Coding, Post-it Notes, and a lost puppet in outer space!

An hour of code for every student.

It’s National Hour of Code Week! We are beyond excited in my first grade classroom. One thing that I have noticed about coding is that it can literally bring to life any classroom target or “I can” statement that students are presented with. Our target this week: I can solve an addition problem with three addends.

We started our coding week with a serious problem. Our class puppet, Carl, has went mysteriously missing. We looked, and looked, and looked. There was no sign of Carl anywhere inside of my classroom. We even checked the playground. Then, at around 8:30 in the morning, I received this video in an email from Carl.

This is serious stuff to my first graders! J

So as mentioned in the video, Carl did email us a graph with a picture of his spaceship on it. On day one, the students had to design a simple path to get to carl. I used the DoInk Green Screen app to create this video. Check out my tutorial in my previous blog post: http://1stcamefun.blogspot.com/2016/01/do-ink-green-screen-app.html

 

So it didn’t take long for the students to develop a pathway to get Carl back to his spaceship. The day was saved, right?

On Tuesday morning we received another email. Fallen asteroids and unwelcomed aliens have challenged the pathway leading to the spaceship. Students then had to work around obstacles to create a path to Carl’s ship. Students were asked to make only two turns, which lead to three straight lines on the graph to get to Carl’s ship (I can solve an addition problem with three addends).

Students compared pathways to the ship on the “space floor” by using Post-it Notes to draw different pathways.

There is hidden meaning in this whole lesson that really comes to life here. As you see in the picture, the Post-it Notes change colors in every new direction. This is the three addends that are being added. This allows students to see the new starting point at the “end” of each addend.

 

PICTURE OF FLOOR

Students worked on these pathways in groups of five. I had four different groups going at this.

Once a pathway was established, coding was then re-introduced from a previous lesson.

Students were asked to write down a code (by looking at the map) that would get them across the map while avoiding obstacles.

An example looked like this:
Go straight three spaces
Turn left
Go straight 5 spaces
Turn right
Turn right
Go straight 2 spaces

After the code was written, I took away the maps! It was up to them to test the code to see if it would get Carl back to his spaceship. Now, this would not be a good coding blog post if a cool gadget wasn’t involved. So we used the Bee-Bot Robot (Thanks Bill Stanley).

https://www.amazon.com/Bee-Bot-R-Rechargeable-Robot/dp/B0141I3RBU

 

 

Students would then take their index card filled with code, and program it in to the Bee-Bot to see if it could survive the obstacles and get Carl to the spaceship. If the Bee-Bot survived, then the code will be mailed to Carl on the moon so he can use it to get to his spaceship and return back to his home (our classroom).

The kiddos cheered way louder than what it sounds like in the video.

As you can see we had several successful pathways discovered. The target was addressed more thoroughly than what is actually shown. Hopefully the coding technique used to develop these pathways can open pathways for my students to help foster a love for coding.


                                                            -TW

Post-it Notes in a Primary Classroom: Five ways to add engagement to your assessments

Post-it Notes are a great way to add engagement to formative assessments that are used in classrooms. The best part is that they are super affordable and are always available. They serve a variety of uses for students and teachers and the following five Post-it strategies are aimed at adding engagement to assessment techniques that are already used in classrooms today.

#1. Post Up (exit slip): Pictured below is a dry erase board with two questions listed at the top. The two questions were aligned to the target and were referred to throughout the lesson as to what the students would need to be able to do in order to reach the desired daily target (I can statement). At the end of the lesson, all students were given a stack of Post-it Notes. They each took a note and wrote their name very small on the bottom (or back). They then answered both questions just like they would on a normal sheet of paper. Following this, they then posted their notes on the board under the two questions, and went to lunch. While the students were at lunch I took my anecdotal notes to the board and quickly recorded the data from the assessment. Why Post-it Notes here? It takes a normal pencil-paper type assessment and adds a little engagement through change and movement for the students.

 

#2. Fill in the blank (assessment during instruction): We have all heard of thumbs up/ thumbs down, yes/no cards, etc. To be a little more specific with assessment during instruction and finding out where each individual student is at (at the time), this type of assessment is another way to get students up and out of their seats and moving around. As pictured below, several math problems are written on dry erase boards throughout the room. There is a missing addend or sum in each equation. Students are all given a Post-it Note with a number already written on it. They must go walking around the room to find where they need to plug their number in at. They write their names on the bottom of the notes so the teacher can use real time observation to see exactly where students are, or check it moments later after students have posted up and returned to their seats.

 



#3. Activity with Creativity: The title of this one says it all. Giving students the ability to create will basically add an unlimited amount of engagement to any activity. Materials needed on this one are yarn and Post-it Notes (different colors are ideal). Last year, while working with lines of symmetry students were given the chance to create their own shapes out of Post-it Notes. They could also create any design with their notes. Once finished with a design they could use a straight line of yearn to see if the shape/design was symmetrical. Check out the pictures below for an example or two.

 

#4. Close Reading: The picture below pretty much says it all. I used to let students write these symbols on printed off passages. That was about as far as I had ever taken it. Now, with the Post-it Notes I can apply these symbols to any text that we read. As an added bonus, these bright colors and a hands on approach do apply a little more engagement to the text.

