Approximately two weeks after the first giant earthquake hit Nepal, Jaiden and his family were on the plane to visit Nepali family members. While there, they were able to meet up with Govinda Panthy, founder of the Tripur Kinder Academy. This is a school that I, along with many others have been helping to support via the Open World Cause project. Govinda is a hardworking family man with a wife and 14 year old daughter. Initially, all of Govinda's family members were accounted for, but sadly, after the second earthquake hit two weeks after the first one, Govinda lost a 27 year old relative who had been working on the second floor of a bank and was unable to escape. We take our hats off the resilient people of Nepal who are trying very hard to stay strong, survive, and rebuild. It is very touching seeing Jaiden's whole family with our friend Govinda! Thank you for connecting. Hawthorne ES will forever be connected to Govinda and his family!
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Many Hawthorne students have been hard at work in their first "Maker-Difference" Space project--a beaded abacus for the young children to practice math at the new Tripur Kinder Academy in Nepal. This school was supported by the efforts of my friends Ben Honeycutt and Connor Janzen who invited the world to participate. At first we helped establish an internet connection and laptops but over the years, the purchasing of land took place, and next, the building a brand new school in a part of Nepal where children have little access to education!
Nikos Mavrommatis, a sound designer and music composer for sound to television, film, radio, and web came to meet with the 3rd graders at Hawthorne ES! He has his own company called Circus Act and his biggest client is Cartoon Network Latin America. He shared his work informing students on what it takes to become a sound designer and to consider it as a career path.
He presented the making of a Cartoon Network anti-bullying promotional spot from inception to completion. This process involves a lot processes and professionals to come together! Thank you Nikos for inspiring and engaging our students to be creative and use their imagination in a structured, professional way! Our 4th grade students are part of a global collaboration project called DENVoices-"Agents of Change" This is a "passion project" of Discovery Education STAR educators who want to connect their classrooms through music. The final product will be a video with smaller videos of all 42 schools singing the same song at the same time--It will be super awesome! To make it more fun, each participating class was partnered up with another school to learn about the passions of other students. Mr Arrington hosted the introductory Skype meeting with the awesome 6th grade students in Denver, Colorado. All of the students introduced themselves and came up to the microphone to say one thing that they are "passionate" about. This was a great way for students to connect on things they have in common, even though they live so far away! The high point of our meeting was when this amazing class sang Jingle Bells with us! And, our principal walked in during the song so everyone started over and did it again to include Ms Limoncelli, who had no problem getting into a festive spirit thanks to our friends from Ms While today was not our first Skype in Education meet-up with another class, it was our first official Mystery Skype. This educational game was designed by teachers to encourage kids to learn about the world by trying to guess where the other class is located. This is not as easy as it sounds and requires a good deal of thinking and geographic reference material. We met up with a great class from Connecticut! They were sharp and looked for clues on our clothes--one of our students was wearing an Atlanta sweatshirt and that might have been a clue b/c they guessed GA pretty quickly! Our students feel that they should have used the larger map that was put on the wall by Dalila because they missed the fact that CT was just off the border of one of the important clues, and therefore it was not considered as a possibility by the students! Example of a Class Training for Mystery Skype posted by Slivia Rosenthal Tolisiono |
The students are intrigued by circuit building. They create lights and sounds. The kit they are using has directions for 100 different projects. They are called Snap Circuits and the kit is around $22.00 so it is a great value for anyone interested. | This student created a video explaining how she built the circuit and she is showing her video on the Promethean board while holding her circuit board.-Great job Amaya! |
Our science author parent, Jodi Wheeler-Toppen came by to give me a private lesson on squishy circuits as she is preparing to write a new book and has been trying new things out. Squishy circuits involve using soft objects and foods to conduct electricity to create closed circuits. This is the safest way for kids to learn about electricity. I know this sounds a bit odd and I am not explaining it very well so here is a great resource for you to study further! http://sylviashow.com/episodes/s2/e7/mini/squishycircuits
Second grade is working on addition and subtraction. While computational fluency and automaticity are very important, it's also important for students how to use and interpret the tools around them. Understanding how to correctly use a number line to solve a math problem is a form of literacy. The second graders had fun practicing with this number line, but in the future, we will find one that has no advertising!
