Let students explore! Give the time to play with it and come up with their own codes.
Let students be the teacher! Let the students learn own their own and teach YOU!
Encourage failure! Let students know that this classroom is a safe environment for them to try, fail, and try again!
Coding and robotics is NOT only for science!!!
Coding with Bee Bots:
Math:
Adding & Subtracting: have the students roll two dice, add or subtract, code the bot to go to the sum.
Mapping: code locational coordinaates to navigate a map.
Even & odd numbers: have students roll the die, if they get an even number they code the bot to go up the ladder, if they get an odd number they code the bot to go down the ladder.
Colors & Shapes: code the bot to go to certain colors and/or shapes.
Literacy:
Spelling words: one student draws a card and the other spells the word on the card using the bot to move from letter to letter.
Short stories: prepared drawings on the board and have students tell the key events from the story using the bee bot.
Retell: have students to use the bee bot to retell events from a story
Letters and Sounds: have students to identify letters and sounds useing the bee bot.
Have you walked into a classroom lately? Bright colors everywhere you look, posters filling the spaces on every wall, brightly lit LED lighting, loud noises coming from every direction, and stacks and stack of books, movies, papers, crafting tools, and toys piling high in every corner. It can be quite over stimulating for even a grown adult such as myself. Just imagine this same situation for a child that already has difficulty paying attention for more than ten minutes at a time. What a nightmare!
Now, just to be clear, bright colors and posters on walls is not inherently bad. However, many modern classrooms have become much less sensory friendly in the past decade.
Many people are disinformaed about our senses, as I learned from the presentation, we do not just have five senses! We also have vestibular and proprioceptive senses. Vestiubular senses focus on the position of the body and its movement. For example, feelings of balance and movement. You may not like fast roller coasters or sitting in the back seat of your aunty's minivan while she drives quickly down a curvy road. Propriopceptive senses process information through contraction and stretching of our muscles and by bending, straightening, pulling, or compressing joint between bones. For example, when you're stretching in your hot yoga class or hanging from the pull up bar at the gym, these movements help to refocus your attention.
Solution Ideas:
Provide students with frequent opportunities to move!
Provide a variety of space for individual and group activites
Provide with opporutnity to choose between a variety of activities, both physical and mental.
Natual lighting instead of LED lighting
Flexible seating options
Opportunity for active and unstructured play
Orton- Gillingham
Created by Samuel Torrey Orton and Anna Gillingham. They brought listening, speaking, reading, and writing together so that students would have the optimal help needed to enhance their learning for all of the language skills. This approach is an action-based learning.
Resources:
Orton Gillingham Online Academy
Making Teaching Fun
ABC Magic Phonics
Starfall
Reading Eggs
Special Words
Montessori Education
Maria Montessori developed specialized mareials after she realized that children understand complex concepts better if all of their senses are engaged. She also realized that the role of the teacher should be to facilitate student learning and not dominate student learning. She focused on the wholechild with the goal of developing responsible adults. Components of Montessori education should include freedom and autonomy of the child, structure and order should be cale and chaos free, reality and nature should be included regularly.
This amazing instructional platform provides a space for teachers and students to engage and participate in formative assessment and dynamic media so that they are able to learn and build new experiences together. This platform enables and enhances student participation while promoting 21st century skills and creating digital citizens. Teachers have the option to choose between a variety of pre-created lessons of all subjects and age ranges or they may create their own lessons and fun activities. There are many different games, vitual field trips, discussion tools, and quiz tools available to be inserted into a lessons. The teacher may also download a presentation they have created from Goolge Docs or Google Slides into their Nearpod lesson. Once they have picked the lesson or created their own lesson, their students may access it from any of their own devices using a code given to them upon starting the lesson. They may interact with the lesson, with the teacher, and with each other in real time throughout the lesson. They can participate in games together, write on virtual sticky notes and post them on virtual boards, go on virtual field trips, and take quizes created by the teacher in real time. All answers and progress are recorded for the use of assessment by the teacher.
Nearpod Categories:
Nearpod DCL: Digital Citizenship & Literacy
Nearpod CCE: College & Career Exploration
Nearpod EL: English Learners
Nearpod LL: Learning Lab
Nearpod HPL: Historical Perspective & Literacy
Nearpod SEL: Social & Emotional Learning
Cost:
Silver (Free) - Includes sessions sizes up to 40, storage space up to 50 MB, lesson size up to 20MB, and basic features.
Gold ($120/year) - Includes session sizes up to 50, storage space up to 3GB, lesson size up to 50 MB, and advanced features.
