Virtual Museum Exhibits

It’s been museum week around here!  On Thursday, we took a field trip to the Colburn Earth Science museum in Asheville, South Carolina.  The kids completed scavenger hunts and explored rocks, minerals, mining, tectonic plates, fossils and weather.

 

On Friday, we looked at the virtual museum exhibits of the Smithsonian Natural History museum, which gave us access to the amazing exhibits and information of this museum. 

 

Finally, the boys took the information they have been gathering through their Country Study Research Projects to create their own virtual museum exhibits about the fossils you can find in their countries.

My fifth grader, who is studying China, created this prezi:

 

 

My second grader, who is studying Russia, created this video using Powtoon:

 

 

In the past when I have studied rocks and minerals with a class, I have had students become experts on a type of rock with my Rock Research Project or a material found on Earth with my Earth’s Materials Online Poster Project.  This is the first time I have focused an entire unit on the geographical history of a specific area.  It was really interesting to see the real life applications that came out in my sons’ explanation write ups including references to climate and the uses of rocks.  The Rocks & Fossils section of our Year Long Country Study Project has beena great unit for bringing together all of the major concepts of Earth Science!

10 Ways to Exercise During the School Week

January is almost over and if you’re like me those New Year’s Resolutions to workout more are quickly disappearing. So, I thought today I would write about a few ways to get to that workout during a busy school week.

1.) Try getting up 30 minutes early.  This one is difficult for me, because I LOVE to hit the snooze button.  But, when I do succeed to get up early and do a quick workout before work, the entire rest of the day runs better.  I have more energy and I’m much more alert.  Plus, I get to take a shower after my workout and end up feeling much more refreshed.
2.) Park 20 minutes away from your school.  If you can get up early, but don’t love to spend that time doing an aerobics video or crunches, leave for work early but park farther away from your school.  I tend to park in a grocery store parking lot or somewhere else where I feel my car will be okay during the day.  Then, walk or jog the rest of the distance to work.  The bonus to this technique is that you will have the same walk or jog at the end of the day, doubling your workout by default!
3.)  Start out your day with number aerobics.  Get your kids in the act!  When I taught first grade, we started out each day with number aerobics.  The kids worked on counting and groups of ten while getting their giggles out and waking up.  Meanwhile, I did all of the motions with them and raised my heartbeat a bit each morning.  Feel free to download my number aerobics poster for free from Google Docs.
  4.)  Use aerobics or yoga for brain breaks.  Kids stop and stretch or stomp to get their brains going, but do you?  Join in on those brain breaks and reap some of the workout benefits from it.  Some of my favorite brain breaks are 2 minutes worth of jumping jacks or seeing who can hold down dog or plank the longest.  Kids get some exercise and a bit of a break and guess what, so do you!
5.)  Play tag with the kids at recess.  I truly don’t know how kids play tag non-stop every day at recess. However, I do know that running around with them gets my heartbeat up and builds my stamina. I still can’t run for twenty minutes straight like my kids can, but exercise is exercise.  The kids also love having an involved teacher so this helps you to build relationships too.
6.)  Crunch after lunch.  Got a duty free lunch?  What does that really mean?  For me it was 10 minutes to eat, 5 minutes to go to the bathroom and 10 minutes to socialize or pretend I was going to get some work done.  In those final 10 minutes, you could get a lot of crunches in. Take 10 minutes and get in as many different crunches as you can.  Find a partner who wants to crunch with you, or just enjoy a quiet, dark classroom to get in a quick 10 minute crunch break.
7.)  Do a workout video in your classroom before heading home.  There are amazing videos out there to help you get a good workout.  Unfortunately, by the time I get home, the last thing I want to do after picking up kids and fighting traffic is start a workout.  So instead, take a half an hour to get that exercise out of the way – and increase your energy – as you walk out the door to go to your second job (wife, mother, housemaker, etc.)
8.)  Go running with friends directly after school.  Don’t like workout videos?  Get a friend and go out for a walk, jog or run as soon as your official duties have completed. 
9.)  Start a school running club.  Many kids need exercise as much as we do.  Start a running club for kids afterschool and have a great excuse to keep you – and your students – in shape.
10.)  Stretch while you cook.  Cooking dinner often takes up a bulk of my evening.  However, at least half of that time is downtime.  You’re waiting for something to boil, bake, brown, etc.  While I am waiting, I have taken to doing random yoga and aerobics moves: leg lifts, squats, standing yoga poses, etc.  I probably don’t get a full workout, but if I’ve done at least one other thing on this list, this makes me feel like I’ve had a complete workout.  It also keeps me from checking work e-mail while I cook, which is what I used to do with that downtime.
Hope some of these tips will help you to meet that New Year’s resolution of staying in shape while also keeping up with your busy life as a teacher (and possibly mother, wife, etc.).

