CE Google Hangout with the AMAZING Josh Funk!

Click the photo below to see the highlight of our day - A Google Hangout with the AMAZING author - Josh Funk!

Eggcellent Learning with Farmers Pa & Mcmillin

Photo source: http://www.adventuresci.org/events/event/eggcellent-science-2/

My two FAVORITE farmers visited CE last Friday! Farmer Pa and Farmer Mcmillin taught our students all about the life cycle of a chicken. Not only that, they have supplied our 1st grade classrooms with eggs that hatched today!

Farmer Pa & Farmer Mcmillin are here-CE 1st Ss learning about chickens @randicheyenne7 #castleberryisd #ceohgo pic.twitter.com/ZBiOKh81wq

— Sallee Clark (@libraryclark) May 13, 2016

1st grade has baby chicks! #ceohgo pic.twitter.com/W9BtSQytPu

— Cheyenne McMillin (@randicheyenne7) May 16, 2016

Students also learned about how a baby chick hatches and the anatomy of a chicken.  Did you know chickens have an egg tooth? Following the lessons with our farmers, students returned to the library to learn about sound waves and sounding boards.  Students created their very own chickens in a cup. We had so much fun with these farmers! Thank you Ms. Mcmillin for including the library in your science lessons!

CE May Library Newsletter

EPIC Author Hangout: Rubin Pingk

 
WOW! I think we just experienced the BEST author Google Hangout EVER!  Mr. Rubin Pingk, author/Illustrator or Samurai Santa, agreed to Google Hangout with us this past Friday.  With over 800 students in attendance online, Mr. Pingk encouraged our students to join him in his recipe for doing anything:

He encouraged our kiddos to follow this recipe in everything they do in life.  Start - start doing, Do it More, Don't give up, keep going, then go back and re-do the bad stuff.  Mr. Pingk also warned us about the enemies lurking to destroy our recipe.  

The enemies to success include: Procrastination, Frustration, becoming Satisfied, and Ego/Pride!  WOW! What great lessons to learn at a young age! Not only that, this goes perfect with our school theme of having a growth mindset.

Want to be encouraged by this brilliant recipe? Check out the Google Hangout below!  He also shares how he made a book, his favorite book, how to draw Yukio, and more!

We also had the chance to ask a few questions.  To manage this across 800 students we used the twitter hashtag #Pingkrocks

#pingkrocks Tweets

We also sent a few questions ahead of time to Mr. Pingk and he created some amazing artwork to answer them :)

Thank you Mr. Pingk for an 

EPIC Google Hangout! 

We LOVE Science!

I was so excited when I heard that Mr. Allan Small was visiting CE last week!  Mr. Small is an amazing science teacher.  He offers students the ability to have fun learning through hands on experiments.  I of course begged 3rd grade to please come to the library when hosting this science experiment!

Mr. Small presented the students with crayfish!  Many of the students have never seen or touched a crayfish.  The sounds in the room went from eww to aww to wow to oh cool!  First they began by examining the body and locating three main body parts taught by Mr. Small.  Once the parts were located, the students then learned about the different ways crayfish adapt to their surrounds.

After learning about how they adapt, the students were able to compare the crayfish to a giant water beetle.  They compared and contrasted the bodies and discussed the different adaptations of the giant water beetle.

Then it was time for the grand finale! DISSECTION!
The kids loved it!  They were able to view the inside of the crayfish and see the different sections of its exoskeleton!

Check out the videos below:

Wow! @TheFort_FW you are the BEST Scientist EVER!! Thank you for sharing this with our Ss #castleberryisd #ceohgo pic.twitter.com/lIk4yUxMyx

— Sallee Clark (@libraryclark) March 31, 2016

You Rock @FontenotMathCE Amazing science experiment! Tks for experimenting in the library! #castleberryisd #ceohgo pic.twitter.com/zSaWvgUzIn

— Sallee Clark (@libraryclark) March 31, 2016

Library Collaboration Project: Interactive Solar System

The 3rd Grade teachers and students at Castleberry Elementary School are Amazing!  Thank you so much for allowing me to collaborate with you and for taking a chance on coding!  The result is authentic learning with collaboration, making, and technology!

Throughout this collaboration project our students created Interactive Solar System Displays!

