Mother's Day Gift

This year for Mother's Day I wanted the students to create a personalized gift for their moms.
First, we put hearts on the wall and took pictures of each kid. We had their pictures developed 5X6.   (Thank you Pinterest for the inspiration)

Next, we video taped each kid sharing with us why they loved their moms.
We created a beautiful backdrop. 




Then, we QR coded their You Tube message and the students glued their QR code to their photos.  We attached instructions on how to use a QR code.

The moms really liked their gift. Here are some of their comments:

• Thank you so much for the lovely Mother's Day message you had the kids do
• Thank you! That was a very sweet Mother’s Day gift :)
• Thanks for the video for Mother's Day!   It was very sweet :)
• Happy Mother's Day to you too and thanks for the great video messages! 

The Power of Questions

Six years ago, I created a class blog to help parents start the conversation at home about what their child was learning in class.  I thought that by sharing with them in photos, videos and texts what their child was learning, it would help their child recall the events of the day. A class blog would help solve the problem when parents would ask "What did you do at school today?"  and their child respond: "Nothing".  

The class blog has given the parents an opportunity to see and hear what their child is learning on a daily basis.  After attending a professional learning group today, I am wondering if perhaps we need to build capacity with parents in asking the right questions. Open ended questions are very powerful! When we ask the right questions, we get information.  Here is a great video that explains the power of questions!   Let's encourage the parents to: "Instead of asking their child: What did you do at school today? Let's start asking what questions did you ask?"

Chromebooks in Kindergarten

Are you wondering how Kindergarten students might be using Chromebooks? 

This year, we received one tech tub with five Chromebooks in our class.  The students loved using these fast computers to learn all year. 

First, the students have learned to take their log-in information cards and independently type in their usernames and passwords. Next, from the home page that has been set up by our learning technology department they can choose Raz-Kids or Dreambox by clicking on the icon. The students can go read a book or master the key concepts of elementary math anytime during learning centers. Then, they have learned to use Google Voice to ask various questions. They can discover how to say new vocabulary in French (e.g., Say friend in French), get answers to their wonders (e.g., Caterpillar picture), learn how to spell words (e.g., Spell dog) or discover how to represent numbers using numerals (e.g., What is 5?). In addition, we have caught students going to YouTube for purposeful learning.  The students found the YouTube icon, typed various titles of songs that we had previously learned, had fun singing and dancing to them. 

The students are using the Chromebooks very well. They are responsible!   No Chromebooks have been accidentally dropped on the floor.  They share and work together to problem solve when they encounter difficulties (e.g., typo in username when logging in).  Observing how the students use the Chromebooks is impressive and I realize that there are many possibilities for 4 and 5 year old children to use them to learn.

Here are more possibilities that I will explore with my Kindergarten students:

• explore Google Drive-Drawings (e.g., make a plan before building at the block area)
• explore Google Drive-Document-Research-Images  (e.g., labeling the doctor's office at the dramatic play area) 
• show them how to navigate to the class blog and select learning links (e.g., ABCya)
• explore apps (meegenius, pbskidsplay, scootpad, spell up)

How are you using Chromebooks with your Kindergarten students?

Parent Tech Night: App SmackDown

Our APP SmackDown Pizza Night was a huge success! Parents joined us and learned how we use technology in innovative ways to enhance our literacy program. They had an opportunity to learn from their child and see how tech allows for the creation of new tasks previously unimaginable. This hands-on networking session, showed them how the apps that we use promote creativity, opportunities for differentiated learning, personalized learning and collaboration with the world. Parents discovered how throughout the day, technology in embedded in their child’s learning in a meaningful way. The apps that we used allowed their child to have choice, to have ownership of their learning and therefore be engaged learners! In addition, they listened to their children’s tutorials, their child helped them explore the apps and they learned where to find app resources. Here is my presentation:

Kindergarten App SmackDown Night from tanya alvarez

Here is the app activity:

