Global Read Aloud 2018

Students and Teachers at Fuller Meadow and Howe Manning Schools participated in Global Read Aloud.

What is Global Read Aloud?
"The premise is simple; we pick a book to read aloud to our students during a set 6-week period and during that time we try to make as many global connections as possible. Each teacher decides how much time they would like to dedicate and how involved they would like to be. Some people choose to connect with just one class, while others go for as many as possible. The scope and depth of the project is up to you. While there are commonly used such as Skype, Twitter, Padlet,  or Flipgrid, you choose the tools that will make the most sense for you. Teachers get a community of other educators to do a global project with, hopefully inspiring them to continue these connections through the year." (Source)

Why Read Aloud?
“When we read aloud, we create a model for children of what readers look like, how they make sense of text, and how reading is as important to us as eating and breathing. Hearing text read aloud is all it takes to shift some of our students from being people who can read to people who want and love to read.” – Joan Moser

Books for 2018

Author Study - Julie Flett and Monique Gray Smith

Click image for resources

Mrs. Newton discussing Wild Berries

Students in Kindergarten read five amazing books that focused on doing activities with someone you love.  The authors also integrated the Cree language into the story.  Our students loved learning new words!  I had the opportunity to work with Kindergarteners and first graders in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) activity for the book You Hold Me Up. 

Click HERE for the Lesson Plan.

STEM - Build the tallest tower that holds a cup

A Boy Called Bat 

Students in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade read A Boy Called Bat by Elana K. Arnold.  For resources, click HERE.

Miss Polom reading to her 2nd graders

Students really enjoyed exploring the world of skunks with BAT.  They were able to connect with other classes around the country through a Mystery Skype.  These classes continued to "meet" each other as a digital book club through Google Hangouts, Flipgrid and Padlet.  The Global Read Aloud is a great opportunity to integrate technology into the classroom and foster 21st Century Skills. 

"Mystery Skype is an education game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions. It has totally transformed the way students learn about the world in my school." (Source)  

Mrs. LeVangie's 2nd grade class 

Amal Unbound

Students in 4th and 5th grade read Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed.  For resources, click HERE.

      

In our curriculum, we teach our students how to compare and contrast.  Mrs. Wills did a great lesson for finding similarities and differences between the two settings in the book. 

Refugee 

Students in 6th grade read Refugee by Alan Grantz.  For resources, click HERE.

The book Refugee focused on 3 different kids with one mission.  This book really engaged our students in a discussion about immigration and the struggles of leaving your homeland for the unknown.  As the teacher read, students recorded their questions, reactions, facts, and opinions.  

It's been another great GRA year!  We look forward to 2019!  Click HERE for more information on  Global Read Aloud and to sign up for GRA 2019.

Ed Tech in October in Middleton Public Schools

It's always busy in Middleton Schools as our teachers and students are settling in to our school year.

Click the picture below to see a link of October EdTech Resources.

Mystery Skype in 2nd Grade

Students in Mrs. Kennedy's class "travelled" to Nebraska through a Mystery Skype.  

Mystery Skype is an education game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions. It has totally transformed the way students learn about the world in my school. (Source)

"In an effort to boost students’ interest and raise awareness of STEM education, the Baker-Polito Administration will declare a statewide “STEM Week” from October 22-26, 2018, and is asking educators at all grade levels to participate by planning lessons, events, and activities focused on science, technology, engineering and math throughout the week." (Source)

Students and teachers at Fuller Meadow School and Howe Manning School participated in Mass STEM Week throughout the week.
Read More...

Our 6th graders worked with our 3rd graders to help build a robotic frog for their "Life Cycles" lesson.

Lego WeDo 2.0 kits "Frog Metamorphosis"

Sixth grade students created an amusement park using K'Nex pieces.  After they created their project, we used the Green Screen to put the kids right into their park.  Using the app "Green Screen" by DoInk always makes a project come alive.

Check out their video -




STEM in Global Read Aloud

Teachers and Students are participating in the Global Read Aloud this month.  The Global Read Aloud is a program that was started eight years ago by teacher Pernille Ripp to have students all around the world read the same book and collaborate with each other with the book as their common base.

After reading the book You Hold Me Up by Monique Smith and Danielle Daniel, students worked collaboratively to build the tallest tower that they could that would hold up either a cup or a small pumpkin.  What a great way to use critical thinking and problem solving skills!