The students:
*Researched information on each planet in our solar system
*Collaborated and created solar system displays
*Collaborated and shared their research by coding within Scratch.mit.edu

As each planet is touched their research information is shared on the screen!
Scan the QR codes below for a few examples.  Links are below as well :)

YouTube Examples:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Press Green flag to begin - Red stop sign to stop

Directions below each 

Press the Green Flag
Keys to press:
Space Bar
Right Arrow
Left Arrow
Down Arrow
Up Arrow





Press the Green Flag
Keys to press:
Space Bar
Right Arrow
Left Arrow
Down Arrow
Up Arrow

More Scratch.mit.edu Examples

Collaboration Friday: Valentine Story Problems!

What do you do with a million Valentine hearts that you Do Not Want To Eat?
Create story problems, of course!

Check out these awesome math skill videos using grouping & multiplication/repeated addition story problems.

Grouping:








Multiplication/Repeated Addition story problem

Who Framed Mrs. Lamb?

Last year students used video clues to infer who ate the gingerbread cookies.  This was a huge hit with our kiddos!  They used QR codes to see each video and were totally surprised by the outcome!  Check out the clues below.

This year we wanted to see if they could use those amazing inference skills to see who Framed Mrs. Lamb!!  We read the story The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School and reviewed the video from last year.  The students then read the new evidence and worked together to infer who the real culprit is at CE. 

Who Framed Mrs. Lamb Clues

I confess! #ceohgo #CE_ArtLions pic.twitter.com/A2Ag1A88yX

— Michael Jenkins (@MichaelJenkinsm) January 28, 2016

CE Library Winter Wonderland

CE Library Winter Wonderland

The week before winter break, the CE library hosts a week of maker activities that we like to call Winter Wonderland! It is my favorite week of the year! This year we had two activities that we educational and fun! The students were engaged and excited about the challenges.  

Challenge 1:

Students were challenged to create new antlers for the Grinch's dog, Max.  They were then asked to persuade the Grinch to choose their antlers.

Challenge 2:
We read the book The Biggest Christmas Tree Ever! Each group of students were given 35 small drinking cups and we challenged them to build the Biggest Christmas Tree Ever! Throughout the building time, we measured each tree and posted the tallest height on the board for students to work toward passing.  The winners created a talking Christmas Tree stating their height using ChatterPix.

Biggest Christmas Tree Ever Playlist:

I Wonder...Box

Wow! I wonder what all this amazing app can do!

I absolutely love the Wonderbox app by Duck Duck Moose.  No surprise here, that the makers of Chatterpix would create such an all inclusive, creative app.  Wonderbox has the capability to be a student portfolio, offers high level blooms activity creation, collaboration, and creative prompts as well.

Mrs. Helgen and I have been utilizing this tool for the past few weeks and cannot see how we survived before.  It seamlessly integrates into our 2nd grade classroom and the creation opportunities are limitless.  We use it daily and in every subject!


I wanted to share a few of the lessons we have created and found within the app.

Math:
We began by challenging the students to video themselves  counting out money. Sending it to a friend for them to check.

In the second math lesson we had the students video themselves stating the amount of money on the picture.  They then sent it to 2 friends.  Their friends were to respond with a picture of the same amount of money using different coins.

Students created word problems using a specific equation and sent them to their friends as an assignment.  The students did the assignment and solved the problem sending it back to the creator to check for accuracy.

Example of one that was answered by another student.

Language Arts:
Students have been studying onomatopoeia examples in Robert Munsch books.  We asked them to write out two sentences using onomatopoeia and read the examples.

Science:
Students have been studying inference and seasons.  They used different clues to prove what season it was.  They then recorded themselves explaining their clues for their season.  The next day they wrote a season riddle for their friends to solve.

The edu version of this app will be out soon! Be sure to add this app to your TO GET list!!

Collaboration Friday: We are Makers! Save the Carrots!

Collaboration Friday groups had to solve a huge problem!  Jasper rabbit keeps eating all the carrots in our garden.  How can we keep the rabbit out? How can we keep the rabbit from eating all of the carrots? After reading Creepy Carrots, students devised defense plans utilizing the materials they were given, for our garden owner to implement. Check out some of their awesome solutions.

Their solutions included: an electric fence, spy cameras, paper-wad shooters, traps, and more. Below one of our students explains her creation to keep the rabbits out of the garden.  

