We Are Bat Experts!

The students enjoyed learning about bats during our science lessons and reader's workshop.  We used bats to practice identifying main idea and detail and to learn about nonfiction text features.  I am impressed that the children learned so many interesting facts about this intriguing mammal!    The children have learned how to use many ipad apps this year to share their knowledge and to express their thinking.  These apps include Explain Everything, Recap, Seesaw, Pic Collage, and iMovie.  Pretty impressive!  What is even more impressive is how they rose to the challenge of sharing what they learned about bats in an app of their choosing. I love how when I set high expectations, my students often surpass how I envision the final products will be.  This project was one of those times! After creating their own nonfiction bat books with Miss Teixeira, they brainstormed all the facts they learned and we added them to the KWL chart.

Normally, the class and I work together to create a single bat movie.  This year, with our expansive knowledge of open-ended apps, I proposed a challenge for a culminating activity.  Students were very excited to learn that they could choose their partner, determine which facts they felt were important to highlight in their project, and then do some research on their own.  I wish I could share the pure excitement that fell over the room as the class got right to work collaborating with their peers.   After a little bit of time researching with their partners, we came back together as a group to decide some key science words and some topics that would be beneficial in helping everyone organize their information.  

Then, after a little more research...

...the students were ready to produce their final product.  I showed them some examples of how to organize and categorize information in some videos and collages I had created, which got them even more eager to start.
Mrs. Baker came into our room to help with production.  Many students took the knowledge they had learned about certain apps from the guided practice we had done throughout the year and got right to work independently.  Mrs. Baker, Miss Teixeira, and I were all extremely impressed and proud of the leadership, collaboration, creativity, decision making, and problem solving we saw occurring while groups worked pretty quietly around the room.  Kids were respectfully discussing the order of pictures (such as using the life cycle - from baby bat, to growing and eating, to adult bat) to grouping facts into categories.  I was a very proud, happy teacher, especially knowing I was doing all of this with Kindergarteners!
I took the list of ways we discussed organizing the information and created folders with Google images in our class Google Drive account, so that students did not have to search the internet and could work responsibly in a controlled internet environment. 

 I admit, I was a little nervous how production would go as this was the first time I introduced how to find and download pictures in Google Drive, which was silly because these students were observant listeners during the instructions!

Without further ado, I present our bat movies.  Children choose to complete this project with the app Explain Everything or iMovie.  Their favorite part was being able to take pictures of each other, import them into Explain Everything, crop themselves, and then add themselves to a bat picture.  Their creativity will make you smile!
 
I am so glad I gave this project a try!  Fantastic job, boys and girls! Thank you, Mrs. Baker, for all your help and support!  We love having you come in to work with us!
Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.2

Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.6

With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.7

Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., explore a number of books by a favorite author and express opinions about them).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.8

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Field Day

The children had a spectacular time at Field Day last Friday!  Thank you to all the parents who were able to help out with this exciting event!

Ms. Gibeau and Ms. DeSanctis took some amazing pictures and shared them with me.  I created an Animoto video with their pictures below.  Thank you both!

10 Star Thursday

During the month of May, my class earned 10 whole class clip ups!  They are pretty amazing, right?!  I knew I had to plan an extra special day to show the kids how proud I was.  We had to wait until last Thursday for a warm, sunny day to be outside. 
We started the morning off by putting the fun in Fundations.  The kids were eager to put their learned knowledge of trick words and digraphs to the test in the activities below. First, a digraph sort.  Children had to read a word with a digraph that was taped to a beanbag, then try to toss it into the hoop with the matching digraph. 

Next up, soccer skills came in handy as students had to dribble the ball around cones that had trick words taped to them.  They had to read the word as they kicked the ball around the cone.  

Lastly, we had sight word Zingo and digraph word Jenga.   

Our Masco Intern, Miss Shan, stopped by for a surprise visit!

And that was only FUNdations!
After rehearsing for our Kindergarten Serenade, I told the kids I was going to change their names for the day.  Instead of having a Bella, Cameron, and Amund in my class, I had a Miss Go, a Mr. With, and a Mr. That and I was Mrs. Because.   Then we had a special visitor who wanted to join in on the fun and changed her name to Dr. Little... It was Dr. Carreiro!

She introduced our class to Breakout Edu where children work as a team to solve clues to unlock a box with LOTS of locks!

We were so occupied with this engaging activity, I only had time to take these pictures of my team.  Be sure to check out Dr. Carreiro's blog post for more pictures of both teams! I loved seeing the teamwork and perseverance.  It was so interesting to see students' leadership and organizational skills as well as their praise and encouragement as they talked through the clues.

 

I just love these kids!  They make me smile each day!  

  Great job, girls and boys!  I hope you had fun!

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3

Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3.c

Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).