Making Insects (FREEBIE)

Our class has been studying insects so I thought it would be fun to make one.

The students planned what their insects would be like, identified the parts of their insects, provided some details about their insect, then got to create their insect with clay.




If you are interested in using the printable to plan your own insect project you can download it from TPT here:
My Insect printable (FREE) at my TPT store

To see all the insect that my class made you can visit our classroom blog here:
Our class blog

Our First Grade Podcasts

I really wanted to help my students experience something new, something that is going to get them excited about practicing language. So, I decided we would create our own internet radio station and create podcasts. We are starting out slowly with the students using language frames and I am hoping to progress to the students helping decide on content and giving interviews. I'm excited to see where we can take this idea!

If you want to check out our work so far visit our internet radio station page Superstar Internet Radio

We are using an Olympus DP-311 for voice recording and Audacity or Adobe Audition (depending on where I do the editing) for editing the audio files. If you and your students are doing something fun to keep the kids engaged and excited about language practice or if you have any questions, please comment.

Classroom Tech Makeover

Well, the year got off to a great start. I posted back in July about the Farmers Insurance Thank a Million Teacher grant opportunity. I GOT IT! It took a lot of my time to get the word out and get the support of my community, but it worked and it was well worth it. The money came in and I was able to turn it into great technology for our classroom. We got some Chromebooks so we can continue to do great things with Google Apps.
One of the other things we got for the classroom was digital voice recorders. They have been a lot of fun and have helped engage the students in practicing their verbal skills.
I have created a new classroom web site where I will share the fruits of our labor. You can see our first podcast there. We have decided to take to the internet airwaves and put out some podcasts on our very own internet radio station. I am excited to stretch the limits of what we can do with our new technology and find new ways to support our educational goals with technology.

Our new web site is sl-firstgrade.weebly.com