Students also worked with many different materials to build their prototypes.  They combined tape, popsicle sticks, straws, foil, beads, and more to design their solutions.  They discovered that combining different materials helped to create the needed materials for protection. The student below explains why he combined materials below.

Collaboration Friday: What Makes a Good Citizen

What is a citizen? What makes a good citizen? Why should we be good citizens?

These were all questions we had about how we operate in a school and community after we read

Click, Clack, Moo!

In this fun story the cows, hens, and ducks, demand precious materials from the farmer.  This story helped us ask, what should a good cow do? What should a good hen do? what should a good duck do? When we don't operate well together, things fall apart, like they did in this story. 

So, what does a good citizen do? We decided to interview some peers, teachers, and, administrators at our school to see what they think makes a good citizen. 

Science in the CE Library

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August 2015 Library Newsletter

Makerspaces

What is a Makerspace? A place to tinker? Create? Play?

The Makerspace movement is beginning to take over the library world.  I've heard terms like Fablab, Innovation Lab, & Makerspace.  Upon my first glimpse of a Makerspace, about 3 years ago, it looked like it was a place where materials were provided for students to explore and create. Sounds appealing, but what does that really look like? And how does it fit into a school library?

Through exploring these questions, I have found that many of us have been using Makerspaces, and the idea of Makerspaces, just not the terminology.  A Makerspace is simply a space where materials are provided for students to manipulate to create solutions.  Not mindless creation, but facilitated by directed objectives and problems to be solved.  The model I liked best was utilizing Problem Based Learning (PBL) by providing students the materials necessary to solve the problems found.  This type of environment encourages students to learn through exploration and failure.  They create, explore, manipulate, and have optimism to complete tasks.  The benefit of Problem Based Learning is that students are challenged to see problems and create solutions.  This type of facilitation truly pushes our students to operate at the highest level of Blooms!  Many of us already do this in our classrooms, computer labs, and in the library.  We just have not been using the same terminology. I think that utilizing a Makerspace will encourage us as teachers to become facilitators of our students learning more than the givers of information.

Check out this video regarding PBL

In this video they point out 5 keys to rigorous Project Based Learning.  

1. Real World Connection

2. Core to learning

3. Structured collaboration

4. Student driven

5. Multifaceted assessment

Some of the main points I find most helpful and interesting were that our students will begin to identify and seek out authentic problems in our world. They will use all areas of academics to solve these problems.  This approach is more like the real world we, as teachers, are preparing them to work and succeed in. Students become - more engaged, self directed, think deeply, collaborate with one another, and problem solve.

As teachers, we become facilitators who ask good questions, give hints not answers, and scaffold the problem based learning.  We can encourage and lead our students to think critically regarding real world situations while teaching the TEKS.  It is truly a model of learning that students thrive on and internalize the concepts being taught. 

Here is another video that helped me in discovering the benefit and purpose of a Makerspace.

A few of my favorite talking points are:

*Our students are operating in a 2D world and are missing the 3D inventiveness our world requires.  

*Three aspects to a Makerspace 1people 2PBL 3Space

*Makerspaces encourage a growth mindset by encouraging a persistent tinkering mentality

*A mentality of unshakable optimism, unlimited opportunity, &never ending satisfaction

*Problem based learning encourages our students to be personally motivated-discovering their problems and finding ways to solve their own problems

Some of the values this video states that makers live by are:

*Embrace Ambiguity

*Don't know the answers

*Learn from failures

*Optimism

*Take ownership

I also enjoyed hearing about their initial impact:

*Students like all of the different outcomes that their projects resulted in

*Students are learning what they want (while also learning what we want them to learn, but with a personal interest) 

So what does all of this mean for our Library? 

I think it means we provide materials, a space, and collaboration between teachers and the librarian to create a Problem Based Learning experience extending the TEKS the teachers are currently covering in their classrooms.  

How? Well, I think we are already headed in the right direction!  We currently collaborate to create collaboration Fridays, so now we look at ways to raise the rigor through offering PBL in connection to the TEKS being presented each week in class.  (on a side note, PBL should cover all subject areas or STEAM) 

I am looking forward to integrating this form of facilitation and questioning into our library and school!

Don't miss a preview coming at the end of the month!  Makerspace Collaboration Week!

