Congratulations, Legends of Learning, STEM Interview, and Calendar – Week 11

CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Week 11 (October 26 - 30)

Tech Help for Teachers. The IT Department has set up an open Zoom time for questions. Here are the dates. Each of these sessions will be open from 3:00 – 4:00. If you need help, please feel like you can reach out to this talented support team for questions. ZOOM LINK HERE

Wednesday, November 4th Wednesday, November 18th

Thursday, December 3rd Thursday, December 17th

Weekly Giggles:               

LINK & LINK

Congratulations. Bud Rank, Fugman, and Riverview will each receive a 3D printer soon. Mountain View will receive two 3D printers. These sites will receive a 3-year supply of filament to support those machines. This is exciting news. Thank you to the Foundation for Clovis Schools for making this possible. For any teachers who are interested in using these machines, we can look at dates in the future for training opportunities. I trust that your sites will benefit from this great learning tool. This is wonderful!

Legends of Learning. If you are not already using this great learning tool, check out the student video below.

Calendar. I am here to support your team. Use that calendar app to book time with me. There are several lesson options to choose from.

If you book me on a Wednesday, I can show the students a 3D printer and I can talk to them about 3D printing. If those book up quickly, I can adjust my calendar to be at Copper and host those sessions on a non-Wednesday if needed.
STEM Interview as a lesson:
    a) machine, vocabulary, supplies, design strategies
    b) STEM opportunities of the future
    c) how 3D printers work and where they will be used in the future
    d) sample prints that I have on-site

Kindly,
Melissa Culver

Student Counsel, DocHub, Tech Help, Seesaw & Digital Citizenship – Week 09

 CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Week 09 (October 12 - 16)

Weekly Giggles:                Q. What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
                                            A. Finding half a worm in your apple.

Tech Help for Teachers. The IT Department has set up an open Zoom time for questions. Here are the dates. Each of these sessions will be open from 3:00 – 4:00. If you need help, please feel like you can reach out to this talented support team for questions. ZOOM LINK HERE [Removed]

Monday, October 19th Monday, October 26th Wednesday, November 4th

Wednesday, November 18th Thursday, December 3rd Thursday, December 17th

Digital Citizenship. If you are new to your grade level or new to Clovis Unified, this tutorial may help you when it comes to locating CUSD approved lessons for Digital Citizenship. VIDEO LINK HERE

Please ask your team, your grade level, or me for help. Several teachers are done with Lesson 1. Thank you! Please make sure you teach all three lessons by the date your Admin has given you.

Seesaw. HERE is a video that walks parents/students through the key bits of Seesaw. If any of your families/students are still struggling, feel free to use this as a tutorial.

Image credit: snip from video.

DocHub. Do you still want your students to use PDF files? Are you tired of modifying them in Google Drive? See if DocHub would work for you. I do not have a teaching video up for this yet, but I do have a PowerPoint LINK HERE [removed]. These are the teaching slides I use to guide the lesson. Book me if you want me to teach this lesson.

Student Counsel. Are you planning Student Counsel details? Don’t forget that Flipgrid is a great space to record those videos. Mixtapes are perfect for sharing those videos. And, Google Forms (with email collection and only CUSD users) is a secure way to grab one vote per person. Use Google Classroom as a distribution tool. 

Kindly,
Melissa Culver

 CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Week 08 (October 5 - 9)

Weekly Giggles:            Q. What is brown, hairy, and wears sunglasses?

  A. A coconut on vacation.

Tech Help for Teachers. The IT Department has set up an open Zoom time for questions. Here are the dates. Each of these sessions will be open from 3:00 – 4:00. If you need help, please feel like you can reach out to this talented support team for questions. ZOOM LINK HERE

Monday, October 12th (canceled) Monday, October 19th Monday, October 26th

Wednesday, November 4th Wednesday, November 18th Thursday, December 3rd Thursday, December 17th

EdPuzzle. If you are new to EdPuzzle, or if you need a refresher, here is a video I just published on YouTube that will answer your essential questions from the teacher perspective.  If you need help with this, please book a time and I can teach your students how to use this resource. Video Link HERE.

Digital Citizenship. Remember that your Digital Citizenship lessons have a due date. Your site administrator may have shared that timeline with you.  You are required to teach 3 lessons. The link is HERE. Let me know if you need help with this process. I am willing to help you. 

Confetti Cannon. Did you know that there is a Chrome extension that will cause confetti to pop onto your web browser? Yes, there is. You can see that example below. In order to achieve this, add THIS EXTENSION to Google Chrome.  Then, whenever you want confetti to pop out onto your browser, click the icon at the top and “Poof!” you’ve got come confetti to add to your discussion, lesson, or celebration.

And, the calendar button is below in my signature [email only].  Please book those session times for next week where we can plan, collaborate, or I can co-teach a session with you.

