Thank you for visiting!  Here, you will find resources we use in class, as well as some additional information regarding technology in education.  Here’s a look at what we’re currently working on in the lab:

Kindergarten:  As the new year progresses, so do our students!  We are now working in Kidspiration,  a great program filled with fun learning activities, and beneficial in making concept maps.  As an introduction to this program, we used a template for finding pictures that have the “s”, “m”, and “l” beginning sounds.  Student learned how to find pictures in the program, and worked on the ‘dragging and dropping’ skill.  They had to find pictures and drag them into the correct category.  Some great finds were: seahorse, stop sign, lock, lightbulb, motorcycle, and microphone.

First Grade:  Students in first grade are also working in Kidspiration.  They are creating concept maps to go along with their ‘winter’ theme in the classroom.  The main idea of ‘winter’ is placed in the middle, and students had to come up with things that match the main idea.  Some examples are, mittens, sledding, hot cocoa, snow angels, and scarfs. These were placed around the main idea, and then connected with arrows.  They did a great job coming up with winter activities!  Check out an example on the “First Grade” link on the left!

Second Grade:  In second grade, we made concept maps for “Environmental engineering.”  The term ‘environmental engineer’ went in the middle, and after a lesson on learning some of the things these engineers do, we described them in the surrounding boxes.  We are also getting ready to use Wordle, which is a fun web site that lets you type in key words, and creates a word collage for you.  We used their spelling words and other adjectives that describe what engineering is, and what engineers do.  Check out an example on the “Second Grade” link on the left!

Third Grade:  We are wrapping up our big unit on Asia, by creating an Asian country fact book.  Each student chose an Asian country to research.  In Pages, they created a fact sheet including that country’s population, capital city, etc.  I’ll be combining each class’ report and making a fact book.  They can use this to compare and contrast among various Asian countries and see the differences!  Check out an example on the “Third Grade” link on the left!