Resources for Teaching About 9 Amazing Americans

In addition to running this blog, my RVing with the Rakis blog and homeschooling full time, I also create and sell resources that teachers can use in their classrooms and home schooling parents can use to help out their children.  To be fair, I am not creating nearly as many resources this year as I did in the past 9 years, for 2 reasons.  Reason #1 – I already have over 500 resources available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, so much of what I need for my kiddos I have created already.  Reason #2 – I only have 3 students this year, so I have need of less resources.  However, I am going through resources that I made while I was teaching in a classroom full time and “cleaning them up” with clearer teacher directions, better fonts, etc.  I am also finishing out groupings or “series” that I have started and putting them into bundles so that teachers who are interested in buying multiple items from the same category have the opportunity to save some money.  For the next few weeks, I am going to spotlight some of the resources I have available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Four years of my teaching career were spent teaching 3rd grade in Georgia.  A large part of our Social Studies curriculum was to teach students about 9 Americans who were important historical figures.  Through these figures we taught geography, history, government and character.  We looked at the events that shaped their lives to make them who they were.  We also looked at the events that they helped to create and how those events shaped history.

The 9 Americans that are taught as part of the Georgia Performance Standards are: Paul Revere, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Mary McLeod Bethune, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall, Lyndon B. Johnson and Cesar Chavez. 

When I was teaching this unit, it generally covered two quarters or more, so I made sure to have consistency between each person we studied.  We had a large, classroom wide timeline where we posted important events from each person’s life.  This helped students to make connections between those individuals who worked and lived at the same time and eradicated misconceptions like the idea that Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. were friends – which one student told me before we started our timeline.  Then, after we studied each person, I printed my students these timelines to use as a “cheat sheet” and keep in their notebooks.

One thing I learned while teaching this unit was that most of my third graders had great difficulty understanding what life might be like in 1745 or 1900.  The idea that there was life with no electricity, no t.v., no video games, blew their minds.  Then add in things like girls not being able to attend school and they were flabbergasted.  Additionally, they thought that life in 1745 was identical to life in 1920.  In order to help change their misconceptions, I put together Time Machine Power Points.  These Power Points gave students some information to help them truly understand what life was like for each of these people growing up.  To make it more fun, we would turn off the lights, stand up and spin around as if we were being transported to a new time. 

Once we had learned the important facts about each of the 9 historical figures, I let the students choose one person to become an expert on.  Using my Amazing Americans Technology Project, the students would research their figure and create a Power Point or Prezi to present to the class with the information they found.  This aligned beautifully with my Informational Writing Unit.  Next, they would use the same information to create a brochure explaining why their person should win an award, which worked us into our Persuasive Writing Unit. 

 

Finally, as a review for our Comprehensive Unit Test, the students would explore the Amazing Americans Internet Scavenger Hunt.  This is one of the first internet scavenger hunts I ever designed, and the way the students responded to it inspired me to create many more. I know have over 40!  It also provided a great way for the kids to solidify their knowledge about these historic individuals.

After I taught this for a few years, I put together the timeline, the technology project, the internet scavenger hunt and the comprehensive test into an Amazing Americans Bundle, which you can find on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Just recently, I bundled all of the American History Time Machine Power Points,including the years 1745 (Paul Revere), 1830 (Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass), 1880 (Mary McLeod Bethune), 1900 (Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt), 1920 (Thurgood Marshall and Lyndon B. Johnson) and 1940 (Cesar Chavez),  which you can also find on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I hope that all of these resources will be able to help you better teach your students about these 9 Amazing Americans, whether you live in Georgia or anywhere else in the world. 

