Happy Earth Day- Teaching Paperless

Happy Earth Day!  To celebrate, I pledged (via @teachpaperless) to go paper-free in our homeschooling today.  Honestly, it was wonderful! I wanted to share our day with you and hopefully inspire ideas for your homeschooling or classroom teaching.  For me, I am constantly inspired by the wonderful teaching suggestions and ideas shared through my PLN.  So, take a peek inside a day at the St. Francis Homeschool.

We begin our day with prayer followed by a morning devotional.  Today, we combined history and our religion.  We are currently studying The Hundred Year's War in world history and Joan of Arc.  Today, we looked more closely at her life and explored her path to sainthood using resources at Catholic Online as well as the BBC History Resources. Using Dabbleboard, we outlined the key facts from her life. 

Our children were able to collaborate on this project and we plan to revisit  and add to our page at a later date.

For our language arts block today we used Time4Learning, Spelling City and StoryBird.  Weekly spelling lists are added every Monday.  Today, our children were eager to take their weekly tests.  After testing online, they each emailed the pdf of their test to me using gmail. After this success, I have decided to transition to this method of record keeping each week.  Less paper and the kids loved it!  Earlier in the week, each child used activities on Spelling City to write sentences and paragraphs online using their weekly spelling lists.  Again, results were emailed to me and we made corrections through Google Docs.  Totally cool!  Finally, Luc, our second grader, felt inspired to write a story about the importance of recycling.  Using Storybird, he was able to publish his masterpiece.  Check it out!

Save the Earth- Recycle! on Storybird

For science, we wrapped up our unit on the periodic table.  For the past few weeks, our children have been looking closely at the first 18 elements.  I'm always looking for alternative ways to assess understanding. Today, Abby and Ellie showcased their favorite elements on a digital poster created using Glogster.

In addition, Abby, our 4th grader, was emailed a handout to complete reviewing atomic symbols and other important information.  Going with the paperless theme, she completed the handout and emailed her responses back to me. 

Finally, we ended our day creating wordles suggesting ways we can be better stewards of our world and the environment this Earth Day and every day.  Again, the mind of a child is amazing.  Even our three year old had great ideas.  Take a look at their creations and see their solutions to global issues affecting us all.

Today was a great day!  I enjoyed watching our children engaged in their projects and collaborating with each other.  We were techie! We were paperless! We did our part today to make this a better world! 

Going Batty With Web 2.0!

In this webquest, we will explore the wild world of bats while incorporating several of the web 2.0 techie tools.  Throughout the lesson you will be using: Wallwisher, Bubble.us, Wordle, Glogster, Animoto, Flickr and SchoolTube.  Get comfy and enjoy because you are in for a real treat!

Introduction: You will use the famous book, Stellaluna, as an introduction to our unit on bats.  Stellaluna got lost from her mother and finds herself "odd bat out" in a family of birds.  She never had the chance to discover who she was and from where she came.  Join us in this adventure as we help Stellaluna discover her "inner bat" and help her get reunited with her long, lost family.  Along the way, we will enter the nocturnal world of bats and explore these fascinating creatures. 

Task: After reading the book, Stellaluna , you will begin an investigation of bats. You need to find out the following things:

• the difference between megabats and microbats
• unique characteristics of bats
• how mothers care for their babies
• echolocation
• the importance of bats to the world

Throughout this quest, you will post "stickies" on our virtual wall highlighting the important information about bats you have discovered.  Check out our Wallwisher to get started!

Process:

1. Bats can be classified into two main categories: megabats and microbats.  Use the links below to research the differences between these two categories of bats.

• Bats...Creatures of the Night
• Wikipedia: Microbats
• Microbat Info
• BBC: Megabats 
• Wikipedia: Megabats
• Megabat Info
• Bat Conservation International

Upon completing your research, construct a Venn diagram highlighting the similarities and differences between the two types of bats.

2.  Stellaluna's mother loved her very much.  How does a mother bat care for her baby? Read the information from the link below and create a bubble map in which you address the following questions.  Oh, you are not limited to just this link.  Use this as a starting point for your research.

Bat families

• What is a baby bat called?
• What is a bat nursery?
• How many babies are usually born to a mother each year?
• How do mothers care for their babies?
• What other animals care for their young in a similar fashion?

Check out our Bubble Map!

3.  Stellaluna relies on her eyesight to "see" food.  Other bats navigate and find food using echolocation.  It's like their superpower!  Read the story of Echo the Bat on join him on his adventure to find his winter home.  Along the way, explore remote sensing and use false-color satellite images to locate Echo.  Don't forget to post "stickies" on our virtual wall highlighting what you discover!

4.  Bats are extremly helpful to humans in many ways.   Using the link below, investigate ways they benefit people and the world in general.  Display your findings on a bubble map or make a wordle including fun facts about bats.

• Bats4Kids
• Smithsonian: bats
• Bat Conservation and Research

Check out our Wordle!

5.  Throughout this exploration, you have discovered many exciting facts about bats.  In addition, you have probably come to realize there are close to 1000 species of bats in the world today.  With the guidance of your teacher or parent, select your favorite species and create an animoto movie showcasing them in their natural habitats.  You could begin by searching Flickr for usable images.  Upon completion, you will upload your video to schooltube and will use this later in your final project.

