Animal Research - SCRATCH

I can't take credit for this idea,
but it is too cool not to share!

Students completed an Animal Research Project as an extension to their Birthday Research Projects. In my class, it was not for a grade and not required! However, most of my students worked on it and completed a project on at least one animal.

Our Digital Learning Coach approached me with an activity that some other teachers had used to extend on Animal Research. Students created a Scratch Project that showed their animal, its habitat, and facts about that animal.

Since we have just completed two days of Unit Tests (put off for STAAR Prep), some students were completing their Branching and corrections. One of the options when finished was this Scratch project. I created a Google Doc with directions for the students and let them run with it.

Mr. Chavez (our digital learning coach) made a Google Site to share with the students to help them in getting started with Scratch. He also made an example with a Great White Shark to show them what a finished product looked like. I linked all of this to the Google Doc for the students to see.

I was also extremely excited to see that so many students already knew what Scratch was and how to use it. These kiddos were my "experts" and helped other students as needed. I now see that I need to go home and re-learn Scratch. I haven't used it since I was in my Master's Program. I'm seeing a thousand possibilities of how to implement this in the classroom.
First Step: Reteach Myself!! 😃

Here are some links to student projects (they are still works in progress according to my rockin' students):

• Bunny: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/155519641/
• Whale Shark: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/155555771/

Digital Student Gradebooks

What's my average?

This is a question every teacher is asked over and over again, all year. A digital student gradebook is a great way to: 

1) Allow students to answer their own question any day, any time;

2) Allow students the accountability of seeing where their average comes from; and

3) Allow students to see what each grade can do to their average.

I recently learned of this idea after a 6th grade teacher on my campus began implementing it. Today, I decided to jump on board and create one for myself!

Here's what my student's digital gradebook will look like:

ELA Digital Student Gradebook

I'm going to implement it this week. My hope is to utilize it from the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, but for now... we will start with our last 9 weeks!

On Thursday of this week, students will be inputting their grades for the first 6 daily work assignments, as well as the grades for the Unit 5A and 5B tests.

Google Classroom Entry

I hope that students are excited to see how easily they can document and track their average, as well as seeing how with each new entry, it changes!!

Birthday Research Project - VIDEOS

I am so proud of these kiddos for their hard work this week in creating their Birthday Research Project posters. The excitement is seriously so addicting!! This year, as an added bonus, students were excited to draw pictures to go with their projects. Middle School is such a weird transition for kids. Students sometimes start to think that drawing and coloring are for elementary and lose interest in this task. However, my group this year was ran with it, which is AWESOME!! This allowed for so much more creativity in their projects!

As an extension to the project this year, I offered students the option of creating a video of their posters. Since students will present the posters to their classmates, this gives students too shy to speak in front of their classmates the ability to still present the awesome stuff they learned! Instead of these students standing up and presenting, I'll show their videos. I love the fact that technology has enabled us to do so many things and adapt accordingly for our students varying needs.

Our Digital Learning Coach was gracious enough to help the students in creating their videos since they needed a quiet environment to do so. I absolutely love having a go-to person on our campus for ideas. I asked him about a way that students could record a video of their projects, and he ran with it. Having this support is incredible and so helpful! We used iPads and the app: Explain Everything to create the videos. According to their description in the App store, "Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard app with real-time collaboration that lets you animate, record, annotate, collaborate, and explore ideas, knowledge and understanding." Students worked in the hallways to create images of their project as slides and record their voices reading and explaining each of the sections of the project.

Here are some finished videos: