Frosty's Challenge #4: Learning to Code

Frosty left us with the following challenge and left a QR code for us to scan.  

It took us to the following video from President Obama!

  

President Obama challenged us to learn how to write computer code.  Frosty left instructions with Mrs. Haney to show us a short project he created using the Hopscotch app.  He made a monkey move across the stage (screen in "code talk") and then when we clapped our hands the monkey grew bigger. (Mrs. Haney said that was because the monkey was getting a big ego from all our clapping.) 

We were impressed--all this from an elf who doesn't have opposable thumbs!   

After a short tutorial, we spent time learning to write code to make avatars move across a screen.  

It isn't every day that a class has an elf friend who has President Obama challenge them to learn to code.  Can't wait to see what Frosty has in store for us next !

A Month of Learning With Frosty

This month, we have a special learning friend visiting our class.  Hover over the image below and click one of the targets.  We got started a couple of days late, but we are excited about our new guest.  Check back each day to see what we have learned.

Goods and Services Around Carrollton, TX

As we continue our study of economics, we will be discussing how work provides income to purchase goods and services and the choices people can make about spending money in the U.S. free enterprise system.

During the week of Thanksgiving, student families partnered with us to ensure that our studies could be meaningful and relevant to each student.  Many parents snapped pictures for us as they went around our town making purchases with their students.  We are discussing the purchases we made at each location and discussing if our purchases were goods or services.  Below is a slide presentation of some of the places students visited.  Later this week, students will explore the app Telligami to tell us more about the many choices we have to spend income in our city.

A special thank you everyone who submitted pictures!  
Mrs. Haney

Here are some of our videos:

From Start to Finish

Have you ever wondered how something is made?  

Where do we get the resources to make all the things we use every day?  

These were two questions that helped launch a unit of study as we traced the development of a product from a natural resource to a finished product. 

We began with an open sort of items and students were asked to sort them in any way that they thought would make sense.  We learned there was one secret way to sort the times.  

The different ways we sorted

Things we use and Trash

Things that are not flexible and Things that are flexible

Plants and Not Plant

Things you find inside and Things you find outside

One group guess the secret sort:

Things that are made by man and Things that are made by nature

Each group took a picture of their sort using our classroom iPad and then shared it with the class using AirServe to explain their thinking. 

Then we went on a walk around our school to find more examples of natural resources.  We took pictures of what we found using our classroom iPad.  We also read a passage from our social studies textbooks and viewed a video about natural resources to get more information.

Next, some students were given a clip art picture of a natural resource and a man made product and mixed around the room, using a Kagan cooperative learning strategy.  Students had to find their partner by matching the natural resource to the man-made product. As groups found each other, they were given a corresponding book from the start to finish series that explained how the product is made from the natural resource.  

After having time to explore each of the different books in the series, students broke themselves into groups and three and each group selected one of the books they would like to explore further.  

Groups read the book and discussed the process.  They then made a Flow Map (Thinking Maps) to trace the development of a product from a natural resource to a finished product. 

Because we wanted to share our learning with others, each group also created a short video to explain the process using Educreations.  We were inspired byt the book Tomorrow's Alphabet as we created our titles.  We added a QR code to our maps and sent an email out to our campus inviting students to view our work.  

 We also learned how to use the i-nigma app to scan other groups QR code to view their videos.

This unit addressed the following enduring understandings:

People depend on their physical environment, including natural resources, to satisfy their basic needs.

All goods begin with natural resources.

Below are the Educreations projects we made:

We Are Thankful

The week before Thanksgiving, we reflected on the many things we have in our lives.   While having toys and gadgets are nice, we learned about children who do not have opportunities to go to school, go to bed hungry every night, don't have a bed, and don't have running water.  We discussed the difference between wants and needs and how lucky each of us to have our basic needs met.  During Thanksgiving it is tradition to pause and state something you are thankful for.  What are you thankful for this holiday season?  

