A Blog https://barbinnebraska.com by a Catholic School Teacher Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:38:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 School and House UpdateBoo https://barbinnebraska.com/school-and-house-updateboo/ https://barbinnebraska.com/school-and-house-updateboo/#respond Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:38:35 +0000 http://barbinnebraska.posterous.com/school-and-house-updateboo Media_httpaudioboofmb_qfbvi

]]> https://barbinnebraska.com/school-and-house-updateboo/feed/ 0 Back to School Update https://barbinnebraska.com/back-to-school-update/ https://barbinnebraska.com/back-to-school-update/#respond Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:02:06 +0000 http://barbinnebraska.posterous.com/back-to-school-update Media_httpaudioboofmb_ozbei

]]> https://barbinnebraska.com/back-to-school-update/feed/ 0 My Students in the Year 2020 https://barbinnebraska.com/my-students-in-the-year-2020/ https://barbinnebraska.com/my-students-in-the-year-2020/#comments Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:21:00 +0000 http://barbinnebraska.posterous.com/my-students-in-the-year-2020 At yesterday’s faculty meeting, my principal posted a question to us.

“What should today’s 3rd graders look like in the year 2020?”

This would be the year of their high school graduation. Since I teach 3rd grade, this question really made me take notice. The students I’m teaching now will be 18 in the year 2020. 

So, of course with me being the ‘Techie-Geek’ teacher in my school, I piped up with my stock answer. “I’d like my students to be able to use technology to create, collaborate and communicate.” This isn’t an original answer. My Twitter friend Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) I believe has blogged about this at his blog or perhaps I heard it in one of his podcasts, Moving at the Speed of Creativity

My stock answer even made it to the White House’s blog when they asked a similar question. They asked for tweets back in March of 2010 to answer the question, “What a 21st Century Education Means to You” Here is my answer on the White House blog/ I bet they received plenty of tweets, but I secretly believe they picked mine because my avatar is so cute!

Back to the original question, I also hope that my students will be confident in their faith with a love for Jesus. That they would be knowledgeable about the Catholic Church and practicing Catholics. 

What would you like to see with the graduates of 2020?

]]> https://barbinnebraska.com/my-students-in-the-year-2020/feed/ 2 The Art of Recording with Third Graders https://barbinnebraska.com/the-art-of-recording-with-third-graders/ https://barbinnebraska.com/the-art-of-recording-with-third-graders/#comments Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:04:00 +0000 http://barbinnebraska.posterous.com/the-art-of-recording-with-third-graders We had a great first day of school! It’s such an exciting time of year. I love the sights of all their bright shiny faces, their brand new tennis shoes, and the smells of a brand new box of crayons. Today Room 113 also began their recording careers on our wiki. 

I chose a relatively simple project to ease all 31 students into the world of global sharing on our wiki. I decided we would record my students praying. We prayed the Hail Mary. This prayer was said especially for a mom in our school family who is very ill. Many of my students have already been praying for this mom so it was very heartfelt. 

The heartfelt version was Take 1. I use GarageBand to record my students and use a USB microphone from Logitech. They did a great job but it was very quiet. I showed them the sound waves that the recording made. They noticed the correlation between the quiet sounds and smaller waves. 

The second take was much louder and some students speed up the words. That didn’t work. They were quite impressed with the tall jumps the sound waves made on this version.  Take 3 had giggles in it because some students were still speeding up. 

Finally, Take 4 was good enough. I really wanted to get this recording up on our wiki today! I do give a hand signal to all the students to begin and on this version I used my hand like a conductor would. That seemed to help. 

Take a listen to Room 113 praying the Hail Mary. 

http://room113-smm.wikispaces.com/

 

 

 

]]> https://barbinnebraska.com/the-art-of-recording-with-third-graders/feed/ 3 Feelin’ Groovy! https://barbinnebraska.com/feelin-groovy-0/ https://barbinnebraska.com/feelin-groovy-0/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:26:00 +0000 http://barbinnebraska.posterous.com/feelin-groovy-0
Podstockvan2010

I’m back from an amazing conference called Podstock. Podstock was July 16th and 17th in Wichita, Kansas. This conference is like no other ed tech conference. It’s described on their materials as a conference, a conversation and family. That sure sums it up!??