Seesaw Learning Portfolio in Global Read Aloud

After reading, Wild Berries by Jan Flett, Kindergarten students used and Activity to share something that they like to do with someone they love.  The drew a digital picture and explained their picture in a recorded message.  Their parents are linked to their child's portfolio, so they can get a glimpse of what they are doing in their classroom.

MassCUE 2018

I had the privilege of attending and presenting at MassCUE this year with several of my Tri-Town colleagues.  Each year, Massachusetts Computer Using Educators has their annual conference at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA.  We went to many workshops and lectures to help us integrate technology into our curriculum.  What an empowering conference!  I presented with second grade teachers, Louise Kennedy and Eileen Mulligan, on Seesaw Learning Portfolio and Mystery Skypes to connect globally.  It was a great experience sharing our knowledge of these amazing programs.  Our Art and Artovation teacher, Catie Nasser, also presented a STEAM lesson that she does with our Fuller Meadow students, Art in the Dark.

"MassCUE is a resource-rich, vibrant network of educators providing New England's premier educational technology conference as well as ongoing, high-quality professional learning opportunities, including specialized webinars, workshops, camps, onsite learning tours and more."  (Source)

Certifications 

As the Digital Learning Specialist, it is important to continue to learn about new educational technology as well as existing ed tech that we already use.  Many of these programs offer certifications that are given when you really delve in to the product and learn all that it has to offer.  In October, I earned three new certifications from Book Creator, Kahoot! and Mystery Skype.

Book Creator

Book Creator is the simple way to make your own beautiful ebooks, right on your iPad. With over 30 million ebooks created so far, Book Creator is ideal for making all kinds of books, including children's picture books, comic books, photo books, journals, textbooks and more.  (Source)





Kahoot!
I became #KahootCertified!🥇 Get certified with Kahoot!'s free PD Program! 👉 https://kahoot.com/certified/ 

Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform, used as educational technology in schools and other educational institutions. The company was launched in August 2013 in Norway. Its learning games, "kahoots", are multiple-choice quizzes that allow user generation and can be accessed via web browser. (Source)

Mystery Skype Master

Mystery Skype is an education game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions. It has totally transformed the way students learn about the world in my school. (Source)

Massachusetts STEM Week

#MassStemWeek

October 22 - 26, 2018 | #massstemweek

"In an effort to boost students’ interest and raise awareness of STEM education, the Baker-Polito Administration will declare a statewide “STEM Week” from October 22-26, 2018, and is asking educators at all grade levels to participate by planning lessons, events, and activities focused on science, technology, engineering and math throughout the week." (Source)

Students and teachers at Fuller Meadow School and Howe Manning School participated in Mass STEM Week throughout the week.

I worked with Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers and students to add a STEM project to our reading in Global Read Aloud.  Using the book, You Hold Me Up by Monique Gray Smith and Danielle Daniel, we discussed the double meaning of the title.  In the book, examples were given for boosting up our emotions and lifting our hearts.  Our project took the literal meaning of lifting something up and we designed an activity to hold something up.

Students were challenged to create the tallest tower with 40 wooden blocks. Some classes took the challenge further where their tower had to hold up a cup.

First graders had the challenge to build the tallest tower with 40 wooden blocks that could hold up a pumpkin.  After they had success a couple times, they built the tallest tower to hold a cup.  We discussed why the tower with the cup could go higher than the one with the pumpkin.  Great conversation about weight and height.

Classrooms throughout Howe Manning were active with STEM projects.  Our Math Coordinator, Keira Clemenzi, has been working with our teachers to integrate Lego WeDo 2.0 kits to enhance their science curriculum.  Third graders are learning about "Parents and their offspring and Life Cycles" which matches perfectly with the "Frog Metamorphosis" lesson on Lego WeDo.  They built a tadpole then modified it to a frog.  Students coded their frog to move forward.  Some even added sound effects.  Watch our video below.

Our third graders had the amazing opportunity to have 6th grade students help them with their building.  These kids worked so well together.  It was fun to see our 6th graders take a leadership role

This week, 6th graders designed an amusement park with K'Nex.  They organized, designed and created rides, games and eateries at the "Butler Nature's Amusement Park."

Some students used Green Screen by Do Ink to create a video with their project.  Check out their video below:


This has been a week of collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity.  We have enjoyed our hands-on exploration and designs to help us with our curriculum.

MassCUE 2018

#massCUE18

I had the privilege of attending and presenting at MassCUE this year.  Each year, Massachusetts Computer Using Educators has their annual conference at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA.