Wishing you and your families a wonderful holiday season.  May the attitude of gratitude fill your lives beyond the holiday season!

The Second Grade Superstars

Created with Padlet

Holiday Card Exchange Project

Our class is participating in the Holiday Card Exchange Project this year.  We will be participating with classrooms across the United States and Canada. Each participating class will receive a card and information about each city of the classrooms in our group. 

I have created a map that shows where we have sent cards to.  We are creating a visual in our hallway of all the places we receive cards from.  As we receive cards we hope to communicate with some of the classes through Skype and/or Twitter.  

The kids and I are excited to learn more about the different places we receive cards from.  We will update you on our learning!

Digital Citizenship PBL: Learning Safely and Responsibly.

Last week brought a close to our first project based learning experience of the year.  I have recently shared information about launching our PBL, updates on our PBL, and how we collaborated with experts virtually.  After lots of learning and fun, we were ready to share what we had created.  I completely forgot about taking pictures during the presentation, so I am grateful to Su Brusco for sharing this picture with me. 

Click on the image below to see each group's presentation.

The kids did an amazing job during their presentations.  They did the everything from the introduction to facilitating the question and answer session.  I was so proud of them, but more importantly, they were proud of themselves.  

Our class wants to thank the following people who helped and supported us during this learning experience:

Mrs. Brusco and Mrs. Nickols for helping us launch our learning.
Mr. Froese, Mrs. Windham, and Ms Lamb for answering our questions
Ms. Brant for helping us with technology
Mrs. Gwyn and Mrs. Roberts for meeting with us and providing feedback
Ms. Fry, Ms. Casida, Ms. Garrett, and our parents who attended our presentation

While this was a wonderful learning experience, it was also a great deal of fun!

Brining Experts into the Classroom Virtually

As we were working on our Digital Citizenship PBL, the Smart Hawks team realized that they needed more information about using Smartboards safely and responsibly than they were able to find online.  We decided to invite Ms. Heather Lamb with Smart Technologies to Skype with the team so they could learn more.  Mrs. Lamb was so incredibly accommodating and sent the team several documents in advance. The team crafted some questions and were excited to collaborate with Mrs. Lamb.  

When it was time to make the phone call, all I did was was get Skype set up and the team took over from there.  We are so grateful to be learning in this time where technology helps us break down the walls of our classroom.  We also realize how lucky we are to be learning in a district that embraces 21st century skills.  If you would like to learn more about how our district is transforming so "All students enjoy thriving productive lives in a future they create," please visit the Lewisville ISD Strategic Design website.  

Exploring Sound

We explored sound through an open inquiry experience during a recent science investigation.  We borrowed some instruments from our amazing music teacher and the students spent some time examining them to learn how they produce sound.   

Then students explored a variety of materials we lovingly called "junk" and the our creative learners went to work designing instruments.  Below is a video that chronicles our learning.  

Mobile Version for viewing on Smartphone:

Here is a recording of the first live performance of the Superstar Junk Band. Enjoy!

listen to ‘Exploring Sound with @2ndGrSuperstars’ on Audioboo

Lessons Learned from Blogging with my Students

Two weeks ago, our class began blogging.  A great deal of learning, practice, and discussion went into the weeks leading up to students crafting their first post.  We also learned how to compose meaningful comments.  These were all important lessons; however, during these past two weeks I have also learned what a powerful tool blogging can be for a variety of reasons.

Blogging is powerful when is a choice not a requirement.  In our class, blogging is (and always will be) a choice. Each week I do have an optional blog challenge.   Students may respond to the blog challenge, post about any school appropriate topic they would like, or choose not to post at all.  In the past two weeks, students have composed over 100 posts.  Some students have more posts than others and that is fine.  We write in class every day.  Now that we have learned how to blog, blogging will one choice in how we can publish our work.  Blogging provides an authentic audience for our writing; however, we do have other outlets as well.  

