Creation Presentations

This was a quick and fun project I did with my sixth graders.  They were given 10 minutes to explore the Hubble Telescope gallery and enjoy the beauty of space.  After the 10 minutes, they split themselves into groups to make a presentation using five great pictures and one or two Bible verses about the awesome creative powers of God.  I forbade them to use PowerPoint, and in the future I'll most likely direct them from Keynote as well.

The presentations below were originally done as Keynotes, but I converted them to PDFs through Google Drive to make sharing online easier. Here are some of the best!

• Ashley, Caroline, and Amanda
• Jake, Waite, and Dom
• Lilli, Anna, and Ellie

Even if you're not a creationist, we can all agree that the stars are gorgeous when viewed through Hubble. 

You can view the original instructions here. 

Paper Bloggin'

I don't remember when I first saw this idea, nor do I know where I saw it... but I've wanted to do it forever. To give my 6th grade students a visual indicator of what blogging looks like, you do it with paper, tape, and a wall.  I'll be the first to admit that a tree or two died in the midst of this lesson -- and I apologize for it.  Fortunately it wasn't ON Earth Day.

Here's what we did:

Step 1:

• Each student was instructed to type a story and print it out.  There were no instructions on content or length just that they evidence effort.  
• Grab some tape and tape it to a wall in the room

Step 2:

• Read someone else's story.
• Go back to your computer and type a multi-sentence response.  You have to be nice.
• Print it.  Grab some tape. Tape it under the story.

Step 3:

• Either repeat Step 2 or...
• Read someone's comment about your story.
• Go back to you computer and type a multi-sentence response to their response. You have to be nice.
• Print it.  Grab some tape. Tape it under their comment.

There was much enthusiasm and enjoyment.  Kids were eager to share their writing and to read what others had to say.  I think they had fun.

Unfortunately, they had a grumpy teacher.  That normally happens when what I think are awesome instructions are misunderstood or bent.  It was hard to keep a lid on the goofy chit-chat.  

If I do this activity again, I'll tweak the instructions and be a bit more proactive about classroom management. :)

Click here for instructions.

Enjoy the pictures of the paper blogs. 

Online Thesaurus

A few weeks ago, I was searching online for a thesaurus for first graders.  All my Googling came up with synonyms for "first" or "grade."  I got very frustrated, but I did land on this blog post, and my mind went into hyperdrive.

I borrowed heavily from this lesson for my 6th grade computer class, but I wanted to put the thesaurus online.

I created multiple slips of paper with one word on them.  I passed these slips out and told the kids to write as many synonyms for the word as possible. I gave them two-minute time limits.  At the end of two-minutes, they had to switch slips with a friend and keep coming up with synonyms.

After about 10 minutes, I set them up on a series of Google Docs with the words on editable docs.  They had time to type the synonyms onto these pages.

When they were done, I emailed the link to their LA teacher and offered it up as a thesaurus to help them with writing in the future.

Feel free to hop on and see their work.

Now, to do the whole thing again with 4th grade tomorrow.  Should be fun!

Epic Full-Length Stop Animator Project

In my seventeen years of teaching sixth grade, I can honestly say it's rare to see every student engaged, enjoying a lesson, and learning something.  That's why I'm so excited about the Epic Full-Length Stop Animator Project.

The goal of our project is to create a 90-180 second stop animation video.  A few weeks ago, we did a short video project, and the kids enjoyed it.  While the video-making process was fun, the final product left me wondering if we could do better.  I enlisted the help of a friend of mine who is an animation guru (media professor at a local university) and got started on creating a great project.  You can see our instructions here.

Today was the second day of the project, and the kids were merely planning.  They were working on storyboards, drawing on the white board, trying new camera angles, and figuring things out.  It was so cool to just look out over the class and see every student working, interacting, and...enjoying it.  The plans are diverse: clay, Legos, ants in love eating watermelon, construction paper sandwiches, poodles in Paris, and an action figure-eating toy.

Next week, they will do their actual filming, but I had to share this one short practice video of the creation of Clay Man.

This is going to be cool!

Stop Motion Videos

Lesson ideas can come from a strange place.  I work with 5th graders at my church, which is where I met Billy (name changed).  Within seconds of meeting Billy, he was showing me stop motion videos on his iPod Touch. I immediately saw an opportunity to make a connection, so I whipped out my iPad, downloaded the Stop Aminator app and had myself some fun.

Little did I realize that I'd be using it in my 6th grade computer class a week and a half later.  I'm going to present you with four videos here.  The first is an example for the kids to see.  The middle two were made by students.  The last -- the chair video -- was an attempt I made while the kids were playing around.  I'll be the first to admit that our first efforts at stop motion videos needs some help, but I'm excited to try it again later.  I'd love to do a "feature-length" video -- say one to two minutes long.  

The best part is that I now have students in 5th and 6th grades who are excited to get iPad time so they can create more videos.  

Enjoy our first attempts!

iPad Tips

Our school introduces iPads in fifth grade, where we have a cart program.  We have two carts to service our fifth and sixth grades (nearly 50 students and 4 teachers).  Before 5th grade, any iPad knowledge they have would be from previous experience using a personal device.

My sixth graders have a year of iPads under their belts, so I decided to have them create iPad tip posters to put in my room.  They had to print them out so we could put them on the wall.  I also gave them the option of emailing the posters to me for the blog.  The posters you see linked below were emailed to me by the students.  

This project required students to use Word, find pictures online, and paste them into the document.  

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B63-r4uLf6eDdnhrTEg3c2dQaFU

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B63-r4uLf6eDS2YyT1EtYzJXNGM

What tips would you add to the list?

Company Logos

I'm building my sixth grade computer curriculum from the ground up.  I'm fortunate to have both a computer lab and an iPad cart to work with.

For our first project, the kids got to create their own companies complete with a company name, goal, and logo.  This project required using two programs -- Word and Paint -- and was a good initial gauge of their computer skills and creativity.

The links below take you to the cream of the crop.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B63-r4uLf6eDYms2bk5jejR5TVE
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B63-r4uLf6eDS1hYSGVGd3o2ZzQ/edit
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B63-r4uLf6eDYVk5ek12UzZHcFE/edit
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B63-r4uLf6eDYlh4MFZKTFFRNEk/edit
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B63-r4uLf6eDdW5mVVVQWFdfeHc/edit
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B63-r4uLf6eDNXhyRjNqUVg0MkU/edit
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B63-r4uLf6eDNFVBSXk3SW1Ja1E/edit