I’ve heard about the big educational technology conference, ISTE. This June it was in Denver and 18,000 educators were in attendance. I didn’t feel I was ready for such a big conference and felt I’d be lost in their sessions. It’s hard to know what sessions are valuable for me when there is so much to choose from. I felt this way when I went to NCEA in Minneapolis in April. There was so much to choose from and so hard to tell from the paragraph description what would be a benefit for me as a classroom teacher.??

Podstock was different. There were 102 attendees of people Just. Like. Me! People who are geeky and techy and enjoy sharing, learning and growing. People who are passionate about what they do in their classroom. People who like to try the latest gadgets and tools. People who are just plain fun!

My husband drove my friend Lori and me down to Wichita. While we were at the conferences he worked on some lessons for his new school year and visited their art museum and botanical garden. He enjoyed his time in Wichita too.??

Podstock started out with the presenters giving a 30 second description of ‘why I should attend their session’ pitch. This was a perfect way to kick off the conference. It was homey and fun. Shout outs were given for attendees from far and wide. Podstock is sponsored by ESSDACK which stands for Educational Services and Staff Development Association of Central Kansas, so many of the attendees were from Kansas. But there were people from Texas, Arkansas, New York, and even Oregon!??

I picked up many tools that I plan on using right away http://www.tagxedo.com/ is one of them. One teacher shared that she used this for Mother’s Day and her students typed in words to describe their mom and put it in a heart shape. This would be a perfect gift for my 3rd graders to give their moms!??

The cool part of this conference is that everyone had their laptop. One session used another favorite tool, Wallwisher.??http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/podstock As the presenter shared what apps they liked for their iPod and iPad, we typed on the Wallwisher what apps we liked. I found that a perfect way to share. I had the name of the app to look up later, there was no need for repeats or the question, ‘how do you spell that?’

I also enjoyed the closing speech. The presenter set up a Google Doc for us all to share our thoughts. It was so cool! I’ve heard about back channelling which can be described as a digital way to pass notes. But this was even better. Some people were typing in the notes from the presentation. Some were adding reflections. And some were even commenting and changing the colors of the type! Here is the link to the Google Doc.??http://is.gd/dyR5b

But the best part of this whole conference was being able to meet, face to face, the people who are my Twitter and Plurk friends. People who are in my PLN (Personal Learning Network) These people have shared ideas with me and commented on my ideas. They have helped me with my wiki by encouraging me and sharing their projects.??

I was even able to set up a new project for the upcoming school year. Mary, who teaches music at a Catholic school in Dallas, TX shared their school’s Saint project which takes place in November. It sounds like an amazing project! Mary jokingly referred to it at “Saints-a-Palooza” I would love to duplicate it at my school, but I’m not sure I can this year. Their Religious Education Coordinator picks 12 Saints for the whole school to learn. During the last week of November the morning announcements contain hints on the Saint of the day. If your classroom guesses, your room earns a sticker. The closing activity is similar to the old TV show “What’s My Line”. Several Junior High students are the participates and the whole school guesses, with applause, who is the real Saint. This is what I’d like to connect with Mary’s school. I think I will call it ‘Skyping with the Saints’.??

I’m getting excited about the new school year and using the new tools I learned at Podstock. I also came away with my classroom theme for the 2010-2011 school year. It’s going to have the 60’s theme. How does “Peace, Love, and Technology in Room 113” or “The Groovy Students are in Room 113” sound???

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJBhdKrwTOc?wmode=transparent]
]]> https://barbinnebraska.com/feelin-groovy-0/feed/ 2 Poetry and Skype: Made For Each Other https://barbinnebraska.com/poetry-and-skype-made-for-each-other/ https://barbinnebraska.com/poetry-and-skype-made-for-each-other/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 23:12:26 +0000 http://barbinnebraska.posterous.com/poetry-and-skype-made-for-each-other Today we had another successful Skype call with Patti Harju's 2nd graders in Grand Rapids, MI. This was the 3rd time we have Skyped with her students. Today St. Isidore of Seville, the patron Saint of the Internet, must have been smiling down at us because it was a near perfect call. The sound and pictures were just fine. We didn't have a choppy picture or sound. We did lose connection toward the end of the call, but we reconnected quickly.??

