Which Activbook did you complete? How did it impact student learning? If you were to use it again, what would you do differently?
16 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Oh, what a disaster my first attempt was! I used "Talk to a Topic" (under Language Arts, then Speaking) with my 3rd graders. The team had asked me to introduce the idea of Book Talks with the kids. SO...it didn't work out as well as I planned. With only 30 minutes, it was too much to do in one session. The lesson tanked and I jumped ship. I will try another one, though, with the idea that I will break the lesson into two chunks.
I used "Add to Make 10" with my class with the activboard. The kids really liked moving the peas and carrots to make 10.It fit nicely with the first grade EDM unit 2 lesson on addition number models, and it allowed many kids to get up and manipulate the peas and carrots. This did take us a few sessions to complete as a class, but it was easy to pull up and continue where we left off. I did have trouble with the peas and carrots fitting exactly in the boxes and sometimes the kids would stick the peas or carrots on top of one another which confused them. I'm not sure how I would resolve the "boxes" issue but I would talk to the kids about how they don't fit exactly and about how the objects can layer on top of each other.
I used the classify leaves ActivBook lesson. It supported the animal classification lesson we had just completed. However it seemed that the sorting was so simple that it took them hardly any time. The complication was when we went to save their work (I had already set them up in each students folder but when they went to save them they were all being saved into my folder--clearly I did something wrong).
I used 'Adding to Make 10' with my class during my computer lab. I anticipated that some of my students would need a scaffold to write the number models for their gardens of peas and carrots.
Although we had made number models when we counted combinations of 10 pennies from our toolkits (EDM unit 2) . . . the majority of my children did not consistently write a number model that matched their actual penny cominations. I color coded their number models. i.e. the number for peas-green, the number for carrots-orange, the addition sign-brown.
Each of my children completed at least 5 number models from Adding to Make 10. Each child printed their work.
I would do this lesson again whole class with the added color coded scaffold.
We are starting to study Communities so I decided to have my kids complete "What is the Direction?" since we have to learn map skills. We practiced together using the whole class lesson on directions using a compass. Then the kids went on their own.
We did the first question together, and then the class completed the rest of the questions independently. While we were in the lab, the program had a self-correcting feature that I didn't notice ahead of time. If they typed in the wrong direction, a squiggly red line appeared underneath. Kids were able to see immediately that they had made an error! All but two were able to come up with a question of their own on the bottom. At the conclusion, they saved the worksheet to their folder on the server. That is great practice too.
This was a quick activity. Even with our discussion and modeling, the kids were done in about 20 minutes. Next time, I will think of a few extensions ahead of time.
I used "Spider or Insect" and the kdis enjoyed it. We hadn't studied insects but we have been learning about spiders. They are just beginning to understand Venn diagrams so this was an additional opportunity to experience the concept of common traits. I find the active book somewhat awkward to use- not very intuitive. I will try the leaf sorting next week.
Last week was our first time in the Computer Lab. Always being apprehensive in the lab with a room full of first graders and because I haven't taught computer lab in a few years since it always fell on my job share partner's day, it took me most of the assigned lab time to go over computer basics. However, for the last 15 minutes, I introduced "What's the Weather" with the kids watching on the screen. The students then had their time on the computer with the same Activbook. The kids loved the variety of cloud pictures (they were ooohing and ahhhing!!) and then had time to click and drag clip art pictures to fit the appropriate sky conditions.
I found the program to be very engaging and the kids enjoyed the interactive piece of the assignment.
I used the lesson Build A Community. I've been using this lesson for a number of years, so this wasn't a new experience, but OH, WHAT A DAY! I have a computer lab parent who went to set up for our time only to find out that only 12 stations had power. Our tech person was at his "other" school, so no help there! I went to plan B and had the class split, part at classroom stations, part in the lab (which is on the other side of the building). My literacy parents volunteered to stay and help. I thought I had planned well, putting the template in our 2nd grade folder, but when the students went to open it, they were not getting it to open. HUMMMMM--OOPS! I had forgotten that I was working from my tablet and needed to save it as a compatible document. Meanwhile, a parent runs back from the lab to say they have encountered the same problem. I quickly resave and we try again. Now, we're able to work and the children are able to complete the activity. This is a simple but engaging activity practicing the use of cardinal directions. All the students were successful and were able to put their printed community map in their folders. It was a successfull lesson, but would have been a total flop had I not had the help of 3 other adults. This is when I wonder what the phrase "seemless integration of technology" really means!