The Britannica Learning Zone can be found in GALILEO within the Britannica Elementary encyclopedia link. The kiddos loved using the DRAW feature today! Students are free to do free style but they also have the option to select a model to draw. Below, students drew a rabbit and a stuffed bear! A good time was had by all!
Second grade had a fun visit by Puppet Maker Extraordinaire Heidi Carpenter. Ms Carpenter is UBER talented because not only can she do puppet shows, but she makes her very own puppets. Today our students were treated to a behind the scenes look at what goes into making various types of puppets. She talked about using all sorts of household items and things that can be purchased a thrift store. Ms Carpenter always sees the potential to create a puppet so she is always on the lookout for "stuff" she can use! Thank you so much for coming and teaching us about making puppets. This fits into our theme of "KidVentor" (kids who invent and create). We love you and all of your puppets Ms Carpenter. Thank you also to Ms Rich for helping arrange this awesome session! See our slideshow below and enjoy the puppets!
Welcome Ms CullivER, OUr newest Kindergarten teacher! Fun With Skype on her first day of work!
9/23/2014
Ms Culliver, our new Kindergarten teacher is really fun to work with. On her first day, we Skyped with Mrs Morgan, a friend of mine from the DEN (Discovery Educators Network). Our students practiced speaking in complete sentences and learning the difference between a question and a statement. They practiced asking and answering questions with the 6th graders in Illinois! Ms Morgans class was super-terrific in terms of their attitude, knowledge, and behavior! I hope we can see them again soon!
We were invited to collaborate with Ms Robertson's class from the Elkmont k-12 School in Elkmont, Alabama. This school is about 45 miles away from Huntsville, AL! We learned a lot about their school and they shared with us how they are going to "make their mark." We had some sound problems but it was still a lot of fun and a good time was had by all! Happy Dot Day to you!
It was a great day at Hawthorne today! It was International Dot Day and we connected with Mrs. Temske's class in Roswell GA! Her class introduced themselves, asked and answered questions, and showed us the dot art they made. We LOVED LOVED LOVED all of the designs!! Thank you Mrs Temske's class!
You can make awesome noodle head puppets just for fun or as a response to literature!
This 52 page workbooks goes along with the ECON Explorers lesson plans provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Financial literacy is not talked about enough! It's not until we are older that we realize how little we really know about how the worlds works with regard to money!
Watch this video to see some new cool Capstone titles and let me know if you think I should order them!
Ms Hahn's class did a couple of different things. Some students finished the higher levels of Botlogic http://botlogic.us/play, while others started on the Google Blockly programming games https://blockly-games.appspot.com/. This class is very self directed in their learning and they help each other out a lot. There is a great sense of team spirit and cooperation! The work they do is not easy and it's been such a pleasure having so many students willing to jump in and support one another when there are questions! Nice work guys!!!
Below You Can See a Description for What Type of Programming is Taught in the Google Blockly Games: https://blockly-games.appspot.com/
Today Ms Chandonia's class learned that an algorithm is a set of instructions. They embarked on the Level 2 Beta version of the K-5 curriculum with code.org. It got a bit complicated at times but the students all helped each other and some great learning took place. Students learn how to solve problems, work cooperatively and think in a logical manner through these activities. Many students do not know it yet, but this exposure will help them when they seek out careers that use the skills that they are learning by practicing these visual coding activities.
Ms Pope and Ms Latour's class started their planet research today. Short research projects are part of the common core standards. Each pair of students studying a planet is the perfect way to learn and produce a great product. This class will be producing Pope's Peeps Planet Podcast! Each student pair will investigate the most interesting facts about their planets and turn it into a short engaging script of a one to three sentences. Students will be recorded and this will be our first podcast for all the world to hear. Remember, "The World is My Audience"
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Sue Levine is a Teacher-Librarian in Atlanta, GA.