  

Getting Ready for Student Portfolio Season

The new year has come and gone.  Many people are getting ready to celebrate the 100th day of school.  Some may even be using my 100th Day Centers to celebrate!  Before we know it, the end of the year will be upon us and we’ll be saying to ourselves – “Oh wait, weren’t we supposed to create portfolios this year?”  Now is the time to sit down and create a plan so that you are able to create those portfolios before it’s too late.

 

Here are the steps I used when creating my online portfolios with my students:

1.) Plan out what information will need to be included in each portfolio.  For example, my students always included on writing piece from each genre of writing (narrative, informational, persuasive, responsive to literature and poetry).  The writing pieces could be blog posts, storybird books, journal entries or essays we wrote in class.

2.) Share this information with your students as early in the year as you can, so that they can start thinking about which pieces and projects will be included in their portfolio.  Stress to them that portfolios showcase the best of their work.  Since they want many pieces to choose from, they should try to complete each project to the best of their ability.

3.)  5 to 7 weeks BEFORE you want portfolios published, let students begin reflecting on the year’s learning.  I had my students reflect on each subject and write out what they had learned and what their favorite part had been of each subject they reflected on.  This writing was the basis of their online portfolio, but it also provided time to truly reflect on the learning and activities that had happened that year.

4.)  3 to 5 weeks BEFORE you want portfolios published, let students begin choosing projects and pieces that they want to include in their portfolio.  Give students any specific guidelines for the pieces they want to include.  Encourage students to decide at this time HOW they will include these pieces and projects in their portfolios.  In the case of an online portfolio, my students uploaded photographs and videos of tangible projects – like dioramas and presentations.  They also included links to online projects – online posters, videos, blog posts, etc.

5.) 2 to 3 weeks BEFORE you want portfolios published, begin conferencing and editing with students.  Talk to students about what you think about their portfolios, what they might add or take away, help them to make this a true presentation of themselves.

6.)  Once students are ready to publish, invite parents in – either in small groups, or as a whole – perhaps in a computer lab if you aren’t in a one to one situation – and allow students to present their portfolios to their parents.  If you are using a student-led conference model, this provides you with a great format for presentation.

Available in my Online Portfolio Starter Kit is: three different levels of planning sheets, step by step technology tutorials for students and step by step directions for teachers. 

What type of portfolios are being done in your school?

    

 

Top 10 Social Studies Websites for Elementary Students

For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. You can download my E-Book of Websites for the Elementary Classroom for free from Teachers Pay Teachers or Smashwords, or, you can check back here each week for the website suggestion.

This week we are looking at Social Studies websites.  Here is a list of my favorite 10 websites to use in elementary classrooms when we are studying History, Government, and Geography.

 

 

1.) Social Studies for Kids – This website includes a collection of articles on current events, historical events and other great Social Studies topics.

 

2.) Ducksters – History & Geography – Ducksters is a great website for Science and Social Studies, but the Social Studies part is particularly fabulous.  Each category has tons of links to additional information and subcategories.  This is a great place to start students out when working on a research project.

 

 

3.) BBC History for Kids – BBC has amazing educational resources for all subjects, but their history section is particularly fabulous.  This site has games that help students explore ancient history, British history, world wars, and historical figures from tons of different time periods.

 

4.) Timeline Maker – Generate a timeline with up to twelve events by simply inserting dates and descriptions in chronological order.  This timeline can then be printed and used in class.

 

5.) Google Earth – How helpful is an online interactive globe where you can zoom into mountains, valleys and oceans?  So many ways this can be helpful with geography, topography and helping students build a strong base in understanding where history happened and why.  A perfect website to include in a unit on Maps & Globes

 

6.) Time for Kids – An online newspaper for kids with current event articles, videos, photos, etc. is a great source for Social Studies class.  In fact, I wrote an entirely separate blog post about Time for Kids awhile back, but it is a worthy addition to this list as well.

 

7.) World Atlas – This website provides an amazing interactive atlas.  Students begin at a world map.  If they click on a continent, they will be taken to a continent specific map as well as information about that specific continent.  Then, within the continent map, they can click on each country name and be taken to a country specific map with information about that specific country.  Talk about a great starting place for a Country Study Project, huh?