PS The power issue was due to an outage the night before and without a tech person in the building, no one had discovered that there was a power issue in the lab. The class in the lab earlier that day had simply given up!
The Activbook that I chose was Adding to Make 10. It reinforced lesson 2.3 in math where the students made different combinations of ten using pennies. In Adding to Make 10 they moved peas and carrots to a ten frame, recorded the number of each, and wrote the number sentence.
The challenge for the students was to move the peas and carrots but leave the background and ten frame in place - they were text boxes and were easily moved. It was constructed so that when the ten frame was moved, the peas and carrots would not stay on the grid. Students also had some problem with leaving the pictures the original size.
The students were engaged and it was a meaningful way for them to practice a math concept. I will consider rebuilding it as a flipchart where the text boxes can be locked to the background.
I used "Hunt through the Constitution" with my regular US Class. The bookmarking function seemed like too little bang for the buck and just identifying the correct location is overly simplistic. I ended up having them cut and past the correct section into the document and then paraphrase what that section meant. That was an interesting exercise for many of the students. The topics in the worksheet are also simplistic leaving out key Constitutional issues for high school students so I would recommend modification of the search topics. The opening section with the pictures of the Constitution and Bill of Rights was a waste of time.
I hate to have a bad attitude, but I really haven't found any lessons I am in love with that I can use right now. I found some that touch topics in the future. To satisfy this requirement, I had my students complete crazy sentences. We have been very serious lately and thought we could have a little levity. I really can't think of anything to say about it.
I used the leaf sorting activity with the activboard and each student had a chance to sort the leaves and then I extended it so that they each had to make a pattern with the leaves. I was able to save each studnet's work in their own folder. We then did an EDM activity; symmetry in nature we collected leaves out in our wetlands area and then they glued their leaves down into pattern strips.
I have not had a chance to use Activ Book with the kids in my Humanities class as I have been back in the building less than a month and racing to catch up, however I have used it in my techology class when teaching kids how to read graphs and charts in excel
I used the 2 modules titled "Draw Conclusions - Column Charts" and "Draw Conclusions - Pie Charts"
I found the lessons difficult to use as the content of the lessons, the kinds of charts they were presented with were very foreign to them. One comparing grades given in English and History classes to high school students and another having to do with employment statistics in australia. huh? lets bring it down to earth to what a middle school kid is familier with.
Students had difficulty with navigating tabs in excel going back and forth between one chart and the conclusions page. Not sure why that was the case, I suspect there were some reading difficulties going on. It still allowed me to individualize and help kids as their computer was teaching them what to do and I could circle around the room and facilitate rather than feel tethered to my workstation trying to show them what to do.
The Activbook project I had my kids use in the lab today was called, "Shape Hunt." The kids had to click and drag pictures of objects (after they determined the shape they saw in the picture) into the appropriately labeled "shape boxes"--circle, square, triangle, rectangle. It went pretty well, but they were having problems with clicking and dragging. This was our second time in the lab EVER and so, for some of the kids, mouse "usage" is pretty new....... Next time I would spend more time going over the basics of how to click and drag before attempting this lesson as many of the kids had problems--losing pictures, etc.... I do like many of the Activbook lessons and will continue to use them this year in the lab.
Today during our computer lab time we worked on the ActivBook lesson under math/geometry called Flash Turtle: Symmetry Drawing. Symmetry is taught in 4th grade and is seen on the WASL test so I figured this would be a great introduction before our Symmetry lesson. My students caught right on and worked with partners to complete the symmetry shapes. It was a bit tough for some of them, as others flew right through it. I believe it helped them with the concept of symmetry and reinforced what most of them already knew. When they were finished I took a quick survey to see how they had liked the lesson. 6 students liked it a lot, 10 thought it was okay, and 7 did not like it at all. So all in all, I think it was an okay lesson.
I used the ActivBook "Build A Community". We have been studying community and do a quick geography lesson each morning. The lesson was in the computer lab and the kids were very excited. Because we have been talking about the Compass Rose and direction it was perfect. It also took them to the next step ie. NW,SW... After they built their community they saved it to their folder (which was another good practice) and then printed their community out. Talk about excitement!!! I would definitely use this lesson again.
