Wednesday website and Workshop Pins

It's late (I can't give up any quality visiting time with my family) but it's still Wednesday for another hour so here we go.

First up a quick website for 

A fun versatile site as have as grade level and purpose is Kerpoof. Students can make pictures, stories, movies, etc. all within one site. There are a variety of possibilities with suggested grade levels for each section. There is even a teacher sections with lesson plans and other ideas. As a teacher you can easily create logins for your students and then print up little ID type cards for them. It is certainly a great starting point for some digital storytelling. I don't have them time to go into all the different sections but go check it out.

starting page where students can log in

information in the teacher section along with a video

one of the picture options I used with our camping unit

Next up a couple of reading pins for

With all the need for evidence about reading this is something I want to make next year.

from Julie Ballew at A Literate Life

Here is another one about students documenting their thinking about reading but it more about self assessment. It was actually such a great post you really should go read the whole thing.

from Miss Bongers at Life in 4B

Making a T shirt seemed like a really fun way for students to share about their independent reading. Check out the post that explains about the process and shows other examples.

from Nancy at Teaching My Friends

I have gotten such pleasure out of reading all of Brandee Green's posts at Creating Lifelong Learners. This was a gem she posted recently. She even shared the needed forms - so sweet.

from Brandee Green at Creating Lifelong Learners

I am going to stop there with 4 minutes to spare :-)

Fourth Grade Read-Aloud Round-Up

I love to read aloud with my kids so I'm excited to join Mr Hughes for his Read-Aloud Round-Up. I'm also a big fan of audiobooks so sometimes we use those for our read aloud time. I'm going to share a couple of each in this post.

I went through the other posts that were up so far so I tried to share some different ones.

One I always enjoy reading aloud each year is Regarding the Fountain by Kate Klise (illustrated by her sister M Sarah Klise). If you haven't read any book by this duo you are in for a treat!

Regarding the Fountain is filled with fun characters, a silly but engaging plot, fantastic word play, and illustrations in all sorts of forms like memo, newspaper, maps, bulletin boards (you really just have to see them). Because of all the illustrations it is definitely good to have a document camera and/or some extra copies of the books s the kids can see the details. I use both while reading. Since it is the first in a series there are always kids that want to continue on reading the others. More recently the pair created another series called 43 Old Cemetery Road which is also great.

While talking about series. I love to do a read aloud of the first 39 clues book because it often prompts kids to continue reading on through the books. I really like all the information it shares about Ben Franklin and the connection to our social studies. Since it is filled with action and suspense it was a great one to stop in an exciting stop and have the kids beg to keep going.

A cool book for fun characters an interesting setting is Dead End in Norvelt. While being grounded for the summer (for shooting off his dad's gun) the only thing he was allowed to do was help his crazy neighbor type up her obituaries for the original natives of Norvelt. It is also includes all sorts of interest historical references. It is a great read.

Below are a couple great books that were brought to the next level by listening as an audiobooks

Wonder got tons of attention this year so I'm sure everyone is familiar with the book. This was even better because the audiobook was created with multiple voice actors creating all the characters. The kids totally ate it up!

The narrator/actress for The Incorrigible Children of Aston Place totally draws in and makes you feel like you are her close confidant. Not to mention that her accent is a pleasure to listen to.  I have not done this as a read aloud yet but I plan to next year.

Here is the Amazon description of the book.

Found running wild in the forest of Ashton Place, the Incorrigibles are no ordinary children: Alexander, age ten or thereabouts, keeps his siblings in line with gentle nips; Cassiopeia, perhaps four or five, has a bark that is (usually) worse than her bite; and Beowulf, age somewhere-in-the-middle, is alarmingly adept at chasing squirrels.

Luckily, Miss Penelope Lumley is no ordinary governess. Only fifteen years old and a recent graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, Penelope embraces the challenge of her new position. Though she is eager to instruct the children in Latin verbs and the proper use of globes, first she must help them overcome their canine tendencies.

But mysteries abound at Ashton Place: Who are these three wild creatures, and how did they come to live in the vast forests of the estate? Why does Old Timothy, the coachman, lurk around every corner? Will Penelope be able to teach the Incorrigibles table manners and socially useful phrases in time for Lady Constance's holiday ball? And what on earth is a schottische?

Happy Reading!

Tried it Techie Tuesday

I'm on a roll joining some of the link ups that I have only followed for ages. It's such fun.

Today I'm joining Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper and Technology Tailgate:

 In all honesty this first item is something I tried for the first time this school year but not actually this week.

After seeing several book recommendation ideas on blogs or pinterest I decided to do a combination of a few.

a collection of fun ideas shared by others

The students decided on a favorite book they would like to recommend to others. Then they worked on recreating a cover (either their own version of a favorite scene of one of the current cover) with a summary of the book on the back. This could be done either on paper or with a favorite program of ours, Wixie. Wixie is an online subscription version of the popular software Pixie (which is available for the computer or as an iOS app). We LOVE this software because it is able to do so many things yet it is very easy to use. In this case the students took advantage of a few of the capabilities like drawing, adding images, using internal clip art and adding text boxes.

After the main covers were done they could do an audio recording of their recommendation for the book. For the students that used iPads they did the recording in audioboo and then pasted the url into kaywa to create the QR code. For those that had drawn the covers on paper they went to a computer and did the recording in vocaroo since it can save directly as a QR code to be printed out from the computer and glued on the cover. Well actually we copied and pasted the QR code image into a word doc so we could shrink them down - otherwise they came out way too big for the covers.

While they were working I pulled a few students out at a time to pose for a picture. We printed them up and they cut and glued them on to their completed covers.
I really thought the project came out very cute.

As for something techie I tried THIS WEEK it would have to be the new app for ISTE 2013.

It just came out the other day and I have been exploring all through it. I have been look through my planner, adding vendors that I want to visit and attendees that I would like to meet (you know some of my heroes).

Is anybody else heading to ISTE?

Thanks for dropping by and hopefully this gives you a fun technology idea you might want to consider.