 

8.) Garden of Praise – Biographies for Kids – This website includes biographies of tons of important individuals from history written specifically for kids.  Many of the biographies include links to additional reference material on the person, definitions of key vocabulary from the biography and video clips about the person in the biography.

 

9.)  Congress for Kids – This amazing site has great information and diagrams to describe the creation of the United States government and the process of how each branch works.

 

10.) Ben’s Guide – This is a US government based site with lots of information about the services provided by the government, processes used to create laws and elect representatives.  The site is conveniently broken down by grade levels to make differentiation easier.  

 

For more resources to integrate technology into your classroom, check out my Technology Integration Kit.  You can also check out these blog posts:

Top 10 Science Websites
Top 10 Reading Websites
Top 10 Writing Websites
Top 10 Math Websites
Websites to Teach Typing Skills
Websites to Create Videos

 

 

Where to Find Your Own Professional Development as a Teacher

Teachers often sit through a lot of professional development that unfortunately does not pertain to them because although we ask teachers to differentiate for each child, we rarely differentiate professional development for each teacher.  Fortunately, thanks to technology, there is an amazing amount of professional development available out there that will meet your specific needs as a teacher.  You just need to find it.  Here are some places to find just what you need to make you an even better teacher than you already are.

 

Teacher Blogs – There are teacher bloggers out there for every grade level and every subject.  These bloggers share about what they do (or did) in their classrooms, the resources they use, the methods they learn and the activities they are planning.  Each blogger share a bit of their personal expertise.  Here at Raki’s Rad Resources, I share tips for working with ESL students, websites and apps to use in your classroom and information about some current trends and theories in education. I also sometimes share what I do with my own homeschooled children.  When I was in the classroom, I shared tons of what I did with my students and these posts can still be found here at Raki’s Rad Resources.  Of course, my blog is far from unique.  Here are some other amazing teacher blogs you should check out:

Corkboard Connections

Minds in Bloom

Free Technology for Teachers

ScienceFix

TheJoseVilson.com

 

Podcasts – Podcasts are basically online radio shows.  Similar to the way blogs have taken over as sources of news, podcasts take an individualized “niche” approach to the radio show.  Podcasts can be listened to using the Podcast app on an iPhone or iPad and with any variety of free apps on an android device including PodKast and Doube Pod Podcast.  Many podcast authors will also post the podcasts as .mp4 files on their personal websites so that you can listen to them on your computer.  Personally, I listen to podcasts on my phone – through attached speakers – while I cook dinner.  Many people prefer to listen to podcasts during their commutes or as they are prepping next week’s centers or any other time when their hands are busy, but their brains may not necessarily be very busy.  While I don’t have a podcast of my own at this moment, I have a few ideas bouncing around in my head, so this is on the to-do list, but it’ll be awhile before I get there.  In the meantime, here are some awesome teacher podcasts to check out:

Truth for Teachers

Cult of Pedagogy

Technology Matters

Math Dude

The Teacher’s Podcast

Twitter Chats – Real time, live conversations about real, important topics in the field of education today are happening on twitter through twitter chats.  This is what twitter chats are.  Each twitter chat has an assigned day and time – usually once a week for an hour.  The most common times for chats are between 6 and 9 p.m. EST on any school night, but there are actually twitter chats almost 24 hours a day, depending on location.  To participate in a twitter chat, you have to know the hashtag of the twitter chat you want to be involved in. At the designated time, you log into twitter, introduce yourself with the hashtag of the twitter chat and answer the questions put out there by the moderator.  Additionally, you can comment on, retweet and like the answers of the other people participating in the chats.  Beyond being an amazing, quick moving and inspiring, twitter chats give you a chance to meet like minded individuals and follow them on twitter.  (You can find me on twitter @hlraki, btw.) Here are some great twitter chats where you might find me:

#teacherfriends

#teachedchat

#ellchat

#byotchat 

#edtech

 

Pinterest Boards – Besides being a place to gather visual hyperlinks, Pinterest is a place to gather information and organize it.  It’s also a place to check out what everybody else has been checking out.  Personally, I have boards for each standard elementary subject (Math, Reading, Writing, Grammar, Science, Social Studies) and for Technology in the Classroom and iPads in the Classroom.  To these boards I post my own blog posts on these subjects, but also great blog posts written by others, pictures of amazing things I want to try later, websites I want to share with my boys, etc. etc.  Some other great Pinterest boards to check out are:

