Interactive Math Journals in Kindergarten

Hi! It’s Robyn and it’s THURSDAY! That means it is FRIDAY tomorrow! I really am not trying to rush the week, but I sure do look forward to the weekends. 
I guess Amy and I had similar thoughts this week! I am also going to talk about journaling, but with the little kinders.  I always used journaling when I taught 5th grade math and science.  I was really missing it and decided that my kindergarteners were ready!  We have done this all week and I think it might just be one of my favorite times during the day.  It is short and to the point, but can really focus on a certain area in math.  Also the kids LOVE it!
I give the students a strip with a different problem to glue down each day.  I start by reading the question aloud and then we discuss.  I model on the SMART Board usually.  Here is an example from our first entry.
We use 1 subject notebooks that I bought for REALLY cheap at the beginning of the school year.  The strip is cut for them and they glue.

I will post again when we get more into the routines.  We have been working so hard on numbers 0-20 and writing to 40!! They are doing so well!

Leave a comment and let me know about your adventures with journaling!

Tried It Tuesday - BYOT Student Voting & Formative Assessments

Hello everyone!  This is Kim bringing you a technology idea for your classrooms.  I tried this within the last 2 weeks and I am sold!  I am linking up with Tried it Tuesday by Fourth Grade Flipper again.  

When I taught high school math I had a set of interactive voting devices.  Students would answer any multiple-choice or true/false questions using a little blue remote.  I do not have a set of these devices at my current middle school.  Most of the voting devices are quite expensive and some become outdated quickly as technology advances.  In the last 2 weeks, I stumbled on Polleverywhere.com.  You really, really should give this a try if you have access to computers, or if your students can BYOT (bring your own technology).  

Here's how it works.  First, you go to polleverywhere.com and create your first poll question.  It's FREE!  You can watch videos to see how easy it is to incorporate into your classroom.  For educators, there is a free plan that gets 40 responses per poll (that means for each question I ask, I can have up to 40 students respond at any one time).  Since I do not have a class with that many students, the free plan is working great right now.  There are, of course, some reasons to look into a paid version, but I am not quite there yet.  

So your polls can be multiple choice, open-ended, or even a type of question called "clickable image" which would be useful if you loaded an image like a map or a biology cell and had students identify parts.  The multiple-choice can even have images as the choices!  I have one poll that I created that asks "How do you feel about today's lesson?".  Students can click on a red, yellow, or green circle to give feedback.  Here is a screenshot of what students would see on their device:

You can be very specific in your questions or you can create more generic questions that can be used over and over.  If you look at this screenshot below, I have math specific questions, but then I also have 2 generic questions that I can activate at anytime.  

This is how I usually use polleverywhere.com.  I have them look at a handout that already has a multiple-choice question or other math problem to solve.  I select the appropriate poll.  If I have an open-ended math question, I have them type their answer into the poll text box and then add their name to the end.  I hide the answers on the screen so that they cannot wait to answer after they have seen what the majority of the class is answering.  If you have a "freeze" button on your projector's remote, you can freeze the screen so they cannot see each other's responses either.  

I then "PUSH" the poll down to the student's device.  This can be a classroom computer, a tablet, a smartphone, or any device that can access the internet.  The students simply go to your polleverywhere.com class website.  Once you have "pushed" the poll, the question is now live and students will see the poll live on their device.  

They answer the poll question and their response instantly goes on the screen.  You can hide the responses or choose to leave them visible.  The graphs are instantly updated and you can literally watch the answers come in!  If it is open-ended, you can set the visual mode to show a list of responses, a "wall" of responses, a "news-ticker" style response flow, or even a word cloud.  If the question is multiple-choice, you can see a horizontal or vertical bar graph.  

You can even click on "Response History" and get a easy to read list of responses.  On this page, you can choose to export the responses as a csv file (spreadsheet).  As you see below, you may need to have discussions about expectations with this type of technology.  This screenshot is from the first time I tried polleverywhere.com.  You can see that students are free to type anything!

QUICK OVERVIEW:

• Great for formative assessment.  Can be used as a ticket-out-the-door to set groups for the next class day.  Can replace using "sticky" notes on the board to see how students are responding.
• Great way to engage students in today's technology.
• VERY easy to set-up and use.  You can customize the look and feel of your polls.  You can download the poll questions into PowerPoint.  I have only scraped the surface of what this simple website can do.  
• Create generic questions that can be used quickly without having to spend time typing in polls.  I have one generic that says "What is the answer to this question?".  I have it set as multiple-choice and open-ended depending on the question we are working on.  I literally just "push" one of those questions down to the student devices and we are ready to respond.  
• Reserve your own polleverywhere.com website by clicking on the "How People Can Respond" dropdown on the right side of your poll question screen.  Find the blue link under "Web Devices".  It should lead you to a page to reserve your own web url.  Your students will just need to visit this one reserved page to access your polls.  They can also text in their response if you are ready to handle that!

I am a huge fan of the instant feedback that this website can provide!  In this age of data and accountability, it gives me a way to get usable data and engage students at the same time.

Here is what it looks like being used in my classroom:

Oh, I used an app called "Skitch" to annotate over the screenshots above.  Try it out too if you get a chance!

Let me know what you think in the comments section below!

Happy polling!

Kim

Dear Journal......