Platinum (349/year) - Includes session size up to 75, storage space up tp 5 GB, leasson size up to 50 MB, premium features.
School & District (Contact Nearpod 1-855-NEARPOD) - Includes session size up tp 200, storage space up to 20 GB, lesson size up tp 80 MB, and all features.
Higher education (Contact Nearpod 1-855-NEARPOD) - Includes session size up to 250, staorage space up to 25GB, lesson size up to 100 MB, all features.
My Nearpods https://share.nearpod.com/afjqf84cQ0 https://share.nearpod.com/LjA1EUsk30 https://share.nearpod.com/30vKWNSGH0
The Ugly Duckling
Written by Hans Christian Andersen
Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
Published by Marrow Junior Books on March 24th, 1999
Genre: Traditional Literature
Number of Pages: 40
Overview
This classic and unforgetable survival story of a brave and awkward little duckling marching through a cold and harsh winter full of many unwanted and unexpected experiences continues to have a place in many people's hearts. It is a reminder to us all of the patience and perserverence it takes to discover tru happiness in life. The beautiful watercolor illustrations perfectly depict the countryside and help to really bring every aspect of the book to life.
Grade level: K-3 Content Level: Science, Literature, Reading Student connection: Not only is this a wonderful book to teach meaningful life lessons and hardships, this is also a great book to talk about habbitats and environments, as well as, the life cycle and habitat of a young duckling such as the main character. This would be great for gited students in younger grades or for students falling behind in older grades who need a little bit more of a push to understand and connect real life application to concepts that are being taught and introduced.
A Wrinkle In Time
Written by Madeleine L'Engle
Published by Square Fish; Reprint edition (May 1, 2007)
Genre: Science Fiction
Number of pages: 256
Overveiw
The arrival of a disturbing stranger in the middle of the night is a shock to Meg Murry and her family. This is the beginning of an exciting and crazy adventure to find her father, who is a scientist who dissapeared while working on a secret project. This story perfectly dipicts Meg's unusual adventures throughout space and time.
Grade Level: 3-8 Contant Area: Language Arts, Science Student Connection: This book is a wonderful book for gifted students who need a bit a more challenging read. This would be a great discussion book and class read, as well.
The Magic Tree House Book Series
Written by Mary Pope Osborne
Illustrated by Sal Murdocca
Published by Random House Books for Young Readers; Slp edition (May 29, 2001)
Genre: Science Fiction
Number of pages: 96
Overveiw
In the exciting and adventurous books, Jack and Annie are regular kids who stumble upon a magical tree house in the woods. Jack and Annie are whisked back in time to all different eras and places around the world. Ever new visit to the tree house is a new and adventurous learning experience for Jack , Annie, and any student who reads the wonderful book.
The illustrations, by Sal Murdocca, on the cover and throughout the books, dipict the adventurous tales beautifully. Students will be captivated by the pictures and their connection to the wonderfully adventurous tales.
Grade Level: 2-4 Contant Area: Language Arts, Social Studies, Science Student Connection: These books would be great for challenging gifted students and a great way to incorporate other cultural aspects into the classroom and lessons.
Here is a Digital Portfolio I made for my 21st Century Teaching and Learning class. This presentation has many great resources for how to integrate the arts into the Early Childhood curriculum. Enjoy!
DIY Integrated Arts Crafts Creative Movement Cube
This was super easy and cheap to make.
Supplies:
Styrofoam cube
Cardstock
Scissors
Hot glue
I personally made each of the activities in a word document. I just typed the activity and inserted clipart underneath it. Once it was all printed out, I laminated it and cut it out, then hot glued each one onto the sides of the cube.
Classroom Use:
You can use this as a fun and interactive activity for creative movement. Have students roll the cube like a dice and do the activity it lands on.
Supplies:
Felt
Scissors
Marker
Hot glue
Googly Eyes (optional)
I printed out the template from the website below and used it to cut out each piece of the puppets. Then, I hot glued them together and drew the mouths or noses on and added googly eyes! Super simple and cute!
Classroom Use:
These can be used for so many different things!
They can enhance storytelling time or read aloud time.
Originally, I started to make the road letters myself but ended up printing out the road letters that were already made on the website below. However, if you want to make them yourself, I'll list the supplies below.
Supplies:
Cardstock
Black or grey construction paper
White or yellow marker or paint
Cut each letter from construction paper and glue them onto white cardstock. Add white or yellow road lines to each letter. Laminate each one (optional).
Classroom Use:
Have students use hot wheels cars or their finger to trace over each letter. This is great to help them learn their letters and can even be used with numbers and punctuation, as well. https://www.giftofcuriosity.com/product/road-letters/