All Things Technology

A+ Teaching Ideas

**Educational Blogs and Blog Posts**

Classroom Organization

Bulletin Boards

 

YouTube Channels – When I started flipping my classroom two years ago, I scoured YouTube looking for the perfect Math videos to use with my kids.  What I discovered is that many, many teachers and education companies (like TEDed) have their own YouTube channels with amazing videos that teach pretty much anything.  There are amazing ones to help you brush up on your background knowledge – like Crash Course.  There are also amazing YouTube channels to help you learn anything you want to learn about pedagogy, teaching techniques and current trends in education.  I have a very small YouTube channel, which you can access HERE.  I am working on building this channel and am hoping to start a new set of teaching videos SOON!  Some other great YouTube Channels to check out are:

Ted Talks

The RSA

Teaching Tolerance

Chris Biffle (Whole Brain Teaching)

SimpleK12

No matter your preferred modality (words, pictures, audio files, videos) or your current needs, there are tons of resources available to help you build yourself up as a teacher.  We teach our students to be independent learners, but how often do we go out and find the information we need without prompting from above?  (Well, actually if you’re here on my blog reading this, you’re probably part of the percentage who does!)  Take some time to explore these sites and develop your own Professional Development that is geared specifically at your needs.  Also, please feel free to pass these resources onto your colleagues and other teacher friends who might benefit from these resources.

Game Press – Use this iPad App to Create Your Own Video Games

 

Last trimester, my kiddos created their own vocabulary games with my Vocabulary Game Creation Project to work on key math vocabulary.  My oldest son is a major techie and really wanted to create a video game.  I feel that it is super important for young students to be exposed to the basics of coding, so that they are continually realizing that they are in control of the computer and not the other way around.  Learning the basics of coding teaches students:

- trouble shooting skills (which we call critical thinking when applied to a math problem)

- logical thinking (also a math concept)

- cause and effect (literacy and science concept)

- patience and persistence (life skills)

- application and creativity

 

So when he asked to play around with creating a video game, we downloaded an app onto our iPad called Game Press, which he used to create his video games.  The app itself is free, but with the free version, you only have three possible levels to your game.  Each level is quite short, so this makes for very short games.  We chose to upgrade for $1.99 and give him access to unlimited levels.

Within the create mode, students design a background and add characters.

Then, students can assign movements to characters and create simple “if…then” statements in relation to the characters, which will dictate the movement of the characters when someone plays the game.  These “if…then” statements are created by simply drawing lines between two or more behaviors.

At any moment, students can play their own games, giving them a chance to see how their actions will play out in their game.  This try and check process is key to learning how to use any new piece of technology – and is conveniently an important skill in both math and science. 

In today’s society, students need to learn not just how to use technology, but how to be in control of programming new technology.  Apps like Game Press help students begin to understand the concepts of coding without having to use a programming language.  This app would make a great addition to an after school coding class or an enrichment program, but it could also be used in a general education classroom.  Here are a few helpful hints if you plan to use it in your general classroom:

1.)  Model the basics for your students.  Project from your iPad if possible, or simply work on the iPad in front of the students.  This will help students know where to get started when they begin.

2.)  Allow students to work in groups.  This helps make the most of limited resources and allows students with more technology experience to become the “experts” who help the group.

3.)  Give early finishers a chance to use “play around” with Game Press and build their expertise.

4.)  Ask students to create a slide by slide plan for their game before they begin creating.

5.)  Set specific guidelines on what MUST be included in a completed game. 

6.)  Make the first game an ongoing project or a quarter or semester long project, so that students won’t feel rushed and will be encouraged to try new things, even if it means failing the first few times.

How could you use Game Press in your classroom?

