Tried It Tuesday- Explain Everything

I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for her Tried it Tuesday!

We started a whole new math curriculum this year. My school has been Saxon for eons! (Well maybe not, but definitely a long time.) We were told that we could no longer be an exception school and all schools were to teach the district program. 

This has done a couple of things.

1. Frustrated students… 

They knew what to expect from Saxon and it was very direct. The new way of thinking is really confusing and frustrating them.

2. Frustrated parents… 

Some of our parents chose our school because they liked Saxon math. They don't understand this "new" way of thinking and aren't able to help their kids.

3. Frustrated teachers… 

We always scored at the top in our district and those that have been teaching Saxon knew it inside and out and already had all their differentiation ready to go. We also get to work with frustrated students that may or may not have horrible attitudes about the math due to things they are hearing.

These and a couple of factors led me to want to try a modified Flipped Classroom. It's not truly flipped because the students are watching the lesson videos in the classroom on their school iPads. (We are 1:1 in grades 3-5.) 

In the process of setting up the lesson videos, I tried a couple of different ways to make the make the videos. The first 4-5 are horrible, but they got us going. I will definitely need to redo them next year. I finally remembered about a fun app that I learned about in our Apple training when we got the iPads a couple of years ago.

Explain Everything

Cost $2.99

It has a lot of features and ways to annotate or draw attention to different area on the screen.

You can go back and edit annotating and sound. 

I'm still learning and getting better at this.

This was probably the best thing for me. 

It has a direct upload to YouTube! 

It also has other export options.

I still have a lot to learn about this app and working in a modified Flipped Classroom but I'll share what I learn as I go. 

Just as some extra information, my students have a Gaggle account. This gives them an email, access to assignments and a filtered YouTube. This is the work flow I plan to use to have my students watch the video. Today was day 1 of them trying to watch on the iPads. It did not go so well, but hopefully tomorrow will go better! 

Here is one of my most recent lessons.

Here is a link to my school website {here} which will eventually include all my 5th grade Go Math lessons.

Thanks for stopping by!

*Steph*

Tried It Tuesday: Heritage Makers

Well, this isn't exactly a new try, but I did get one of my orders today and I was super excited! 

I am part of Heritage Makers. It is a form of digital scrapbooking, basically. I am able to access my photos anywhere and work on multiple projects. There are many different products you can create from story books to postcards to bags to mugs to lots of other things! 

It is a business that you can do at from home. I am not a consultant, just wanted to share something that makes me happy! *Update* I decided to join and become a consultant. If you are interested at all, let me know! Visit my website http://www.heritagemakers.com/stephudy

I decided to join when my daughter was about 3 months old. I realized that I was already getting behind on her pictures but I couldn't haul out all my scrapbooking things just to have to put them away again. (I am normally a binge scrapbooker.) There were too many small pieces to have around. This became a way that I could scrapbook, keep my house relatively clean, and be immediately available if needed. I was also able to do this one-handed! When Kasila would fall asleep in my arms, and was too cute to put down, I could hold her and scrapbook. It was awesome! It meant that by the time we visited family that summer, I had a book of her from birth - 6 months to show off! I'm not caught up any more, but I did finally finish her 6months - 12months and that's what I got in the mail today! School kind of took up a lot of my scrapbooking time I had when on maternity leave and summer break. :)

Here's a look at the Heritage Makers website:

These are my completed projects that I can order: 

12 x 12 story book, a small flip book, calendars (for Christmas presents), playing cards, ornaments, and a brag book for Grandma.

This is a look at the studio editor while creating your projects. You have access to a lot of different digital papers, clipart, and even templates to get you started. This is a little flip book I'm making of my daughter with her teddy bear. 

I would compare Heritage Makers to Shutterfly. I've done both. If you are going to be continuously producing books or items, I would totally recommend Heritage Makers! The books are high quality and there is way more choice in every aspect!

Here's a little flip book I made for Kasila so she would know her family that doesn't live nearby, which is all of them. (Forgive the pictures, I'm still learning and all I have is my phone.)

Tried It Tuesday: GoNoodle

I have seen GoNoodle all over blog land. I had been doing movement with my class all year but I never got around to Go Noodle. A couple of my primary colleagues did check it out however. They loved it! So much that during a much needed brain break at a PD Day staff meeting, they brought it up to share with everyone. We did one of the dance videos and one of the Maximo clips. It was fun! I'm definitely going to be trying it out with students next year! 

One thing that I really liked was the calm movement. I have a super high energy class next year and this will be a great way to do more of yoga with them, since I've never done yoga. We do have some yoga peeps on our staff though!

Do you do brain breaks at staff meetings?

*Steph*

Tried It Tuesday: Color By Number for Big Kids

I only have a 2 more Tuesdays after this one (yay!) but I thought I'd link up for the first time. 

Fourth Grade Flipper 

(I'm still not sure how to make images links.)

I was able to work with Kristine Nannini from Young Teacher Love in the editing of one of her products. That was a first and pretty exciting for me! I love that Facebook and blogs have allowed me to connect with people all over. Being in Alaska, sometimes I feel a little secluded as times don't always line up due to time zones. However, I decided to try out her Color by Number for Big Kids with my fourth graders.  

I set the stage for my kids by saying that we were going to try something new. I had an activity created by a teacher from Michigan. The kids were pretty excited to be working on something created by a teacher from a different state.

We used this as a review and actually took a couple of days to complete this. I only have my math lesson group for about 45-50 minutes and I have some major behaviors that I must stay on top of when presenting a new activity, especially when it allows for a little more freedom. I chose two of the different sets (there are bunch to choose from depending on what standard you want the kids to work on) and made the copies. Instead of making them task cards, I made 3-4 copies of each set onto a different color and then used a ring to keep each copy set together. 

(Sorry for the fuzziness of the photo. I must of had a smudge on the lens I didn't notice.)

I then split my kids into 2 different groups. The common core language is still new to my students, so I chose the 2 sets that I felt they would be able to do on their own fairly easily. I allowed to them to move and work with someone that was working on the same set.

They were able to check their answers and color their picture based on the color by number guide. I was really excited about trying this out that I didn't think through some of the management and flow like I should have.  Next time, I think I am going to have them try to color their picture before they get to actually check their answers. That way, they have will have a chance to go back and fix their answer before looking at the key to check their work.

This group worked on Set D.

I loved this idea and product! It was a nice break from the grind of our normal day to day routine, but it was still practicing valuable math skills. 

*S.Udy*