Connect to the Olympics Online

It’s time for the Olympics! How will you stay connected?  The following blog post was created with Olympic Resources for students and teachers.  They are in 3 categories. The first are links to the current Sochi Winter Olympics, the first 2 sites are geared for younger kids to be able to read.  The second is a history of the Olympics (great for those studying timelines) and the last are some teacher resources. 

http://techhintz.blogspot.com/2014/02/olympic-resources-for-kids-and-teachers.html

Here’s how some Gattis Teachers are using them: Second Grade teacher Ms. Zahm is using the Time for Kids link for morning work with her class which has lots of current event snapshots about the Olympics.  Third Grade teacher Mrs. Tilger is using the Enchanted Learning which has facts of the current Olympics, history of the Olympics and loads of Olympic facts. It even has a list of where EVERY Olympic has been held since 1896.  Mrs. Dawson’s 3rd grade class explored a few of the sites listed, they especially liked Time for Kids for the articles and some of the printables available.  Which site do you like best?  Do you have a new one to share? 

Art Virtual Field Trip to Netherlands

Students in Ms. LePlaPlattenier's Art class had a chance to connect via Skype with a  curator in the Netherlands who explained the life and works of Vincent Van Gogh in addition to using her screen as a guide to show them around her town specifically the Vincent Van Gogh Museum. She also used Google Earth to help them orient themselves. 

Research to Multimedia

As part of her 3rd grade curriculum, Mrs. Dawson's class researched different animals then explored different multimedia features of presenting in PowerPoint. They worked in the computer lab Thursday to finish their presentations and a few proud students shared theirs here. Check them out at Coyotes and Snakes.

Grade 1 Graphs as a Class

As part of stretching Digital Learning Day into a Digital Learning Week, Miss Drews first grade class did some digital graphing as a class.  Great class activity that got all the students involved, the students were engaged and learned at the same time!   She didn't have a whiteboard or any fancy tools, a one computer classroom with a projector.  Kids loved it.  Try it in your classroom!

• Interactive Graphs http://goo.gl/8ROyz 

Happy Digital Learning Day!

Happy Digital Learning Day!  Many classes here at Gattis took on the challenge of doing a lesson or activity digitally.  Here are just some examples of what was happening around the school!  Ms. Carlson’s 2^nd Grade class did digital Poetry at ReadWriteThink Shape Poem Generator, here are a few images of poems from her class. 

Many 4^th Grade classes worked on Think Through Math in their classrooms on netbooks.  Mrs. Dawson’s 3^rd Grade class used Animal Research to build PowerPoint presentations.  Mrs. Tilger’s 3^rd Grade class used this interactive clock on their Promethean Board in their classroom (see the image below).  

100th Day Age 100 Years

To celebrate the 100th day of school, Mr. Marcano's 2nd Grade class aged 100 years using an application called AgingBooth. Check out their photos on his website at http://goo.gl/vk1pab