New Year Centers Packet

In addition to running this blog, my RVing with the Rakis blog and homeschooling full time, I also create and sell resources that teachers can use in their classrooms and home schooling parents can use to help out their children.  To be fair, I am not creating nearly as many resources this year as I did in the past 9 years, for 2 reasons.  Reason #1 – I already have over 500 resources available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, so much of what I need for my kiddos I have created already.  Reason #2 – I only have 3 students this year, so I have need of less resources.  However, I am going through resources that I made while I was teaching in a classroom full time and “cleaning them up” with clearer teacher directions, better fonts, etc.  I am also finishing out groupings or “series” that I have started and putting them into bundles so that teachers who are interested in buying multiple items from the same category have the opportunity to save some money.  For the next few weeks, I am going to spotlight some of the resources I have available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

The start of a new year is a great time to encourage students to look backwards and look forward.  I used this New Year’s center packet when I taught 1st grade and again with 2nd graders to help them celebrate the new year. 

The packet contains 15 activities split into three groups.  I have my students complete one group – 5 activities for three days.  This is perfect for a three day week, but can really be done anytime in January.

The first group of activities is focused on “Looking Back” at the year that has just finished.  Reflecting on time past is an important skill.  The activities for this group include: the ACK family time machine, the way back numberline, the best part of last year writing prompt, jumping through time and Nadia’s Great Year reading comprehension.

The second group of activities is focused on “Looking Forward” to the year ahead.  This helps get students used to the idea of a new beginning.  The activities for this group include: past/present/future tense, self portrait – what will you look like next year?, new years resolution writing prompt, yearly math problems and Rania’s resolution reading comprehension.

The third group of activities is focused on “Party Time”.  The traditional celebrations for New Year are as important to learn about as the traditional celebrations for any other holiday. The activities for this group include:  ball drop, party words, celebrate writing prompt, party problem solving and New York City New Years reading comprehension.

To use this in your classroom, stop by my Teachers Pay Teachers and download all 15 activities - the entire three day packet  - for just $5.00.

 

 

They Can Do It! Stop Selling Kids Short.

 

Being respectful is my baseline, so I very rarely vent for fear of being disrespectful to a hardworking teaching.  However,today I have something I’d like to vent about because my blood truly boils when I hear teachers sell their students short with statements like these:

- My kids can’t do that.

  - This is too challenging for my students.

  - They’re too young for this responsibility.

  - They’re not going to get this.

 

Kids are amazing.  They can do lots of things that we don’t think they can.  They’re resilient and willing to try out new things, even when we aren’t.  They may need a little bit of support and a little bit of training, but kids can be taught pretty much anything with the right supports. But here’s the thing, kids also believe us when we tell them “You’re too young.”  They listen to us when they say “You’re not ready for this.” or “This is too hard.”  They listen to our words and they listen to our action.  So, as teachers, it’s our job to tell them:

 

- You can do this!

- Let’s think of a way we can solve this problem.

- This problem is difficult, but if you try hard enough, you can solve it.

- Think positively!

 

I have taught Kindergarten students to use Power Point, First Graders to create online posters, Second Graders to blog, Third Graders to e-mail, Fourth Graders to create websites and Fifth Graders to create videos.  I have taught low income students with very little background knowledge to make inferences.  I have taught students with learning disabilities to work through word problems. I have taught spoiled, rich kids to think compassionately about others.  I’ve used a flipped classroom model with students as young as second grade.  Each time I have tackled a new challenge someone said to me “Those kids can’t do that.”, but guess what, that wasn’t true.  My kids did it, and did it well, often better than I thought they would.

 

Now, I’m not saying we can (or should) be teaching Algebra to kindergarteners.  But if a challenge is put in front of our students, I believe that it is our job, as teachers to try and help them meet that challenge.  I also believe that the more we believe in our students, the more they will believe in themselves.  We’ve all heard of the study where half of teachers in a school were told that their average class was a class full of gifted students?  The students whose teachers thought they were gifted did better on test scores, on projects and overall than the other students, even though they started out the same.  Those students weren’t any smarter or any more gifted, they simply had teachers who believed in their abilities.   Teachers who in turn pushed them and let them try out new more challenging things because they had this idea in their head that “These kids can handle this.” and they could.  Kids can do amazing things if we let them.

 

So, when you walk into your classroom tomorrow, tell yourself that “ALL students can learn and succeed – not on the same day or in the same way.”  (quote from William G. Spady)  Then, tell your students that they can succeed and push them to do just that.