What makes someone tech savvy?

This.  The ability to try things out and fail.  Then you might need to fail some more, ask someone a fraction of your age for help, and try it again.  THAT's what makes someone tech savvy-- actually that's what makes someone a learner.  If you put a set of K'nex in front of me WITH the step-by-step directions, and I will have the thing built by, oh, Y3K.  That same set, in the hands of a former former fifth grader who read on a first grade level-- he had that thing built in 10 minutes flat with an itemized list of the pieces I was missing.

Forgive my harsh words (and this word is one of my LEAST favorites), but at the recent BEST conference, we teachers joked that we all suck at something-- and we need to embrace our suckiness and ask for help in order to overcome it.  Kids need to know that it's okay to suck at things, and it's okay to admit that you suck.  That's how we know what we need to learn.

Rock on, Grandma.

Do you 2.0 and Avatar Fun!

I have been playing around with various web2.0 tools this week, and evaluating which I might want to use with my class this coming year.  First, I played with Voki.  It was easy to set up an account, but once I tried to create my avatar, I was very frustrated.  The free avatar choices were not very good-- I didn't want to pay the yearly fee just to get an avatar I liked.

My favorite avatar style is one that looks like the Wii Mii's (maybe that's what they're called), and a person I follow on Twitter now (thanks to the Dynamic Landscapes Conference) is Jennifer LaGarde-- or as she is known by her twitter handle:

I love the style of her avatar... cartoonish, and cute, and looks just like the real person (minus the cartoonish part).

I have been searching the net off and on for months trying to figure out how to make an avatar in that style-- which clearly was a big old brain fart on my part.  Why did I not just tweet her to find out?  So I have now done just that!

And ironically, LibraryGirl, just tweeted this-- literally 5 minutes before I tweeted her:

The link will bring you to a page describing 20 different ways to create an avatar, and one of them will even put your head in a jar.  Seriously...check it out here.  I think I even found the way to make the cute wii mii person like LibraryGirl.

I have also been playing around with Edmodo.  It was super easy to set up an account and I was quickly able to set up my page.  I like that it looks like a Facebook page-- I have a feeling that my class this coming year is fairly savvy with Facebook.  I need to play around with it more to see what it is capable of.  Maybe I'll send out a tweet to see what other teachers think.

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Ok... so I'm now back a couple of hours later to say that I am absolutely having sooooooo much fun playing with avatars.  Here are the one's I have played with from the link found above:

My lego avatar

My Simpsons Avatar

I Picasso'd my face

   and my favorite so far

Wee Mee

And I still find myself playing.  The kids would really love to "Wimp" themselves at www.wimpyourself.com!  Here's my wimp avatar: 

Here, I played on www.clayyourself.com and made a clay avatar:

Google Apps for Ed and Learning

This week, as part of my Summer Techsploration class, I was asked to play around with some of Google's apps for education.  The first app I started with was MAPS.  By customizing a map, I am able to create my own interactive map.  We always begin the year with a study of the US Government, so I was right away intrigued by mapping out the three main buildings in Washington D.C. that represent the three branches of government.   I love the way Google Maps make you feel like you are standing in the middle of the street, or in another case, in the middle of the White House.  This is a great way for Vermont students to take a virtual tour of our government buildings.

There is nothing like looking at some of the actual places we study.  It was also interesting to see where the buildings were in relation to each other.  Using the draw tool, I connected the three buildings.  In the future, I might ask the kids to find Dothan Brook School in order to put the location into perspective.

New Beginnings

The new year ahead will mark some new beginnings for me.  First, the fifth grade team will be new.  We're a variety of sorts, this new team, but we complement each other nicely.  I'm excited about all of the new and exciting things that the new year will bring us, but will still be missing and thinking about Mrs. McCullar a lot.

Here's the brand new Fifth Grade Team:

Mrs. Torrey, Mrs. Vielleux, Mr. Burns

Next, our school is moving forward with our plans to continue some of the PBiS projects we planned this summer.  A team of us just got back from the BEST Summer Institute in Killington, where we were the proud winners of the Scavenger Hunt.  We also got to pose for a picture with Vermont's Commissioner of Education, Armando Vilaseca.  What a day!

VACATION

Ahhh... yes.  I made it.  What a week it's been.  We've wrapped up our latest book groups and are presenting book projects this week.  It's great to hear the kids' interpretations of events-- they all have such different perspectives on things.

During vacation, encourage your kids to do a little practice work to keep the skills from getting rusty.
Bonus bucks will be awarded to any students who bring these assignments back on Monday after vacation.


Click here for a math practice page

Kids, sign into your google accounts to access this book and comprehension worksheet.

You'll get more information about the battles of the American Revolution.  Have a great vacation, and read, read, read.

Colonial Kids

Thanks to Kate Townsend, DBS Art Teacher, the students turned their portraits into "Colonial Portraits." Can you tell who these kids are?




And whoops... two accidentally got left out of the book, so they get their own spot.

What a Strange Week It's Been!

Want to know the easiest way to get 17 fifth graders off task quickly?  Here it is:

And that was at 4:22!  Imagine it at noon!  Which is the best backdrop for a conversation about RESPECT.  As a staff we took a look at the Student Support Forms over the past month and the vast majority had something to do with disrespectful behavior.  So we asked ourselves, "What is respect?"  Break out groups of teachers in similar grade levels came up with brainstorms.

Here are the 4th and 5th grade teachers' ideas for what respect looks like, feels like and sounds like:

There's a lot of "grumbling" out loud going on in the fourth and fifth grades about activities kids don't want to do.  Plus, as teachers, we decided there was a list of NON-NEGOTIABLES for fourth and fifth graders: 

• eye rolling, stomping, pouting, groaning
• body away from the group
• calling out
• arguing and back-talk

The next day, with my fifth graders, I had a great conversation with them and shared the startling data about the amount of disrespectful behavior going on.  They brainstormed similarly, and here are some of their responses-- please excuse the spelling!

I have a pretty smart bunch of kids!

We also finished Tuck Everlasting-- which is the epitome of why a book should not be judged by its cover.  At the beginning of the book I asked the kids if they would want to live forever.  The overwhelming majority thought they would like to.  The age they would want to stay varied, but none of them wanted to be any older than 21.  Imagine thinking that 21 is old!  Anyways, later in the book, I asked them again, and many more students were questioning their original choice.  They were mesmerized by the adventure, thrilled by the mystery, and confused by the odd toad in the story.  I promised them we'd watch the video and compare the movie and the book.

Here's one student's doodle of the scene that takes place at the magic spring near the old ash tree:

Watch Liberty and Justice's Babies Hatch

We've been watching two bald eagles care for their baby and 2 eggs this morning.  Check out the site by clicking the photo below.

Link to other Upper Elementary Blogs

Ever wonder what is going on around the country in other classrooms?  Check out the link to the blogs below.

Parents! Vote to send John Herman to Space!

This morning on my way to working I was listening to the radio and learned of a competition to send someone to space in 2012.  John Herman, a NH teacher, is one of the finalists.  You can view his video here.  I think his message is a great one-- look at the amazement a baby has with the world he or she is learning about.  As teachers and parents we should instill in our kids a sense of wonder with things around them no matter how ordinary or extraordinary something is.  There's always something to wonder about.