A few lesson themes to consider:
       a) Mandatory Digital Citizenship Lesson #1
       b) Using Flipgrid for the first time this year. And, the new features.
             * Kids can make math video tutorials for each other. “I am going to isolate the X. First, I am going to…”
             * Kids can make a video of their Google Slide presentation with their voice over it.
             * Kids can give a book summary about a book they just read.
             * Kids talk about their next narrative or research paper.
             * Kids can design art videos. “This is how you draw a unicorn.”
             * Or, use this to build community.
       c) Google Classroom
             * Oops, I deleted my assignment. What do I do now?
             * Where is the document history so I can fix my mistakes?
             * Turn assignments in.
             * Unsubmit an assignment.
             * Use the desktop camera to add an image to a document.
             * Use iPhone Notes to create a PDF and then turn it in.
 d) Google Docs
             * Just the basics.
             * Narrative development. Let’s build some diverse introductions. 
       e) Google Slides
             * Just the basics (grades 3-4. Theme. Design. Layout. Fonts. Text boxes. Add a slide. Move slides.
             * Refresher and build (grades 5-6). Theme. Design. Layout. Fonts. Text boxes. Undo. Add a gif. Find an image. Adjust an image.
       f) Khan Academy – How do you log in? Where do I find the lesson videos?
       g) Google Slides – Design a Newspaper with Another Student [multi-step lesson, needs scaffolding and support from you]
       h) Edulastic – You have an assessment, you just need me to teach the intro part.
       i) ReadWorks – Your dashboard is set up, but you want me to talk to kids about how to get in and use this space.
       j) Code.org – If you need extension activities for your kids to grow in Computer Science, this is free.
       k) Freckle Education – Show my kids how to get in and get started, please.
       l) Gmail – Some essentials for writing/sending an email to my teacher and how to use Gmail. 
       m) Edgenuity – Are your parents still having issues with submitting work? I have one more fix (beyond the video I sent last week). I can build another video if needed to explain this other remedy. Just let me know.
       n) Sign Language Interpreter – Do any of your students need sign language interpreters? I can talk to you about using YouTube Live and Picture-in-Picture to serve this community of students.
       o) Other – Let’s brainstorm together to see what your needs/gaps are. We can set up a time to work through that lesson construction.      

Kindly,
Melissa Culver

Toy Theater, Wahoooo Resources, Crash Course Kids, and Digital Citizenship – Week 07

 CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Week 07 (Sep 28 – October 2)

Weekly Giggles:             Q. How do you make a tissue dance?

                                        A. You put a little boogie in it.

Tech Help for Teachers. The IT Department has set up an open Zoom time for questions. Here are the dates. Each of these sessions will be open from 3:00 – 4:00. If you need help, please feel like you can reach out to this talented support team for questions. ZOOM LINK HERE

Monday, October 5th Monday, October 12th Monday, October 19th Monday, October 26th

Wednesday, November 4th Wednesday, November 18th Thursday, December 3rd Thursday, December 17th

Digital Citizenship. Remember that your Digital Citizenship lessons have a due date. Your site administrator may have shared that timeline with you.  You are required to teach 3 lessons. The link is HERE. Let me know if you need help with this process. I am willing to help you. 

Wahoooo Resources. Free. Free. Free. Don’t you just enjoy when teacher give things away for free?! Here is the resource fountain you have been searching for. Shout out to Karena Cantrell (IT Coach) for introducing me to this site. Tons and tons of Google templates to download for free. You can drop a link into chat and have students respond live in Zoom. Or you can distribute these as assignments in Google Classroom. Math. Science. ELA. SEL. The list keeps going and going. It is marvelous. LINK HERE Free. It’s free.

Crash Course Kids. Are you looking for quality YouTube content for Science? See if any of these videos might work for you. If you are using EdPuzzle, drop that video in and add a few questions.  You now have teaching and mini-assessment wrapped into one. I do not overwhelming approve of the entire bank of resources. My recommendation is always this: vet the material before you share it. LINK HERE

Toy Theater. Shout out to Karena Cantrell (IT Coach) who shared this with me. These resources can be used in a variety of ways: Math, Science, ELA, fine motor skills, sequential analysis, and more. When you scroll down the page, there are manipulatives. Not all children will have base ten blocks or a spinner at home, but now they do. See if this can help you teach those foundational or essential concepts. LINK HERE

YouTube. If you aren’t subscribed and receiving email notifications when my videos post, there are a few new ones in there.
      a) AE / Edgenuity – This may or may not work. AE does not have an app yet. I found a workaround, but those are only as good as the software version at the time. Share with parents if you find it helpful.
      b) Drop a timer into Zoom. Thank you to Courtney Casaroli who shared that idea with me.
      c) Are your students using Accelerated Reader at home? Do your second graders know how to use that? What about students who are new to your site? Share that video with anyone who may need it.
      d) How do you use Notes in the iPhone to create a PDF? Then how do I get that onto Google Classroom? There’s a video for that now too.

You are a phenomenal group of educators. Keep up the great work!

Kindly,
Melissa Culver