"MassCUE is a resource-rich, vibrant network of educators providing New England's premier educational technology conference as well as ongoing, high-quality professional learning opportunities, including specialized webinars, workshops, camps, onsite learning tours and more."  (Source)

The Keynote Speaker this year was Tom Murray from "Future Ready Schools".  He was so inspirational!  These his speech reiterated the importance of being present for our students, building relationships and the importance of personalizing learning.

There were so many amazing presenters at MassCUE.  The workshops ranged from STEM learning to using technology for Social Emotional Learning.  The workshops that I participated in were about Makerspaces, G-Suite for education, Tech Coaching, and Augmented & Virtual Reality.

I presented two workshops at MassCUE 18 with two of my colleagues, Louise Kennedy and Eileen Mulligan.  Our first session was "Using Seesaw Across the Early Elementary Curriculum to Increase Student Engagement and Parent Communication."

Here's our Seesaw presentation -



Louise Kennedy, Eileen Mulligan and I also presented "Going Global! Mystery Location Skypes/Hangouts in the Elementary Classroom".

Here's our Mystery Skype presentation -




The Tri-town School System allowed many of us to attend MassCUE 18.  Learning is so much better when you have others to collaborate and communicate with.  Thank you!

September in Middleton

We have had a busy start to the 2018-2019 school year.  

As Digital Learning Specialist, my job is to help our teachers and students with integrating technology into their curriculum.  We are extremely fortunate to have enough devices for all of our students to use in their classrooms.  I want to personally thank our Middleton community, administration and school committee for supporting our efforts to teach our students 21st century skills.

Tri-Town School Union Vision Statement

The Tri-Town School Union believes in nurturing a dynamic learning environment where creative thinkers and innovative problem-solvers develop the empathy, resilience, perseverance, self-management, and kindness needed to positively impact the world.

Thank you for our Technology!

We are a G-Suite for Education School. All of our 1st - 6th grade students have a Google account.  Our amazing computer teacher Mrs. Pazdziorny and I worked together to get all of our students onto their Google accounts.  It definitely takes a lot of teamwork to manage all of these accounts and make sure that our students understand the importance of digital safety when choosing a secure password. Mrs. Pazdziorny continues to provide opportunities for students to practice their keyboarding skills and our Library teacher teaches the students how to do "Keyword Searches" online.

Students use Google Docs to write their narratives, share their thoughts, and summarizing their reading.

Students in Kindergarten through third grade use the online portfolio program "Seesaw".  They add photos, drawings, videos, text, and voice recordings to show their learning.  Their parents/guardians also get to see their work in their portfolio.  It's really amazing!

Breakout EDU is a game that students play that develops their critical thinking skills, communication, collaboration and creativity.  They work together to solve puzzles and find clues to unlock their box of goodies.  Second graders participated in a Breakout EDU game for "Dot Day."  They had so much fun!

All of our students and teachers are up and running with their technology.  Whether it's using online resources or using "Google Classroom" to assign work, teachers are integrating technology into their lessons.  

We Love Our Technology!

STEAM Carnival

Students, staff and families had the opportunity to participate in the first annual STEAM Carnival for Middleton Public Schools.  Organizers Barbara Deeley and Catie Nasser had the vision to create a fun, family oriented festival to explore the arts in a different way.  Teachers organized their own booths and had some phenomenal student volunteers.  Games were STEAM themed - Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics.  There was so much excitement in the air!

Check out the video below:

Atomic History - Students become the scientist

Sixth graders are studying atoms and learning about the history of atomic structure.  They broke into 7 small groups and conducted research about one of the scientists who are instrumental in developing the theory of atomic structure.

The scientists are:

Students took some time to research their scientist.  They learned about their biography and atomic theory that the scientist developed.  Next, they worked together to write and practice a script to share in a green screen video.  We used the app "Green Screen" by Do Ink and imported a picture behind them that relates to their information.  We then used the app "iMovie" to put all of the videos together to make a class video that includes all of the scientists videos.

Check out their videos:

BreakoutEDU

Students in WHMN News Crew ended our season with a collaborative game called BreakoutEDU.

Breakout EDU - immersive games platform for learners of all ages. In Breakout EDU games, players work collaboratively to solve a series of critical thinking puzzles in order to open a locked box. Each Breakout EDU kit can be used to play hundreds of games. Breakout EDU Games are designed for 8-15 players. Teachers that play Breakout EDU with a full class use two or three kits and divide the students into small groups.  (Source)

Our game focused on Growth Mindset - “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment,” writes Dweck

Getting started...

The kids had so much fun "escaping" the room! They worked well together and overcame frustration!  I'm so proud of them!

Click HERE for more information about BreakoutEDU.