Blogging allows us to connect with other students.  We have a class in Canada that we have connected with in Kidblog.  It has been very interesting for us to read what second graders in another country write about--surprisingly we write about very similar things.   

Blogging provides a wonderful opportunity for us to discuss digital citizenship and safety.  We are learning how to leave a positive digital footprint.  We have discussed how to choose our words carefully and have had to edit some of our posts and comments to be sure we are mindful of others feelings.   We also had a situation where one of our learning friends in Canada asked one of our students where they lived.  Because I have our settings set so I have to approve all comments, we were able to turn this into a teachable moment and talk about putting personal information online and how to respond when someone asks us questions like this.  

Parents are powerful partners in blogging.  Before launching our blogs, I obtained each parents' permission.  I explained the purpose of our blogs and how I saw us using them.  I also explained that I wanted the blogs open so families could comment on them.  Even though some parents were apprehensive, 100% of them gave permission with the understanding they could opt out at any time.  So far, I have had overwhelmingly positive comments from parents about our blogs.  It is important to me that they know they have a voice and choice in their student's online presence.  I also have a team of parents who serve as blogging volunteers.  They help me comment on blog posts, and they write the most amazing comments!

Blogging allows us to tear down the walls of our classroom and allows families and friends to communicate with us.  In the past two weeks, we have had over 360 comments (and counting) to our posts.  I had been worried that we would not have very many comments.  That simply had not been the case.  Grandparents, cousins, aunts, big sisters, and parents comment on our posts. We have had comments from all around the United States and Mexico. I love reading these comments and knowing that blogging has allowed student families to see what is happening in our classroom.  

I am excited about the learning opportunities that blogging has brought to our classroom.  I would love to hear how other classrooms use blogs and what they have learned.  

Update on our PBL

As I shared before, our class has begun our very first adventure with Project Based Learning this year.  I was out two days this week, attending a workshop, but we still moved forward in our learning.  

Since our last post about our PBL project, we had two visitors come to our class to share their knowledge with us.  

First, Mr. Froese, the director of Educational Technology for our district, came to speak with us about digital learning.  We had lots of questions for him and he had even more for us.  He really helped the kids dig deep in regard to what direction they wanted to move with their projects.  He also gave us ideas for how to frame key words for our online research.  

One of the words on our rubric was creative.  As the kids discussed the rubric, they wondered how they would know if their project were creative.  Mia remembered a lesson Mrs. Windham, our GT teacher had done over creativity so we invited her to come visit us again for a brief review.  She brought FEFO with her and gave us some wonderful information.  She even left a poster she had made to explain what FEFO stood for (Fluency, Elaboration, Flexibility, Originality.)  We will definitely use this as we begin to consider products to share our learning.  

One of our "Needs to Know" questions was How do we know if a website is safe or not?  As a class we are exploring this question (more to come on this in a future blog post.)  Each team of students decided to select one of the tools we use as digital learners and create a product to share with other second graders so they will know how to use these tools safely and responsibly.  Below are our teams.

More to come soon!

Pic Penguins--PicCollage

Twitter Tigers--Twitter

 Bird Bloggers--Kid Blog

FASTTMath Fasties--FASTTMath

Smart Hawks--SmartBoard

Perfect Pals: Puppet Pals

—

A Week of "Firsts"

This was a week of "firsts" for our 2nd grade class.  The first first was that we Skyped for the first time with our learning friends in Mrs. Goodwin's 2nd grade class in Indiana.  Mrs. Goodwin's class is one of friends in the Primary Blogging Community.  During our Skype session, Mrs. Goodwin's class shared a Halloween poem and then three students shared poems they had written.  

Nadia introduced our class and shared some information about us.  Our class has been working on the reading strategy of visualization and so we also read a  Halloween poem to Mrs. Goodwin's class.  Jordan and Morgan then shared their pictures they had drawn based on what they visualized as they read the poem.  It was exciting to get to see some of the students we have been learning with.  

