Happy New Year! Blabberize!

I can not believe how behind I am. Seriously.  My students have just finished up a unit on Colonial America.  To end the unit they had to write a speech as if they were a colonial child during that time.  They had to pick their colony, where they lived (farm, plantation, town, etc), and their speech had to accurately reflect that.  They somehow had to sneak in something about their economy, geography, education, daily life, and politics.  They did SUCH a great job!  Then...for the FUN PART! 

Blabberize! 


You upload a photo, place a mouth, record your speech, and tada!  Your photo speaks! So, so, so cool!  Since this I've used blabberize to introduce units, tell my students important announcements when I'm sick, and review units.  Currently they are working on blabberizing an animal to explain what kind of ecosystem it lives in.  

*You do need to login.  I used my email and a very generic password and all my students share.  That way I have access to them to grade them.

 
      



Have fun!  Share ideas below!

Letter Writing

I think in the land of email, blogging, facebook chat, and texting the importance of letter writing has seemed to slide to the side.  I think it is so, so, SO important to still teach this skill.  Every year in my class we write many letters to friends, relatives, and businesses.  The students love getting a response back.  You should see the first time they try to write on an envelope.  YIKES!  I just loose a little bit of hair that day :)

Anyway here are two online interactives to help students learn a little about letter writing.  After doing these, they had no trouble carrying the knowledge over to using real paper.

BBC Letter Writing



Read Write Think Letter Generator

Fractured Fairy Tales

At Read, Write, Think they have some terrific interactives that would work well for students to use on individual computers or to use on your promethean board for a whole group activity.  In 5th grade we do a large unit on fractured fairy tales and end up making our own books.  I like that this interactive has them focus on essential story elements.  I think it would make a great pre-writing activity.   Look below the activity for TONS of lesson plan ideas for all grades that use this interactive!

Fractured Fairy Tale interactive from Read, Write, Think

Tagxedo: Linky Party!

***I am updating this post to join in a 100th day Linky Party.  Feel free to still add to my linky party if you'd like.  See my 100th day idea, and other ideas, below. ***

I hope everyone had a fantastic Independence Day weekend!  This is my first Linky Party, so spread the word for me please!  Have you all seen links for Tagxedo floating around?!? It's like the very popular Woordle on steroids! My mind is spinning with all the great ways to use this in a classroom! Link up your ideas below!

1.) Book Reports:  Students could insert the text of their book report
2.) Animal Reports: Students could insert the text of the animal report
***3.) 100th Day:  I used to write the parts of speech on tagboard and then have the students search for 100 of each out of newspapers and then paste them on.  (100 nouns, 100 verbs, 100 adjectives, etc.) Once all the posters were full we hung them in the hallway. This year, I'm going to try using taxedo and have each group make a taxedo (100 nouns, 100 verbs, etc.) then they'll each have their own, fun, unique poster for each part of speech!!

My example of a fruit bat report is below.  Seriously fun right?!?  I can wait to hear your ideas!

Smart Board Lessons Linky Party: Kerpoof

First, I'm going to say, for an almost daily supply of smart board resources I think you should look to the left of your screen and follow my blog :)  I just started it, and I'm going to do my best to keep you updated with the latest and greatest resources.....

Next, I'm going to introduce you to Kerpoof, which is seriously the coolest thing EVER!  For primary grades there is an activity where you can spell a picture, you spell a word and the picture pops up.  For upper grades my favorite is the story maker.  There are endless backgrounds, people, even little props you can add!  I can not wait to use this for one of my creative writing this year.

Below is one of my pages (kinda lame, but I did it super quick.)  I dragged the background on there, the troll, and the treasure chest.  All can be resized.  Like I said, it's the coolest thing EVER :)    You can save your story or print it off.

Kerpoof 

did you see the Bear?

Anyone else struggle with capitalization in their classroom?  When my patience is stressed here is what our writer's workshop times sounds like:

Ms. B:  What does every sentence start with?

Student:  A capital letter.

Ms. B:  Right.  How about names?

Student:  A capital letter.

Two sentence later.....

Ms. B:  What does every sentence start with?

Student:  A capital letter.

Ms. B: (pulling on hair a bit by now...)  Can you please find your seat and capitalize all the words you know should be capitalized, then come back.

What is it about capitals?!? I'm sure my Grandma would say it's from texting...is it?  I am pretty strict when it comes to capitals.  They lose one point for every missing one on any assignment, in any subject (they are 5th grade---I figure I have to do something!)  So why can they STILL not capitalize things?

Anyway---I'll get off my soapbox and show you this fun little white board activity.  I put in on and students can do it when they finish work early.  It'll have to sink in eventually, right?  Right?!?

Magic Capitals from Sheppard Software