questions that you ask them.  You could also link other Google Docs for students to type on, or you could also link Google Forms for students to fill out.  There are many ways that you could create multi-media text sets.

Here is an example of a multi-media text set that I have created on Martin Luther King, Jr.  Feel free to make a copy of the document to use or modify. You can get very creative with multi-media text sets. Entire lessons could be created on one Google Doc and shared and copied on Google Classroom.  The ideas are pretty much endless! Multi-media text sets make it much easier for students to navigate to online resources and complete tasks all in one convenient place.

Gooru

In this blog post, I am going to tell you about Gooru.org.

What is Gooru?  Gooru is a new free online learning community. Teachers can find, revise, and share web collections on any K-12 topic or standard. Search for videos, interactives, assessment questions, and more. Create collections that you can tailor to meet your students’ needs. You can also upload your own content to create your own custom collections. In Gooru, you can create your own classes, collections, and assessments and share them with your students and colleagues.

Here is a short introductory video about Gooru:  Introduction to Gooru.

Here is an example of a collection that I created about Martin Luther King, Jr. Feel free to use it with your class. You can even post the link to this collection in Google Classroom.  Using Gooru collections will make it easier for students to navigate through Google Classroom because all of the links will be placed into one assignment.

If you would like to learn more about Gooru.org, you can create a free account, and then you can join this class:  Becoming a Gooru Guru.  You can join this class by using the class code RY4XSHP.  This is a short but comprehensive class that will teach you the basics of Gooru.

Here is another great link that gives great ideas about how teachers are using Gooru in their classrooms:  Instructional Uses of Gooru

I have attained Gooru Guru status this school year, so I would be more than happy to assist you with Gooru.org.  Gooru.org is really worth checking out because it just keeps getting better.

The Hour of Code

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code.org

Computer Science Education Week will take place next week, December 7-13. During this week, you are encouraged to have your students participate in one hour of coding...oh, yeah, and you can participate and learn too as there are coding activities for any age, from kindergarten to adult!

Well, why is coding becoming so important? Because, according to code.org, computer science is a top-paying college degree, and computer programming jobs are growing at an alarming rate.  Here is an introductory video I’m sharing from the Hour of Code.

Using the Hour of Code makes it really easy to implement coding in your classroom.  You can sign up for free, and you can choose to create a class and add your students so you can keep track of their progress, but you don’t have to do that.  You can just have the students use the activities without saving their progress.

There are great new coding activities this year too such as Star Wars and Minecraft, and favorites from years previous are available also such as Anna and Elsa from Frozen and Angry Birds.

So the best way to have your students start coding is to just let them dive in!  I have participated in the Hour of Code since its inception in 2013, and I must emphasize how much the students learn and how much they love it!

Also the Hour of Code doesn’t just have to take place next week.  You can have your class participate in coding at any time!  So sign up your class today, and they can participate all year long at school and/or at home!

One more thing! Even if you don’t have access to computers, you can still teach coding.  The unplugged section has paper/pencil interactive lessons that teach students how computers are programmed. They are fun and challenging activities. Click the link for an example of an unplugged activity for any age.