Cahokia Mounds

By the fourth week of school, our fifth graders have been on two (yes, TWO) field trips! Wow. The Ropes Course was scheduled in desperation...there were only a few slots available and the second week of school was the best fit for us! And it worked! :)

Cahokia Mounds was intentionally scheduled before we even dipped our toes into the curriculum. Why? Well, sometimes field trips can be boring if you go into it knowing all the information. Going before the unit allowed students to be more engaged and having the iPad Minis really helped, too!

Before going on the field trip, we have explored a really great Essential Question (EQ): What makes a community? This has been the question of our first quarter and it ties in really well with our first Social Studies unit of Native Americans. So to make the field trip experience a valuable one, we decided to have students take pictures of things that answered the EQ. Students truly were taking pictures and I'm sure that many people thought that we had brought 75 students studying to be the next generation paparazzi. When they returned to school, students were asked to make a collage with the pictures (using the Pic Collage app) they had taken that best answered the EQ.

Here is some of their work:

Do you notice a common string of pictures? :)

Now that we've seen what we are going to study, the students are able to draw from this valuable experience to help them navigate the information they will encounter about Cahokia.

Last week, students started learning about the history of Cahokia and were able to do so using the iPad Mini and the Google Drive app. Here is the Cahokia - History document that students saw and then responded to: Cahokia - History Google Doc

Students then picked an item that was important to the history of Cahokia and made a visual representation. Students, however, were not allowed to write anything down (no pens, pencils, markers, crayons, etc...), not allowed to use scissors, and had to use whatever was available to them in the classroom. Take a look at how creativity came into play!

Can you figure out what each display means and how it ties in with the history of Cahokia? (It might help to look at the Google doc and see what was mentioned by the students!)

I can't wait to see what students do create with the other disciplines of social studies!

We are 1:1!

WE ARE 1:1 WITH IPAD MINIS!

We have been for almost a week now and it has already revolutionized our teaching! Students at first needed to follow an intense instructional session before actually using them, but we survived some of the issues that occurred with a great learning mentality!

The students and I have already learned to create and curate a presentation on animal adaptations on the iPad using the Keynote app. We are also learning how to collaborate with one another as we use the Google drive and other apps, generating a culture of enthusiastic learning in Room 204!

 Students using the iPad to write about reading using a Google doc.

Students taking notes on the Notes app while watching a science video and presenting their animal adaptations Keynote.

So, families of Room 204, before students can bring home their iPads, they need: 1) You to sign the iPad User Agreement & 2) Students must answer the questions in a comment to Mrs. Sisul's blog after watching the digital citizenship video! If you're just a visitor to my blog, please feel free to read our principal's blog about how our district got started with the 1:1 iPad scout! I'd also love some feedback about how you use technology in your classroom!

KidBlogs

For a couple of years now, I've been journaling with my students. They received their own journal for the quarter and we would write back and forth about their weeks (I only have time to read and respond once a week, if that!) and more importantly, their academic learning. However, as things get busy at curriculum and professional development and meetings and assessments and benchmarks and you get the idea...it was definitely hard to keep up with it. But I did it and oftentimes received entries that were mediocre. Most of the students would talk about their plans for the weekend or what they did on the weekends and I wanted more meat. I wanted to learn what they were learning and what they thought of it. I wanted to be able to read it on the spot and respond to their entries as soon as possible!

I had entertained the thought of students blogging when I was a teacher in Chicago, but we didn't have the resources to start it at school nor did the students have access to a computer or wifi at home. So I completely forgot about my dream of students blogging.

But, lo and behold! My colleague/teammate/mentor/friend had blogged with her students from last year and was blogging with this year's students! I had to jump on board right away! And I have the resources at school now with a choice of using laptops or even the iPads! Wow!

So, how did we start? Well in December, students first had to learn about blogging, commenting, and internet safety! So we an open conversation about what a blog is and what it means to comment on someone's blog. In retrospect, I wish we made anchor charts that looked a little like this (via ipadsatburley.blogspot.com):

 

But that's okay! Now I know what I want to do next time around!

After all the discussions of what a blog is and how a blog represents who you are, students went and made a paper copy of a blog. Once decor was finished and they "posted" a new post, students commented on each other's blog on post-it notes! What a great experience to get accustomed to the idea of blogging (props to Jen Bearden, that wonderful colleague I mentioned before for that idea)!

Now unfortunately, we haven't been blogging as much as we would like (hm, that sounds familiar from a personal stance), but we look forward to blogging more once we go 1:1 with iPads tomorrow! Now we can have immediate learning posts and have more meaningful conversations online!

So, please check out our KidBlog and leave us comments as we continue our endeavor of learning!