10 day countdown

For the last ten days of school we did a balloon count down. Every day we popped a balloon with a special class reward. We had a dance party, got to pick new seats, had extra device time, bubble day, bubble gum day, lunch with me, beach party, played with chalk, and tomorrow will be ice cream sundaes!! 

Above you will see Mrs. Behrend and Mrs. Johnson came to read to the kids one last time since they are moving to knightdale HS. They will be greatly missed.

Our beach party was a splash! Don't forget to take out their wet suits and towels from their back packs!;) There was a sand table, water tables, jump ropes and beach balls. The kids enjoyed splashing each other and playing around! 

EOY Celebration

Here is the video from the end of year celebration for those that missed it! 

Techsperts!

BYOD has been a great experience as we learn together during this trial period. The students have been excited and engaged in learning while doing the tech assignments. We use devices daily at various points in the day. 

Some days it may be as simple as using our magnet letters to practice new letter land words, or math pieces as manipulatives to add two digit numbers using tens and ones. Other days, we may be working on a week long project that we are creating for a specific subject area standard. For example, we are currently using chatter pix kids to make books come to life. After we read aloud a non fiction book they each get to take a picture of an animal in the story and make it talk using the app to retell key details from the text. We've used kahoot to play review games in groups to prepare for assessments and observe if they are really grasping material being taught in an informal, energetic way! 

Students were taught how to safely search the Internet on their devices to do research. They are only allowed to use the lake Myra kid approved search engine sites on the school website. While writing their science investigation books they did research to test their hypothesis on a specific organism. For example a student may have asked, "what is the life cycle of a frog" or "how do bees make honey?" They then had to do research both at the library gathering books and online to find the answer to their questions. 

We had a wonderful opportunity to mystery Skype (video chat) with another first grade class to guess a number using number sense and math vocabulary. We will be using it again to possibly speak with and author or have a virtual field trip. I'm looking into a few ideas. 

I'm very encouraged with how BYOD has gone. Other than a few bumps in the road with downloading universal apps. Next year our tech specialist will be creating a BYOD website that has everything needed for each grade level to access. This will help eliminate the downloading of apps on a regular basis and all devices having access. We will also be using QR codes so the kids can scan the imagine and be brought directly to a page I need them on. I encourage any constructive feedback on the use of tech and bringing devices to improve for next year! 

End of year math review

We have been doing various math skills in centers to review what has been taught all year. This is a fun way to prepare them for the end of year summative assessment with out them realizing! Stations include, telling time, place value, two digit addition, equality, word problems, and math facts. 

Tasty science experiment treats!

After the fun experiment with Mr. Hall testing to see where the most bacteria grows in our classroom, we got a special treat. Mrs. Hall made jello in Petri dishes to look like the micro organisms that grew!