A Little September & October Fun at OHE!

We had a wonderful Book Fair!

Our OHE Walk-A-Thon Was A Huge Success!

We celebrated our successful Walk-A-Thon with a few hilarious rounds of teacher Hungry Hungry Hippo! 

Launching A New Year Of Digital Devices,Tools & Learning!

In schools with digital devices, the first month of school is largely dedicated to getting everyone up and running with their devices and tools. Our district's first big influx of digital devices was delivered last school year in November, so this year was the first time I was supporting teachers and students who were ready to dive right in. I spent most of September and some of October helping our students get going. Reminding some and teaching others how to login and use Chromebooks, Google, Schoology, MyOn, SeeSaw, Typing.com and Newsela. It was such a whirlwind, I am probably forgetting a few! My calendar was packed, with a few teachers frustrated that there wasn't enough of me to go around!

Our 5th grade jumped into writing from the first week. With Mrs. Urban's class, I introduced writing and word processing basics right away with Google Docs. In addition to writing skills, we focused on spacing, word wrapping, centering. By jumping in right way, these students would be able to use these skills for their writing throughout the year.

Fourth Grade introduced students to Chromebooks using Schoology and MPCC (Minnesota Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum).  Mr. Hemann began with a map reading lesson. 

 

 

Third Grade students jumped right in with MyOn and Newsela!

In Kindergarten, we used the Draw A House app along with a beautiful book called Home by Carson Ellis. It is our "go to" lesson for teaching iPad basics, so typically our first iPad lesson.

I had a chance to share tips and guidelines:
1.  Always carry any device with two hands!
2. Swipe down on the screen (in the middle away from an actual app) to get a search option!  This way students aren't left trying to figure out which page their iPad app is on.  They can type in the first two letters to the search window to find their app!
3.  Five finger close.  Students can spread their hand out on the iPad glass and draw their fingers into the middle to close out of an app.  This is great for saving wear and tear on the home button on the iPad.  (It is also a great option if the home button is being a bit glitchy!)
4.  Never touch another student's iPad. If you want to help a fellow classmate, you need to point, not touch to help them find their way.
That was enough for our first day in kindergarten! Students read the book, learned about different homes, created their own home, and learned how to use their iPad successfully!  All in all a good day in kindergarten!

 

This was a great beginning to our digital year! With a running leap, our OHE students were positioned to use their digital tools for even greater learning.

Digital Tools For A New School Year!

Oak Hills Students Kick Off Their Digital Learning With Padlet!

We are ending our first fabulous week of school. This week can often be exhausting for students and teachers as everyone adjusts to their new school family, getting to know one another and setting expectations for the year. Whew!

This year at Oak Hills Elementary we have decided to focus on building relationships with each other and with our students. With this in mind, our teachers employ "Back to School" activities to create a "responsive classroom" designed to help their students come together, validate each student and prepare a positive learning environment. Though these are traditional "first week of school" activities that provide a vital springboard for student success, there is no reason that they have to be delivered in a traditional way! That is where I come in :)

Again this year, many of our teachers invited me in to help guide their first digital activity. We used my favorite digital tool, Padlet to give students their first digital experience of the school year, share the details of their summer, jump start student writing skills and have some fun! Padlet presents a wonderful opportunity to talk about writing for an audience! Students spend extra time to do their very best because they realize that it will be shared outside the classroom as well. 

Digitizing back to school activities can also provide students with an opportunity to revisit principles of digital citizenship, establish device expectations, practice logging in with new passwords and help student get acquainted and share their voice.

It is getting a chance to read what students have on their minds, their best memories of the summer that I really enjoy! 

We're Back! Another fabulous #firstdayofschool for the @oakhills194 family!

3rd Graders Create Cause & Effect Comic Strips With StoryboardThat.com

Recently 3rd grade teachers asked for my help as their students were focusing on identifying cause and effect relationships. Along with cause and effect, teachers wanted students to make the subsequent inferences about these cause and effect relationships. Third graders need to be able to recognize these relationships in their reading and in life! My challenge was to give students an opportunity to digitize this valuable lesson!

I found a solution in the web app StoryboardThat.com! Once teachers had introduced the topic, I introduced StoryboardThat.com. Students were asked to create their own cause and effect relationship and identify the inference in the form of a comic strip! 

Students learned how to add a backgrounds, add characters, speech bubbles and text boxes to their cause/effect comic strip! They were really quick at figuring out the "how tos" which made the lesson fun! StoryboardThat was the perfect web app to demonstrate cause and effect in pictures! 

4th Graders Use Glogster To Present Answers To Their Own Guiding Questions...

In April, our 4th grade teachers wanted to give students the opportunity to do research. Rather than decide for their students what they would research, traditionally it has been state reports, this year our 4th grade teachers wanted students to choose their own topic...to answer a guiding question based on their individual interests and passions. I applaud our 4th grade teachers, Mr. Hemann, Mrs. Osborn and Ms. Warfield for challenging themselves and their students to personalize their research. Having every student choose their own guiding question and research based on their own interest adds a level of complexity to their job as teachers. They wanted to encourage students to be curious and to learn that research isn't only something they do for school reports, but something they do for life! So our 4th grade teachers took a deep breath and plunged in. They asked for my help with selecting a digital tool for students to create a presentation. (They weren't quite ready to let each student choose their own digital tool. One step at a time 😉 ) Together we decided to try Glogster.

The first task was helping students turn their interests and passions into a guiding question. Many students knew what they wanted to research, but struggled to frame a question that would help them get to the answers they were seeking! I was amazed by the variety of their interests and depth of their curiosity!

Once students selected a topic and wrote a guiding question, they researched the answer. I was invited to show students how to use Glogster and support them as they created their Glogster to present their research findings. This gave me a chance to discuss online safety and copyright with students along the way. Students learned how to use Glogster by adding text features, speech bubbles, images and even embedding videos! These digital posters were visually engaging and gave students polished projects that they were proud to present to their class and families! Most importantly, students found answers to their own questions!