 

 

#5. Classroom Graphing: Different colors of Post-it Notes can really add some “pop and pow” to a visual. By applying this to a graph, it can grab the attention of the students fairly easily as compared to other methods. It is also something you can leave up as a visual for the rest of the day or week. Below is an example that you can twist and turn into several different types of graphing strategies.

 

Have you used these Post-it note strategies before? Did I leave a good one out? Let me know in the comments below!

Check back soon for Post-it Notes and.... Coding!





Heddy The Owl

Heddy The Owl WYMT News

Heddy The Owl LEX18 News

Heddy The Owl EKBTV

                               

 

Student Treasures Publishing

Student Treasures Publishing is a great start for students to learn about the different aspects of writing a book. Students will learn about authors, illustrators, the publishing process, title pages, dedication pages, and much more. Student Treasures brings the process to life for students. Students can write and edit their own page of the book, along with drawing the illustration that goes along with it. They must then decide who to dedicate the book to as a class, and create a title page, and a cover page. The students really enjoy the process and love seeing the finished product. They also have opportunities to purchase copies of the book. Below are books from each of my first full three years of teaching.

First Grade Turkey Recipes

First Grade Ghost Stories

If I Were an Astronaut

I highly recommend Student Treasures for any class. It is great if you are looking to purchase a book for every student, or just a couple for your classroom or the school library.
                                                                                                         
   

Random Student Questioning and a Forgetful Teacher

I always keep a cup of popsicle sticks in my classroom with a student name on each stick, and I will draw a stick to ask a question. We all know how that works, it's a great tool to use. The problem I have is that I always set down the cup of popsicles sticks somewhere and I can never find it right at the second I need it, or, it is always across the room and I have to hold up the question and walk around six desks to find my cup of popsicle sticks. Well I have solved my problem of forgetfulness this time around.

I have taken 4 cups with all student names in each cup, and hot glued a cup on each wall of my classroom. This way, no matter where I am standing when I decide to throw out a hot question, I can always make sure my questioning technique stays random. This is somewhat funny but I am excited to try it.

Here are some pics.

My blog has officially moved to this site :) It literally took around 15 hours or so of work for me to figure out how to set up and transfer all of my material over to BlogSpot. Soooo.. Why did I switch?

Good question.

There was one thing that BlogSpot offered that Weebly.com could not bring to the table. That is: an email subscription form so that all of my readers could subscribe and receive email updated every time that I make a post.

Now, the form is at the bottom right hand side of my page. You should soooooo go use it because I have worked my entire weekend away setting this up so you can have it :)

Important: All updates will not be sent to your inbox. All updates will go to your clutter folder, so check that out every once and a while.

I have already found some things that I like about BlogSpot, so I think it will be a good switch in the long run.

Parents, the class website is still up, it will not have a blog from here on out. Everything else still works and will work just as it did. Homework will continue to be added as the snow continues to fall.

Another IPEVO Wireless Interactive Whiteboard Video

This is the video that sold me on getting one. I LOVE mine.

 

Do Ink Green Screen App!

This app is incredible. I have had so much fun using it so far. It takes a few minutes to figure out, but after about thirty minutes of playing around on it I feel like I have it under control.

I used green bulletin board paper for my green screen and hot glued it to the wall.

Next, I went to google images and took screen shots of images I wanted to use for my demo presentation you are about to see.

I downloaded the $2.99 Do Ink Green Screen app and I was ready to roll.

The online tutorials on YouTube are great. This video that I made isn't a tutorial, rather than just a start up video to help you get the wheels turning on the strong capabilities of this app.

Expeditionary Learning Fellowship

The Expeditionary Learning Fellowship is a tremendous opportunity to participate in professional learning and construct engaging science inquiry based lessons build around the natural spaces in our area. I will be helping develop these lessons with science teachers within the KVEC region and they will be constructed around the NGSS Evident Statement templates that will be aligned directly to the KSS.

KVEC is piloting an exciting new initiative this spring, Expeditionary Learning Fellows, which provides teachers with a tremendous opportunity to participate in professional learning and construct engaging science inquiry lessons built around the natural spaces in our area.  These lessons will be developed in collaboration with select teachers within the KVEC region and will be constructed using NGSS Evidence Statement templates to ensure congruency to the Kentucky science standards.

This is an awesome opportunity to get out in the woods and streams of Eastern Kentucky.

This fellowship will last until December and will be my third one of the year! Super pumped!

KEA Fellows Made a Difference Today

Today was an awesome experience. All of the KEA Fellows chipped in some cash as we went to local grocery stores in Frankfort to buy groceries for customers of our choice. It was a heart touching experience to say the least.

I'm so happy to be a part of this group of Fellows this year.

IPEVO IW2 Wireless Interavtive Whiteboard

This thing is awesome. $120 for an interactive whiteboard. My review:

Customer support, ease of use, shipping time, website tutorials, and durability are all great.


Key points to remember: It does not require Wi-Fi.. and, its wireless. It can easy be moved from classroom to classroom if you wanted to share or use it from presentations at PD's.

email me any questions at john.watts@letcher.kyschools.us

Haloween 2015