Friday, January 31, 2020

Valentine's For Veterans....Please Add To Our Special Flipgrid!

As we get ready for Valentine's Day, our secondary resource students had the amazing idea to create and send Valentine's to veterans all over the world with this Flipgrid, Valentine's For Veteran's.

We would LOVE to have your students, teachers and community add to the Valentine's For Veterans Flipgrid too.
Today, we hung up...
...and handed out Valentine's for Veterans posters to spread the word within our school.  
 We made two versions...
 ...that you are welcome to use for your community too.

You will find the posters here.
 You will find the Valentine's For Veterans Flipgrid here.
As you can see, our students and teachers have been busy adding very special Valentine messages to the Flipgird.  These will mean the world to veterans around the world as we share this with them for Valentine's Day. 

We hope all of you have your community add wonderful Valentine's For Veterans too.  

Get Your I Love Reading Poster for #ILoveToReadMonth, Friends!

February is almost here and this month we celebrate Valentine's Day, Black History Month, Presidents Day and it's I Love To Read Month too!

As you and your school community get ready to promote of love of reading, head on over to Capstone's Reading Is For Everyone site to get your copy of this awesome #ILoveToReadMonth poster.
You will find it circled in red here

Today, I am going to make copies for our teachers so they can get these ready to give their students to celebrate I Love To Read Month too. 

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Innovative! Every Classroom, Every Day With Digital Learning Day On February 27, 2019!

Digital Learning Day is right around the corner on February 27, 2020.  Join the thousands of educators and students to celebrate Innovative! Every Classroom, Every Day! This day is a wonderful way to celebrate all of the innovative practices and ways we ensure all young people have access to high-quality learning opportunities.  


Started in 2012, Digital Learning Day has provided a powerful venue for education leaders to highlight great teaching practice and showcase innovative teachers, leaders, and instructional technology programs that are improving student outcomes. This grassroots effort blossomed into a massive nationwide celebration as teachers realized that Digital Learning Day is not about technology, it’s about learning. 
It’s not about laying off teachers for laptops, it’s about enhancing the role of the teacher in America’s classrooms. Digital Learning Day promotes the effective use of modern day tools afforded to every other industry to improve the learning experience in K-12 public schools.
Please join us for Digital Learning Day by adding your DLDay Event to the map here

No matter how big or small please plans to participate on February 27th, and add your activity or event to the DLD map! We want to show the world how teachers are inspiring incredible creativity in students across the country.
As you plan your event, you will find lots of great graphics, stories and videos for Digital Learning Day here on the site.
Let's make this the best Digital Learning Day yet and celebrate even more than we did last year, friends.  Join teachers in classrooms across STATE and the United States as we celebrate Digital Learning Day.  

Learn more at https://digitallearningday.org/ or contact me for details about how STATE is celebrating DLDay!

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Introducing 3D Printing With Wikki Sticks, PebbleGo Animals and Lots of Creativity!

Over the next month, our 2nd graders at Van Meter will be part of several new projects as they learn all about different kinds of 3D printing and sculpting. 
We have several Monoprice 3D printers at school that we will be using. Before we learn on these, I wanted to start with the basics around 3D printing so we added 3Doodler Start, 3D pens to our Makerspace a few weeks ago.  These 3D pens are perfect for younger students with a low temperature and easy to hold barrel. 
As I was learning how to use the 3Doodler Start at home one day, I thought of another way to demonstrate how we would create with the 3D pens and printer!

Our kids could use Wikki Stix, which are twistable, stickable, buildable, playable, one-of-a-kind creatables they can form into anything, a lot like what they can do with the 3Doodler Start pens and 3D printers.

I went to my second grade teacher friends to share the idea.  They were excited to bring it to their students!
We started with Staci Braun's 2nd graders as she shared the new book,
Incredible You! by Rhys Brisenden and Nathan Reed.  This is such a sweet story that encourages readers to think of all the amazing things they can do while referring to wonderful animals too.

After Staci read the book, we told the kids they would be creating an animal that represented them from the Wikki Stix.
To make this project even better, the Van Meter Secondary Brew and Do Crew joined us.
Earlier their teacher, Colleen Tendell, shared they would be making and collecting valentines to send to veterans, including this 104 year old veteran, who shared his wish in this video.

This would be a very special and unique way to create 3D valentines for the veterans.
 As our students decided on an animal, they gathered the Wikki Stix they would need and...
 ...opened up PebbleGo Animals to do a little research.
 It was so fun to see them cut,
 shape and...
 ...create the...
 ...perfect little animal out of the Wikki Stix.
As I listened to and watched the students,
it was fun to see them...
 ...make their animals look like...
...what they were finding in PebbleGo and through their imagination,
 to create unique...
...animals that...
...represented...
 ...themselves.
As they perfected their animals and got them...
...exactly...
 ...how they wanted them,
 they were excited to...
 ...think about...
 ...what they would share...
 ...about...
 ...their animal too.
 First, many of them shared in Seesaw.
 Next, they all shared with each other.
It's projects like this that let our students shine and celebrate their personality among...
 ...others...
 ...in very unique and amazing ways.