I believe I have figured what makes a great Skype session. The most important item is to have a topic. Today's topic was poetry. I believe poetry is best enjoyed read or recited out loud. Last Wednesday, we celebrated Poem In Our Pocket day.??

Each student had to memorize a poem and recite it in front of their classmates. Presentation is listed as one of the 6 Traits Plus 1 which we use at our school. They only had to memorize a 4 line poem but I told them that they are not limited to 4 lines. We had everything from The Purple Cow to Shel Silverstein to Emily Dickinson. I loved how many parents helped their children find a poem and how many shared their favorite poem with their child.??

So, today, we called Mrs. Harju's class. I had 12 volunteers and her class had 5 poems. They read their poems in small groups in a choral reading style. Their poems were all so cute and funny. They commented that our poems were memorized so that gave her students an idea of what to expect in 3rd grade. I was so proud that my students all remembered their poems!??

Our call lasted about 20 minutes and I find that to be the perfect amount of time. I'm looking forward to Skyping next year with my new class of students!??
]]> https://barbinnebraska.com/poetry-and-skype-made-for-each-other/feed/ 2 Teaching Multiplication https://barbinnebraska.com/teaching-multiplication/ https://barbinnebraska.com/teaching-multiplication/#respond Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:48:35 +0000 http://barbinnebraska.posterous.com/teaching-multiplication Img_2637

I have recently begun teaching multiplication to my 3rd graders. There is much excitement when we begin! So far, it's going well. The students understand the process, now comes the part of memorizing the facts. I love that there are so many websites for my students to practice their facts. Here are some of the sites I have saved on my Delicious account.??

Today we played some of the games from Multiplication.com on the SmartBoard. They love these games! What a new way for this group of children to learn. I did bring in the homemade flashcards that I made for my own sons. I told them that the 'Classic' method works too! I also set out a set of triangle flash cards that can also be used when we begin learning Division.??

The big hit of the day was my set of Wrap Ups for Multiplication. I was surprised that this was new to many of my students. It's a good eye hand coordination activity too.??

The other popular activity in my classroom is earning keys- because knowing your facts are the 'Key to Math'. I took a workshop several years ago that is commonly called Rocket Math. The students are given 40 problems to be completed in 1 minute. It starts with the 1s and the 0s. Then each set adds 4 new problems. As they pass a set, they color in the space on their rocket recording sheet and get a paper key to add to their key chain. I give each student a large book ring and they attach their key chain to their chair. It's always a big hit! We take our tests on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.??

I'm always looking for new ways to teach multiplication to my class and ways for them to learn their facts. I'd love to hear yours!

]]> https://barbinnebraska.com/teaching-multiplication/feed/ 0 St. George: My Patron for 2010 https://barbinnebraska.com/st-george-my-patron-for-2010/ https://barbinnebraska.com/st-george-my-patron-for-2010/#respond Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:02:18 +0000 http://barbinnebraska.posterous.com/st-george-my-patron-for-2010 A few years ago, I read about a tradition that St. Faustina http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-faustina-kowalska/ had with the sisters in her convent. On New Year's Eve, the sisters would gather together and pick a Saint holy card from a container. This Saint would be their Holy Protector for the new year. I've taken this tradition and brought it to my classroom. On the last day before our Christmas break, we do the same thing.

My students were so prayerful during our prayer service. After each student picked their Saint, they said the name and the other students responded "Pray for us." My classroom has lift top desks and I allow the students to tape the holy card to the inside of their desk top lid. I also share with the students that I believe that this Saint has something special to share or teach them. This encourages them to read about their Holy Protector and try to decide what their message is to them.??

I bought these beautiful holy cards from this family.??http://www.catholicprayercards.org/freeprayercards.html The Catholic prayer card sampler was perfect for us. I love the Saints and Blessed this family profiles. The cards are of old favorites and new Saints too. The card stock is study and heavy duty.??

I also take part in this prayer service. The Saint that choose me was St. George.??http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-george/ Now I wonder what St. George has in store for me? What dragon will I slay this year? Will clutter be slayed this year? Will my desk at work always be neat? I'll be curious to know! St. George, Pray for us!??

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