About 3 years ago I started including journaling in my classroom.  I used it just during math and it was a HUGE success.  Last year, I had my students keep a math journal and a science/social studies journal.  I found it to be a great tool to assess my students on a daily basis (depending on the lesson) and to build writing skills.  This year I have continued journaling with my students.  Each student has a math journal and a science journal.   This is how it works:
When I write my lesson plans I include a journal entry for most lessons as the "summarizing" activity.  I then cut and paste these into one document, copy them, and cut them into strips.  This makes it VERY easy for students to manage and complete.  No copying from the board (that takes too much time)!

 I use math journals to introduce the vocabulary when beginning a new math unit.  Students fill in the blanks as I discuss the vocabulary they will be learning and using within the new unit. 

                                               

Journal entries include a summary question from the daily lesson and a daily word problem.  Students are asked to complete the journal entry as a ticket out the door on many occassions.  This is a great way for me to monitor areas of weakness as well as areas of strength. 

                 

                                       

I have also used journal entries as part of my small group "station" rotation.  On ocassion we do not get to the journal entry during class.  I have included these "skipped" journals as part of small group stations.  I typically use 4 stations to review and reinforce previous taught skills while I work with students to introduce new skills, challenge higher achieving students, or provide intervention to struggling students.  I place journal entry strips in envelopes.  Students then know how many journal entries they must complete during that station rotation.  I typically put 2 or 3 strips, which is plenty to keep students busy.

 

During science, I use journals in a similar way.  Journal strips are not used during science simply because the entries typically consist of vocabulary or each student's understanding of a particular section of the unit.  Students record vocabulary from the unit.  They are given a word list and asked to find the word and definition in their science book.  Then students draw a picture of the word to help them better understand the meaning.

 

T-charts are another strategy used at the end of a science lesson.  Currently we are studying the different regions of Georgia and the plants and animals associated with each region.  This can be very overwhelming to students.  After a class discussion, research, and exploration of the region, I have students complete a t-chart listing the plants, animals, and characteristics of the discussed region.  I use the t-chart method throughout many of my science lessons and lab experiments.

 

Word webs are another strategy used by students in science journals.  As we discussed animal characteristics and classifications, I had students create word webs for each animal group.  These word webs were great references to use as we explored the different animal habitats throughout Georgia's regions.

For the most part, students enjoy journaling.  It gives them the satisfaction of knowing they have learned what has been taught, allows them to be creative, and helps students share ideas with the class.  I am always looking for fun and creative activities to add to journals.  Please comment with how you have used journals in your classroom!

Monday Made it! Veteran’s Day

It is me again..Robyn! I promise you will hear from the other girls soon!  Veteran’s Day is next Monday and it is a great day to teach your students the importance and sacrifice of our military.  I was always shocked when I would get some 5th graders who had NO idea what a veteran was or what the day stood for.  Just crazy!  Veteran’s Day is an actual standard here in Georgia for kindergartners and I am so glad that it is!  I created a short and simple day long unit for Veteran’s Day and you can find it on my TPT store here.

Novemeber Currently

I cannot believe it is NOVEMBER!! That means it is almost Christmas! I have not bought a single thing! Please tell me I am not alone! YIKES!

By the way this is Robyn again!  Let’s go down the list…

Listening to the Georgia/Florida Game- GO DAWGS!!

Loving that we took our family pictures today!  The fall leaves were perfect! I cannot wait to see them!

Thinking that I really need to finish my lesson plans for the following week.  It may not happen today…

Wanting a maid! I mean seriously!  I hate folding, ironing, and planning my clothes for the week.

Needing to go to the grocery store.  Again the maid sure would come in handy! UGH!

Yummy pin- 6 different kinds of puppy chow!! YES please! Click the picture to go to the recipes…and cook some for me!

Five for Friday

This is Robyn and can I just say TGIF!  It is FRIDAY! It has been an exciting week!  I am linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday!

We have been super busy in Kindergarten learning all about pumpkins and celebrating the wonderful season of Fall.  Many people think that Kindergarten is all about coloring, gluing, and crafting.  Sometimes it can be, but there is always skills that are being learned.  Today all of the Kindergarten classes had Fall Centers!  Every classroom was a little different, but we mainly focused on creating fall crafts.  These are the things that we just don’t have time for in a regular day.  We did this for an hour and a half with 5 center rotations.  I was lucky that I had help from my parapro, 3 parents, and myself.

#1: This center was a fall tree.  The students were given a tree template (my parapro drew it on copy paper) and fall color paint.  They used their thumb to make the leaves. Super cute!

#2

This was a pumpkin head band.  The headband was made of poster cut into strips.  They decorated with die cut pumpkins and some felt stickers (Dollar Tree).  I hate I didn’t get a picture when they were finished!

#3  The candy corn center was my favorite! They were given a template of a candy corn to cut out.  Then they tore strips of orange and yellow paper to fill in the spaces. 

#4  This center was making a leaf wreath.  The wreath was made from a paper plate that had the center cut out.  The leaves were die cuts and glued around the perimeter.

#5  This was the FOOD center!  It was definitely the one the kids could not wait to get to!  I directed this center.  I talked about what a cornucopia looked like and and their purpose.  We then put peanut butter on a Ritz cracker, topped with a Bugle, and added Runts to represent the fruit.  They LOVED it!

The kids (and teacher) and such a great time!! Happy Friday and weekend everyone!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from the girls at Create to Educate! We hope you have a fun and safe night!! Come back tomorrow for 5 for Friday!