Thing #8

This video is by Harry Kindergarten who I wrote about in Thing #7. I realize that most of the people taking 23Things are middle and high school teachers. From reading their blogs, I have noticed that several have young children. This video may encourage them to check out the Harry Kindergarten videos for their own children's enjoyment.

I am thinking that it would be great to add a few of the concept/skill song videos to my classroom blog so students could sing along at home with their family. What a fun and easy homework assignment for students.  I was amazed at how easy it was to post the video to my blog.

I truly feel like a kid in a candy store with all I am learning in 23Things. There is so much to chose from and everything is looks great. I know I won't be able to do everything I've learned this summer, but I am so excited with the things I have learned so far and can't wait to see what is ahead.

Whatcha' Gonna' Do? (Count by 2's, 5's, 10's)

Thing #7

Once again I got lost on the internet. If I don't stop searching and finding wonderful things, I will never get all 23 things done this summer! I have spent the last few days exploring You Tube. I had no idea there was so much there for teachers and students! In the past, when I have gone on You Tube it has been to see a replay of a sporting event, watch an out take from a TV show, listen to a musician/band or view something that was recommended by a friend. I use a lot of music and movement in my class for transitions and to review and reinforce skills in the areas of math and language arts. (I have absolutely no musical talent so I have to rely on others for help with this.) I found some great phonics and math videos which incorporate music and movement. "Lets Start Smart" had several lessons for reviewing phonics. At some point this summer,  I will embed the most useful ones into the appropriate Notebook lesson slides to use during my whole group language arts block. I also found  many excellent videos by "Harry Kindergarten". There are several that I will be using to reinforce math concepts. All are set to catchy tunes and reinforce key concepts such as the days of the week, months, coins, addition and subtraction, adding doubles, etc. I don't know when people found the time to make these videos, but I am sure glad they did! I have searched Google and Discovery Education for similar type songs to use with my first graders. You Tube was the best resource by far and without this class, I never would have thought to search there!

Last year, we were able to log into You Tube for the first time at school. I have used it in the past a few times to show my students short clips to build background before a lesson in reading or social studies. I will definitely use it more often this year, now that I know what a great resource it is for educators. I am excited to share these new discoveries with my first grade team.

Thing #6

Oh my goodness... I spend days on Flicker just looking at photos and uploading some of my own! I wish I had known about this site in the spring when we were making a slide show for Ellen Miller's retirement party. During one of my searches I typed in Anna Reynolds and found lots of photos of our students using pointillism to paint our lobby mural. Unfortunately, we were not able to include photos of this project in the slide show because no one seemed to have any. Who knew that Flicker would provide what we were looking for? I think this site will be helpful for building vocabulary and background knowledge in all subject areas.

Thing # 5

I chose this photo of a monarch because it is a beautiful picture of the butterfly drinking nectar from the flower. It reminds me of summer.  I also liked it because the proboscis is so clear and easy to see. In the fall, we study the monarch butterfly during our life cycle unit.  I was amazed at all Flicker has to offer. I spent a long time typing in key words and looking at photos.

Thing 4

I enjoyed setting up a homepage. I chose igoogle  because it seemed to be the easiest one for me to use. I like the way everything is so neat and organized. It is easy to move things around, add new gadgets and delete current ones if I no longer want them. I played around with a few before I decided on what to keep. I added the weather, date and time, gmail, a to do list, free worksheet of the day and educational quotes to my home page. (I also added People Magazine updates so I can keep up on the latest celebrity gossip.) When school begins I will take off the gossip link. The weather link will be helpful in October when we do our daily weather data collection.  Currently we just track the type of weather, but we can now add the daily temperature as well. This was a fun activity. I am constantly looking for cool and interesting things to add to my homepage. I am wondering if it is possible to add our school email to this page and if my gmail account will show up when I am using a school computer.

Thing 3

After reading the "33 Ways to Use Blogs in Education" and looking at blogs specific to my grade level, I am motivated to create a classroom blog. I would love to set up a classroom blog to showcase student work and inform parents of classroom/school activities.  I could add links to the math and reading sites that we use in the classroom and in the computer lab. This would allow parents to have access to educational sites and allow students to practice at home. I liked the idea of having students comment on their art work using audio. My students are just beginning to write, so I don't see them using a blog the way students in the older grades might. At the end of the week, I might have students summarize the week's activities and tell about the things that they learned as I type it on the blog. I am wondering if a blog is the way to go or if a class website would be better. Maybe after I finish the 23 things I will have a better idea.

I found some good sites for adding child centered clip art and backgrounds to blogs. I bookmarked them and will probably go back to them when I set up my classroom blog.

The video on blog settings was helpful. I had discovered some of those things on my own when I was working on Thing 2. I am sure I will refer to this often when I set up my classroom blog.