Word Problems in Full Swing!

A few weeks back my First Grade teacher started on an endeavor to have students make word problems on their own, in stations. We first started out by having students color backgrounds / pictures on paper and from there drawing pictures going along with their theme. When we started doing this, we really enjoyed the final product, however, we noticed that the process was taking a little bit longer than expected. Wanting to make this activity a success, I found some really good deals on scrapbook paper and stickers at Hobby Lobby. Typically I never go into craft stores, but I wanted the students to go above and beyond on this!

Once I gave the materials back to the teacher, she taught her students how to duplicate, lasso, and group items in Explain Everything. Students then had to write out their own math sentence out and record themselves solving the problems.

A First for Fourth (Plickers)

On the way to my car last week, I was stopped by my 4th grade teacher in which she asked me what Plickers were all about. I explained to her that it was a formative assessment tool that involved scannable  cards. Today she had the opportunity to try them out for the very first time! I am new to this type of assessment tool myself so I was learning right along with the teacher. She set up her questions within the website and used the Plickers App to scan the audience's cards. In case you dont know, Plickers are cards that students hold- to indicate answer choices, they have to rotate the card various ways. Long story short, we literally had to pry the cards away from students cause they were so engaged! I am hoping she can use them again soon! Again, this was the first time that they used this tool and they were really hooked! Students were begging for more math problems!! We were able to interview a student and get her feedback as well! (See below.)

 

Science Fair + Green Screening

My first grade teacher has literally sworn me to secrecy on what she is doing for Science Fair!! Well since they were due today, I guess I can finally share! About two weeks ago, her class got started with "green screening." The students fell in love with it! Since it was new to the class (in the fact that they were the ones that had to do the work!), the teacher assigned various roles. Some of these roles included, director, editor, and videographer. It didn't take as long as we had thought for students to understand what to do with their assigned role! Anyways, here is the final student product that the student did all on their own!