Our next first was that we linked our Kidblog account with our some learning friends in Canada.  Mrs. Roddau's 2nd grade class loves to blog just like us. Now that our classes are linked, students can comment on one another's blogs. It was really neat to see what students in Canada write about.   

Learning to collaborate safely and responsibly with other students throughout the world is a major professional goal of mine this year.  One of the most exciting things about technology is that we are able to tear down the walls of our classroom and learn alongside other students in meaningful ways.  

Can't wait to see what other "firsts" this year brings.  What new things is your class trying for the first time?  We would love to hear from you!

The Boat Challenge

We received the following challenge:

Create a boat that can float while carrying 10 penny passengers using only the materials provided.  You have 30 minutes to explore and test the materials before you begin your design.  Good luck and happy learning!

To say the students were excited would have been a complete understatement.  Students selected partners and the learning began.  The challenge which took three science periods to complete was designed to enable students to explore the following Texas state standard 

2.5(D) Combine materials that when put together can do things that they cannot do by themselves.

Talk about engagement!

ENGAGEMENT (as defined by Phil Schlechty.)
• The student sees the activity as personally meaningful. 
• The student’s level of interest is sufficiently high that he persists in the face of difficulty. 
• The student finds the task sufficiently challenging that she believes she will accomplish something of worth by doing it. 
• The student’s emphasis is on optimum performance and on “getting it right.” 

Watch the following video which chronicles our learning.

Learning to Comment on Blogs

I recently wrote about our entry into the world of blogging. Students typed their first blog post on a Friday and before the weekend was over, they had received over 100 comments.  Our next lesson was how to reply to comments. We discussed why we would want to reply and how to write a reply.  

After seeing how many comments they had received, students wanted to comment on each others posts as well.  I turned to a great student created video from some of our learning friends in California.  Ms. Yollis' class has created a wonderful video explaining how to write quality comments on blogs. If you are wanting to support your students in writing effective comments, the Second Grade Superstars gives this video Two Thumbs Up! 

Here are some comment we wrote after watching this video.

Blog post:

Student comment:

Blog post:

 Student Comment:

Blog Post:

 Student Comment:

Launching Our First PBL

Our campus is participating in a common-threaded PBL.  During a recent campus professional learning teachers were challenged to design a project based learning experience around the theme of digital citizenship.  Our team reviewed our technology TEKS and decided to focus on the following TEKS:

5B Comply with acceptable digital safety rules, fair use guidelines, and copyright laws.

3B Use search strategies to access information to guide inquiry

Our driving question is:

How can we, as digital learners, teach other second graders to use technology in a safe and responsible way?

We launched our learning today with an entry event created by some of our district Strategic Design Coaches.  (Thank you Su and Stacey!)

The students were excited to begin their project.  I will continue to blog about our journey.

Student Blogs

This week, we launched our individual student blogs.  In the weeks leading up to our launch, we learned what blogs are from our friends Tim and Moby at Brain Pop.  We read sample student blogs from our learning friends on Twitter.  We also discussed some safety rules and blogging etiquette to ensure that we are being safe and responsible with our posts.  Parents were also informed about our blogging endeavors and had the option to opt out.  

We are using Kidblog to host our student blogs.  I chose them because they offer a free hosting option.  Most importantly though, they have the added security option that enables me to preview and approve each student post and every comment made before it goes live.  

To help facilitate our first blog post, I asked students to write about the top three things their readers would want to know about them.   The students were very excited about having blogs after all their learning.  

I emailed parents the link and invited them to share it with their extended families.  Additionally I mentioned we were launching to our principal.  I was not prepared for what happened next.  Within 24 hours, the comments were pouring in--64 and counting.  Cousins, aunts, uncles, sisters, mothers, and fathers were commenting.  My principal even spent her Friday night commenting on every student blog post.  Wow!

Kidblog will become one of the choices in our Working on Writing station.  I know it will be a popular choice and with only three laptops in my room, we will have to work out how we might take turns.  I am excited to see how our blogging year goes.