Check out our animoto movie!

6.  Now that you are a bat expert, you will create a digital poster to showcase your work.  To get started, collect your "stickies," bubble maps, wordles, movies and anything else you might want to include.  Login to Glogster and have fun! The sky's the limit!

**Check out our glog! **

Evaluation:  I have not assigned a point value to any part of this project.  I feel that can be left up to each teacher or homeschooling parent. 

Conclusion:  If you still have the thirst for more or for extension activities, check out these other interesting sites.  These resources are a great way to bridge to other disciplines or take the skill level higher for more advanced students.

• K-8 Aeronautics Internet Textbook: Bats (Awesome curriculum bridges!)
• Build your own bat house.
• Bats and robotics
• More Bat-Bots
• How Stuff Works: Bats
• Online bat quiz
• Creature Feature: Vampire Bats
• Listen to bats

Additional Reading: For additional literature selctions, check out Ye Olde Bat Book Shoppe for a list of resources.

Hopefully this has been a fun learning adventure!  I can't wait to post our kids final projects!  In the process of making this webquest, I have been inspired to develop other activities.  There is so much information available if you take the time to explore.  Go batty and never lose the desire to learn!

 Check out other Thirsty Thursday ideas!

It's a French Wordle!

Bonjour!

I wanted to create a fun activity to review French vocabulary with our children.  What better way than with a Wordle!  I have made it a personal quest to see how many different ways you can incoporate these wonderful word clouds in the classroom.  The lesson can be divided over three days or you can pick and choose the parts that you would like.  Have fun!

Lesson (Beginner or Day 1 Activity):  Basic colors, objects, and a few animals

 

Using the wordle above and your favorite box of crayons, match each English word with its French counterpart.  Then, shade them the word pairs the same color.  As you color the words, practice saying them orally.  Most importantly, have fun!

Lesson (Intermediate or Day 2 Activity):  Basic colors, objects, and a few animals

1.  Using the wordle above, find the color words and shade them to match the color they describe.

2.  Read the following sentences and color the words in the wordle accordingly.

• Le crayon est vert.
• Le stylo est bleu.
• Le pupitre est brun.
• Le tableau est noir.
• Le cahier est violet.
• Le livre est orange.
• Le papier est blanc.
• La gomme est rose.
• La chaise est rouge.
• La colombe est blanc.
• Le lion est orange.
• Le gorille est noir.

Lesson (Advanced or Day 3 Activity):  Basic colors, objects, and a few animals

Read the following sentences and color the words in the wordle accordingly.

• Le crayon est noir.
• Le stylo est orange.
• Le pupitre est brun.
• Le tableau est rouge.
• Le cahier est violet.
• Le livre est rose.
• Le papier est jaune.
• La gomme est vert.
• La chaise est bleu.
• La colombe est blanc.
• Le lion est orange.
• Le gorille est noir.

As our French vocabulary increases, I plan on taking this idea further.  I welcome any input or suggestions and feel free to use yourself.  By the way, quench your thirst for ideas at Thirsty Thursday.

Au revoir!

Using Wordle in Language Arts

Our oldest daughter is completely crazy over Wordle!  What is Wordle?  To put it simple, an online tool that can easily spice up your curriculum and make learning, dare I say, FUN!  It takes a list of words and makes a word cloud.  Simple idea, right?  Anyway, in between her lessons, she hops over to my computer and creates a new Wordle: song lyrics, her cousins' poetry blog, words form the first page of Genesis, and her list of pronouns.  Anyway, you get the point.  The girl is crazy over Wordle.  She even taught her younger brother and sister how to make Wordles of their spelling lists. 

****You can check out a few of her creations at our St. Francis School- Building Language site.****

Due to all of the excitement, I decided to think of a way to utilize Wordle in her grammar lesson.  We use Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Town program with her.  It is both "outside-of-the-box" and challenging.  His philosophy is to spend the early part of the year teach the basics of grammar and the rest of the year learning how to apply them.  Last year, she learned the eight basic parts of speech and the basics of clauses and prepositional phrases.  This year, she builds on that prior knowledge by learning about the different types of pronouns and phrases, verb tenses, and clauses.  She is now at the point of reviewing the eight basic parts of speech. 

So, I thought it would be a fun Friday activity to use Wordle to review.  I created the "cloud" above of the basic parts of speech and printed a hard copy for her to use during the lesson.  Now, she basically will go on a scavenger hunt and color code the basic parts of speech based upon the following legend:

• red= nouns
• pink= adjectives
• purple= verbs
• aqua= adverbs
• green= prepositions
• yellow= conjunctions

I know the basic lesson is simple but sometimes the best lessons are not too cumbersome.  I thought this would be a nice way to fuse together a new passion with an old standard.  I have a feeling, though, she is going to find a way to do it all on the computer before all is said and done.  The wheels are constantly turning!  I would love hear how you have used Wordle or if you have any ideas or suggestions on how to take this further. 

*Just a note:  I have already been informed, by her of course, that she wants to do a final project for her  Bridge to Terabithia