Collaboration: How To Blow a Bubble

How many times have we told our students to follow directions? What does that mean to first graders? Can they follow written directions or even write their own? In working on these TEKS, I think our students discovered how to truly follow and write their own "how to" directions.

We began by asking our students to write directions for "how to blow a bubble".  Thank you Ms. Mcmillin for the great graphic organizer!  

Following this activity we then had the teacher try to follow the student's directions. This was so much fun and very eye opening!  The students realized that you can't chew gum without taking it out of the wrapper first. After trying out their directions on their teacher, the students made revisions to their directions.  Many of the students noticed that they needed to give examples of how to flatten the gum and blow the bubble.  My favorite example was " you flatten the gum like a tortilla". 

After making revisions, we then gave each student a piece of bubble gum and they had to follow their own directions on "how to blow a bubble".  Students continued to make revisions to their directions. 

Using the app Write About This 

Students wrote "How To Blow A Bubble"!  This app allows you to insert your own photos and writing prompts.  We created a quick write, took pictures of our students with a bubble, and they wrote "How to Blow A Bubble".   A few classes, that had time, recorded themselves reading their how to's within the app as well!  

                                     

This was a great writing activity that worked on revision and thoughtful writing.  The students wrote about their knowledge, applied their knowledge,& analyzed their knowledge and writing. Through this activity the students evaluated their work by seeing their teacher try it out and then trying it themselves.  To take this lesson a step further we could have had them swap directions and record each other trying to follow their friends directions.  Do you have any suggestions on how to make this activity reach a higher level of blooms?

Following this activity, Ms. Noles, has used Write About This app with her class in Science. Check out her SQL bulletin board.  Each QR code takes you to a Write About This creation regarding the life cycle of a frog. 

Retrieving your IPAD Creations

I have had the honor of seeing many fabulous CE high level-tech infused lessons!  The teachers here do a great job at developing, creating, and implementing the ISTE standards.

How many of you have implemented a tech infused lesson, created video projects within an app, and don't have time or know how to retrieve these materials from your device?

Well have no fear, Mrs. Parks is here!!

Mrs. Parks found a simple & effective way to remove creations from your IPADS using Reflector!

It's simple. 

1. Reflect your device onto your desktop.

2. Open the app on the ipad and get the video you would like to transfer onto the screen.

3. Right click your video, click record screen.

4. Click play on your creation.

5. After it is finished playing, click stop.

6. Now it will automatically prompt you to save your recording.  

(Tip: Ms. Parks has a quick link to her dropbox on her desktop, which allowed her to save her students creations straight to her dropbox! Genius!)

If you need any help or need me to demonstrate this easy way to transfer videos, let me know and I would love to drop by and help you out. 

Do you have a cool tech-tip you would like to share?

CE Library Schedule

Collaboration Friday: New Animal Species

Tadpole, legs, arms, frog, what???

Life cycles can be confusing and weird. This topic can also stay on a remembering, understanding, or application level of Blooms when taught.  When trying to have our 1st grade students truly create, (not just create to remember or apply) we thought it would be a good idea to challenge our students to create their own animal.  After their animal was created we then challenged them to create their own life cycle for this animal.  We were hoping that students would have to analyze the animal to see how they would change in each step of the lifecycle.

We utilized the same concept of creating an animal with Kindergarten and 2nd graders to learn that animals have needs.  Students were asked to create an animal and then analyze their animals needs.  We used both Switch Zoo and Chatterpix for the students to create and present their animals. We also challenged the students to justify why their animal had needs.  Students collaborated to determine the new animals habitat, food, temperature, and additional needs. Justifying their animals needs was a difficult concept that many students did not naturally complete or verbally explain. 




For greater understanding it would be good to have the students evaluate each others creations, looking to see if the animals needs were justified in the chatterpix.

What are your thoughts on raising this lesson to a higher Blooms level?

Collaboration Project: If Martin Luther King Jr. had Instagram

What do you think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would say if he had Instagram?

We began our collaboration lesson with a BrainPop video regarding Civil Rights.  We discussed the issues and problems with not treating each other with respect/treating people the way we would want to be treated.

Following the video we read the book Martin's Big Words and discussed what Big Words we think he would share with us today.

Students at CE paired up with buddy classes (k-2 classes paired with 3-5 classes) and created Instagram posts as if they were Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. : A Selfie as Martin Luther King Jr.