16 comments:
Oh, what a disaster my first attempt was! I used "Talk to a Topic" (under Language Arts, then Speaking) with my 3rd graders. The team had asked me to introduce the idea of Book Talks with the kids. SO...it didn't work out as well as I planned. With only 30 minutes, it was too much to do in one session. The lesson tanked and I jumped ship. I will try another one, though, with the idea that I will break the lesson into two chunks.
Thanks, Laura
I used "Add to Make 10" with my class with the activboard. The kids really liked moving the peas and carrots to make 10.It fit nicely with the first grade EDM unit 2 lesson on addition number models, and it allowed many kids to get up and manipulate the peas and carrots.
This did take us a few sessions to complete as a class, but it was easy to pull up and continue where we left off.
I did have trouble with the peas and carrots fitting exactly in the boxes and sometimes the kids would stick the peas or carrots on top of one another which confused them. I'm not sure how I would resolve the "boxes" issue but I would talk to the kids about how they don't fit exactly and about how the objects can layer on top of each other.
I used the classify leaves ActivBook lesson. It supported the animal classification lesson we had just completed. However it seemed that the sorting was so simple that it took them hardly any time. The complication was when we went to save their work (I had already set them up in each students folder but when they went to save them they were all being saved into my folder--clearly I did something wrong).
I used 'Adding to Make 10' with my class during my computer lab. I anticipated that some of my students would need a scaffold to write the number models for their gardens of peas and carrots.
Although we had made number models when we counted combinations of 10 pennies from our toolkits (EDM unit 2) . . . the majority of my children did not consistently write a number model that matched their actual penny cominations. I color coded their number models. i.e. the number for peas-green, the number for carrots-orange, the addition sign-brown.
Each of my children completed at least 5 number models from Adding to Make 10. Each child printed their work.
I would do this lesson again whole class with the added color coded scaffold.
We are starting to study Communities so I decided to have my kids complete "What is the Direction?" since we have to learn map skills. We practiced together using the whole class lesson on directions using a compass. Then the kids went on their own.
We did the first question together, and then the class completed the rest of the questions independently. While we were in the lab, the program had a self-correcting feature that I didn't notice ahead of time. If they typed in the wrong direction, a squiggly red line appeared underneath. Kids were able to see immediately that they had made an error! All but two were able to come up with a question of their own on the bottom. At the conclusion, they saved the worksheet to their folder on the server. That is great practice too.
This was a quick activity. Even with our discussion and modeling, the kids were done in about 20 minutes. Next time, I will think of a few extensions ahead of time.
I used "Spider or Insect" and the kdis enjoyed it. We hadn't studied insects but we have been learning about spiders. They are just beginning to understand Venn diagrams so this was an additional opportunity to experience the concept of common traits. I find the active book somewhat awkward to use- not very intuitive. I will try the leaf sorting next week.
Last week was our first time in the Computer Lab. Always being apprehensive in the lab with a room full of first graders and because I haven't taught computer lab in a few years since it always fell on my job share partner's day, it took me most of the assigned lab time to go over computer basics. However, for the last 15 minutes, I introduced "What's the Weather" with the kids watching on the screen. The students then had their time on the computer with the same Activbook. The kids loved the variety of cloud pictures (they were ooohing and ahhhing!!) and then had time to click and drag clip art pictures to fit the appropriate sky conditions.
I found the program to be very engaging and the kids enjoyed the interactive piece of the assignment.
I will definitely use this program again.
I used the lesson Build A Community. I've been using this lesson for a number of years, so this wasn't a new experience, but OH, WHAT A DAY! I have a computer lab parent who went to set up for our time only to find out that only 12 stations had power. Our tech person was at his "other" school, so no help there! I went to plan B and had the class split, part at classroom stations, part in the lab (which is on the other side of the building). My literacy parents volunteered to stay and help. I thought I had planned well, putting the template in our
2nd grade folder, but when the students went to open it, they were not getting it to open. HUMMMMM--OOPS! I had forgotten that I was working from my tablet and needed to save it as a compatible document. Meanwhile, a parent runs back from the lab to say they have encountered the same problem. I quickly resave and we try again. Now, we're able to work and the children are able to complete the activity. This is a simple but engaging activity practicing the use of cardinal directions. All the students were successful and were able to put their printed community map in their folders. It was a successfull lesson, but would have been a total flop had I not had the help of 3 other adults. This is when I wonder what the phrase "seemless integration of technology" really means!
