My Top Picks For Content Creation iPad Apps

I recently saw a picture that was posted on twitter by George Couros.  I sent it to my principal because it sums up what we have been talking about for weeks about Apps that we are using with the iPads.  Here is the picture: This slide is the inspiration for this blog post.  I personally, have been on a crusade to let my students create rather than spoon feed them content.  I want them to play with the information I give them,...

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Procedural Writing Unit with iPad Integration

Last week we began our Procedural Writing Unit.  We began the unit immersing the students with different procedural books.  Students went on a hunt in our room for procedural texts and they found them in many of the books they had in their book boxes.  We also brainstormed procedural writing topics.  The students came up with so many things to write about! We have done many activities in the past two...

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All About Mo Willems!

This past week we have been learning all about "Mo".  Mo Willems' books have quickly become a favourite choice for my students.  Therefore, I thought the students would love doing an Author Study on Mo.  We began our author study by getting our hands on as many Mo Willems' books as we could.  Luckily, our school library and I had a lot of Mo Willems' books.   Day 1 I began the unit with a review lesson on making text...

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Does Technology = A Great Teacher?

What makes a teacher great?   Is using technology ever been in the definition of a great teacher? Obviously no.  My definition of a great teacher, is a person who inspires their students.  That knows their students' interests and their learning needs.  A great teacher establishes accountably and continually makes sure their students are gaining the knowledge needed.  A great teacher fosters a rich learning climate in their classroom that celebrates successes and mistakes.  I strive to be a great teacher everyday. Has...

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Stop The Excuses, Your Students Could Be Blogging!

I had to share what happened in my class the other day.  I have been really encouraging my students to use the Kidblog App on the iPads for making their learning visible and for increasing the type of content that is on their blogs.  (My students are using their blogs as digital portfolios this year.)  This past week, I had kids wanting to take pictures of the books they wanted at the school book fair and wrote about why they wanted...

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More iPad Math Stations

Due to the overwhelming response to an earlier post on iPad Math Stations.  I have decided to share a couple more stations the students are currently working on. 1. Candy Math Station Do you have left over Halloween candy in your house that you want to get rid of?  Are you tired of sneaking the good treats for yourself, when your children are in bed?  If so, this is the Math Station for you!  I am Canadian, so we had an abundance of Smarties (like M&M's for my American Friends).  I decided to do a sorting and graphing...

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Cultures and Traditions

Today we started talking about traditions, cultures and celebrations.  We would like YOU to connect with us in the month of December! If you would like to participate in this project please sign up here, leave a comment or contact us on Twitter @mrswideen....

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Using iPads During Math Stations

I am continually trying to think of ways to use the iPads in a producing or student creation way, rather than a "lets play a game" kind of way.  I am also trying to be as paperless as possible this year, so using the iPads is a win, win situation.  I share the 20 iPads with another teacher so in all honesty, I only have 10 during math and I usually use 4 with my guided math groups, which leaves me 6 for math stations.  My students...

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Why Blog With 6 And 7 Year Olds?

I wanted to share some great things my students are doing on their kidblogs this year and why I feel so strongly about incorporating blogging into your classrooms.   Blogging is not a new thing in my classroom, I show my students my own blog quite regularly, we look at other grade 1 and 2 blogs, and the students in my class have learned how to leave a quality comment on other blogs.  Here is our anchor chart, "How To Leave A Good Blog Comment."...

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Using Wallwisher to Show New Learning

We have been sharing our learning using wallwisher.com. Instead of using sticky notes and sticking them to a chart I have made.  I put a wallwisher icon on my student's iPads so they can easily get to the site.  You need to create an account first before you begin.  Last week I had students share their learning about spiders using wallwisher. This is how it turned out. Another way we are using Wallwisher is we participated in the Global Read Aloud this year.  Every Thursday 3 classes from British Columbia and my class...

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Using iPads For Our Spider Inquiry

Yesterday we began our spider inquiry.  We have been reading Charlotte's Web for the Global Read Aloud and the students were fascinated about how Charlotte sucks the blood from her victims.... So, our inquiry about spiders was born.  This was a perfect time for this inquiry because we have been talking about how to link reading to non-fiction writing in our school and this project practically fell into our laps! Step 1 - The Wondering...

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Community Read

Last Thursday my class participated in our first Community Read.  I was talking to my good friend Karen Lirenman on google hangout a couple of weeks ago and she was sharing pictures of her first Community Read.  I loved the idea and I asked her if it would be okay if I tried it out in my room.  She said, "of corse."  I immediately wrote up a letter inviting the parents into my classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the morning...

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A Collaborative Personal Narrative Writing Unit

Today we began our Personal Narrative Writing Unit.  I say "we" because our class (from Windsor, Ontario) and Mrs. Soltauheller's class (from British Columbia) are doing the unit together. Mrs. Soltauheller and I worked on the unit and all the details using Google Hangout from our homes after school last week.  We decided that I would teach the first lesson to introduce what a Personal Narrative is and to tell the students that they would...

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Paperless Classroom Part 2 (How to use the Automator App)

If you did not read my first post on "How To Set Up A Primary Paperless Classroom on iPads" here is the Link This post is to show you how to create an automated action that takes one file, creates multiple copies itself and places in multiple folders of your choice. This can only be done on a Mac computer. 1. Create a new folder to sync files from.  This folder will allow the file(s) placed into it to sync to multiple folder at...

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