Appsmackdownscavengerhunt from tanya alvarez

Kindergarten Twitter Night

Kinder Twitter Night was a success! K parents and their child were invited to a Twitter Pizza Night! Parents were invited to join us to learn all about one of the most popular social media on the planet: Twitter! Their child shared with them how we use Twitter in the classroom. We helped them set up a Twitter account. We showed them how to follow the class and school news. We shared with them what skills their children were developing when tweeting and how we used Twitter to connect globally. Here is my presentation:

Kindergarten Twitter Pizza Night from mstalvarez

Safe Place: Record Your Kinder Parents

In our classroom we practice, conscious discipline which is a self-regulating program that integrates social-emotional learning and discipline.  According to Dr. Bailey, ”Discipline in not something you do to children.  It is something you develop within them.”  

Through the Shubert’s books, the students are learning that our safe place is a corner where they can go to change the inner state of mind from upset to calm or sad to happy in order to maximize learning.  The children are learning to identify their feelings and choose helpful strategies to calm their bodies.  There are different breathing techniques that they are learning to use, for example they can do the pretzel, the drain, the balloon… Also, the students are learning to identify their emotions and choose to self regulate their behaviour (e.g., I am angry that you don’t want to share with me, instead of hitting you, I am going to go take 5 deep breath, relax and then talk about it to find a solution).  When the students go to the safe place, there is a “calm you body bin” where there are different sensory objects to help them relax.  We have squishy balls for touch; a motion wand for sight; aromatherapy scent bottles for smell; and a recording of an I love you message from parents for sound.  

When, I tweeted in September that I was planning on recording my parents at my Kindergarten meeting saying an "I love you message" with the iPad. Then QR code, print it and insert it in a scrapbook for our safe place. I got many retweets and questions regarding how I did this.   Well, it was very easy and one of the best things I've done this year. Here is what I did:

First, during Kindergarten interviews in September, I recorded the parents in their first language saying an I love you message to their child.  I used the app called Fotobabble to snap a picture of the parents and then the parents recorded their special message for their child.  The parents were thrilled to be able to do this for their child. Some parents had tears in their eyes and all their messages were unique and special.  Some even said: "I wish my parents could of done this for me when I went to Kindergarten! Technology is amazing!"  Next, I used the QR code generator extension in Chrome to QR the Fotobabble link. I printed it and the students had fun making our family scrapbook.  Each student brought in family pictures, drew pictures and glued the QR code on their page in our scrapbook.  Then, the scrapbook was placed in our safe place. When the students were sad or when they were missing their parents, they went to the safe place, scanned the QR code with the i-nigma app and listened to their parents. When the students heard their parents message, they felt better right away. It was so comforting for them to hear their parents voices! It was great to see the children's eye brighten up as they heard and saw their parents. It made them feel instantly better. The scrapbook continues to be in our safe place and is readily available to the students! 

GRA/DropItToMe

This year, my class is participating in the Global Read Aloud Project. We are studying the author Eric Carle.  Our first book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Last week, we had a great opportunity to video chat with two different classes from the USA via Skype. Mrs. Jones Grade 6 students read us the book in a creative way and lead a discussion.  We loved the props they used! Mrs. Andrew's Kindergartens taught us the cycle of a butterfly.  We loved their drawings! In addition, my Kindergarten students, used the app Draw and Tell app to create their own representation of a butterfly.  Each student recorded his/her name, where in the world he/she lived and shared something about his/her butterfly.  My students work will be part of a collaborate iMovie video with 3 other classes: Mrs. Lirenman's grade 1's from Vancouver, Mrs. Sargent PK-1st from Massachusetts and Mrs. Goold Kindergartens from California.  This was a lot of fun!

Ms. Lirenman taught me a cool way to share my student's work created on an iPad with her, who is far away. And I was able to do all of this all with my iPad! It's called dropitome! First, I saved the students work on my camera roll. Next, I opened Safari and typed in the http://dropitto.me/  address that Ms. Lireman created and shared with me. I typed in the password, uploaded the file (student work) that I wanted to share with her and hit send! That's it! It was very easy to share my students work with my global read aloud partner.  Thank you to Ms. Lirenman for teaching me how to do this. I've already shared it with some colleagues and they also think it's pretty cool too!