PS The power issue was due to an outage the night before and without a tech person in the building, no one had discovered that there was a power issue in the lab. The class in the lab earlier that day had simply given up!
The Activbook that I chose was Adding to Make 10. It reinforced lesson 2.3 in math where the students made different combinations of ten using pennies. In Adding to Make 10 they moved peas and carrots to a ten frame, recorded the number of each, and wrote the number sentence.
The challenge for the students was to move the peas and carrots but leave the background and ten frame in place - they were text boxes and were easily moved. It was constructed so that when the ten frame was moved, the peas and carrots would not stay on the grid. Students also had some problem with leaving the pictures the original size.
The students were engaged and it was a meaningful way for them to practice a math concept. I will consider rebuilding it as a flipchart where the text boxes can be locked to the background.
I used "Hunt through the Constitution" with my regular US Class. The bookmarking function seemed like too little bang for the buck and just identifying the correct location is overly simplistic. I ended up having them cut and past the correct section into the document and then paraphrase what that section meant. That was an interesting exercise for many of the students. The topics in the worksheet are also simplistic leaving out key Constitutional issues for high school students so I would recommend modification of the search topics. The opening section with the pictures of the Constitution and Bill of Rights was a waste of time.
Doug Jones
I hate to have a bad attitude, but I really haven't found any lessons I am in love with that I can use right now. I found some that touch topics in the future. To satisfy this requirement, I had my students complete crazy sentences. We have been very serious lately and thought we could have a little levity. I really can't think of anything to say about it.
I used the leaf sorting activity with the activboard and each student had a chance to sort the leaves and then I extended it so that they each had to make a pattern with the leaves. I was able to save each studnet's work in their own folder. We then did an EDM activity; symmetry in nature we collected leaves out in our wetlands area and then they glued their leaves down into pattern strips.
I have not had a chance to use Activ Book with the kids in my Humanities class as I have been back in the building less than a month and racing to catch up, however I have used it in my techology class when teaching kids how to read graphs and charts in excel
I used the 2 modules titled "Draw Conclusions - Column Charts" and "Draw Conclusions - Pie Charts"
I found the lessons difficult to use as the content of the lessons, the kinds of charts they were presented with were very foreign to them. One comparing grades given in English and History classes to high school students and another having to do with employment statistics in australia. huh? lets bring it down to earth to what a middle school kid is familier with.
Students had difficulty with navigating tabs in excel going back and forth between one chart and the conclusions page. Not sure why that was the case, I suspect there were some reading difficulties going on. It still allowed me to individualize and help kids as their computer was teaching them what to do and I could circle around the room and facilitate rather than feel tethered to my workstation trying to show them what to do.
- Kevin Krein
The Activbook project I had my kids use in the lab today was called, "Shape Hunt." The kids had to click and drag pictures of objects (after they determined the shape they saw in the picture) into the appropriately labeled "shape boxes"--circle, square, triangle, rectangle. It went pretty well, but they were having problems with clicking and dragging. This was our second time in the lab EVER and so, for some of the kids, mouse "usage" is pretty new....... Next time I would spend more time going over the basics of how to click and drag before attempting this lesson as many of the kids had problems--losing pictures, etc.... I do like many of the Activbook lessons and will continue to use them this year in the lab.
Today during our computer lab time we worked on the ActivBook lesson under math/geometry called Flash Turtle: Symmetry Drawing. Symmetry is taught in 4th grade and is seen on the WASL test so I figured this would be a great introduction before our Symmetry lesson. My students caught right on and worked with partners to complete the symmetry shapes. It was a bit tough for some of them, as others flew right through it. I believe it helped them with the concept of symmetry and reinforced what most of them already knew. When they were finished I took a quick survey to see how they had liked the lesson. 6 students liked it a lot, 10 thought it was okay, and 7 did not like it at all. So all in all, I think it was an okay lesson.
I used the ActivBook "Build A Community". We have been studying community and do a quick geography lesson each morning. The lesson was in the computer lab and the kids were very excited. Because we have been talking about the Compass Rose and direction it was perfect. It also took them to the next step ie. NW,SW... After they built their community they saved it to their folder (which was another good practice) and then printed their community out. Talk about excitement!!! I would definitely use this lesson again.
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