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Monday, November 6, 2017
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Monday, October 2, 2017
Monday, September 25, 2017
This week's news!
I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the last bit of summer weather. My MacBook charger is in two pieces and Amazon isn't saving me until tomorrow. So this blog post will have to work for this week's news!
A few things to go over. It was a hot one last week and I won't lie. This happened......
We really needed a cool down and time to rehydrate so a Science movie it was.
I assumed everyone knew about eSpark because it was utilized last year. However, I am realizing that some parents might not know. Also, we seem to utilize it differently in my classroom. eSpark is a program we use for math and reading. Each child works individually on a "quest" that is based on their current learning level and pertains to a specific content standard. Students will take a pre-quiz and post-quiz before completing the quest. In between these two, eSpark loads a specific videos and apps for each student that correlates with the standard they are working on. The final part of a quest is the best part in my opinion. The students need to create a video that reteaches the concept they have been working on.
I am able to see what apps the students are on, if they are logged in, how they responded on their quizzes, the videos they submit, etc. eSpark does all the work on researching the apps and videos as well as making sure they are of high quality. Frankly, with the help of this program we have taken our classroom technology from tools of productivity to creativity.
Lastly, we took our NWEA today, finally! There were some technical difficulty's on NWEA's end that prevented us from completing the Reading portion last week. I know there is a lot of hype about the stress that standardized tests create. Looks terribly stressful, lol ;)
I am able to see what apps the students are on, if they are logged in, how they responded on their quizzes, the videos they submit, etc. eSpark does all the work on researching the apps and videos as well as making sure they are of high quality. Frankly, with the help of this program we have taken our classroom technology from tools of productivity to creativity.
Lastly, we took our NWEA today, finally! There were some technical difficulty's on NWEA's end that prevented us from completing the Reading portion last week. I know there is a lot of hype about the stress that standardized tests create. Looks terribly stressful, lol ;)
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Coding!
On Wednesday afternoons, we work on coding. Each lesson begins with whole group instruction going over techniques and vocabulary. The students are learning about programs, code, sequences, bugs and debugging. Next there is an individual activity that each child completes. The students individually work through each level, developing a code to help the Fuzz make it to his destination. After we master these skills, we will be able to start working with our robots, Dot and Dash.
This is a great activity to teach problem solving. The students do not get the correct code right away. They fail. They get frustrated. Yet, they always figure it out. Their first reaction is to come directly to me and say I can't do it. They just have to keep trying, focus on the problem and boom! They write the code.
This is a great activity to teach problem solving. The students do not get the correct code right away. They fail. They get frustrated. Yet, they always figure it out. Their first reaction is to come directly to me and say I can't do it. They just have to keep trying, focus on the problem and boom! They write the code.
Monday, September 18, 2017
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