The Life ‘Round Here project my fourth and fifth graders participated in this year is coming to a close. The winner for our school was Trey, a fourth grader in Mrs. Knight’s class. The students did an amazing job and truly enjoyed themselves. Please take a look at our projects along with those of the other 14 schools that participated. Schools from Waycross to New Zealand and beyond all worked hard on producing multimedia videos about themselves and their towns.

Find the completed projects along with the winners from each school here.

If the links above do not work, copy and paste this URL into your browser’s address bar:

http://chriscraft.pbwiki.com/completed+projects

Freerice.com is a great way to increase your vocabulary and make a difference. It’s a simple concept. When you log on to the site you are given a vocabulary word with four choices. Choose the correct answer and you just helped feed a hungry person through the United Nations World Food Program. Checkout the site for more details and while you are there it wouldn’t hurt to see if you can get your vocabulary level up a few notches and feed the hungry at the same time.

Update: Freepoverty.com is very similar to freerice.com but instead of donating rice by taking vocabulary quizzes you donate water by answering geography questions in a fun interactive quiz. Check it out and see if you can beat my score of 234!

Create cool photo cubes with your pictures. Great for all kinds of projects. Simple step by step process to create and print your pictures on a template that even has the dotted lines to fold and solid lines to cut.

Click the picture to go there or weblink here: http://www.tabblo.com/partners/flickr/

Here is a sample of one that I created from our Storybook Character Day at Center:

1. Choose your flickr photos.
2. Put them where you want them on your cube.

3. Select letter or A4 and open as a PDF to print (with cutting instructions on the printout).

And this is what you get when you click “Get Photo Cube”:

Final product:

Very cool tool! If you don’t use flickr just printout a blank cube to use as a template. You can then cut and paste your photos onto the template and create a cube from photos on another website or prints that you have.

The future for our students. Whether we want to admit it or not, technology skills are vital for the success of students in the internet age. This picture caught my eye and pretty much sums it up rather nicely.

from: http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/10/mac-presence-gr.html

Powered by ScribeFire.

I wanted to share an article from Education World that I thought you might find useful. Hopefuly some of the information and resources can be put to use in your classrooms.

Click here to go to the article.

The article mentions ikeepbookmarks which is what we use in the computer lab for easy access to websites for students. I have folders on the top of the page that keep sites organized by subject area and then weblinks at the bottom of the page that are frequently used sites. This makes it easy for students to get where you want them within a few mouse clicks instead of them having to type in a long web address. Feel free to bookmark my page (Click here) or you can easily create your own by following some simple steps on the site. If you are at Center Elementary and want help with any of these shortcuts and tips, feel free to come by the computer lab and I will gladly help you out. If you are from some far far away place, I am not opposed to flying or sailing to your location. (No cold weather, sorry.)”What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

The new year begins! Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I would let these pictures speak for me… enjoy.

(Photos taken by Ms. Cobb)

And these:
(Photos by Ms. Cobb & Mr. Farmer)

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives website is one of the best math tools available to teachers. The resources, lessons, and tools are amazing. I highly recommend browsing through the site. The web-based applets (small programs) cover all strands of math and can be used by all grade levels. I have tried just a small percentage of the tools and my students have loved using all of them. We especially enjoyed the lady bug mazes and challenging each other with the geoboard activities.

From their website:

“The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM) is an NSF supported project that began in 1999 to develop a library of uniquely interactive, web-based virtual manipulatives or concept tutorials, mostly in the form of Java applets, for mathematics instruction (K-12 emphasis). The project includes dissemination and extensive internal and external evaluation.”

Visit the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives . (Say that three times fast!)

You also have access to customizable modules and tracking tools to meet the needs of your classes. Check it out and let me know what your class enjoyed working on.

Reading and Language Arts resources.

I would like to share two excellent resources for reading and language arts in todays tech tips. The first is Reading Rockets (click to go there). From their website: “Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help.” This excellent site has tons of great tools that can help with reading instruction; parent tip sheets, multimedia resources in audio and video format, and much more. The second site is readwritethink.org. The link will take you to the interactive tools section of their website. These sites allow students to use engaging, challenging, and fun tools to develop literacy skills. A great example is the persuasion map tool. This helps students to visualize their persuasive writing before starting their paragraph. It is a great mapping tool.

The first tool that I would like to share is a very powerful one. Working on Word or Office documents in multiple places can be quite challenging. One computer might have the program and another might not. The versions may be different or a host of other issues can cause it to be very difficult. ThinkFree.com, Writely.com*, and zohowriter.com are all web based “Word-like” word processors. They look very similar and function almost exactly the same as Word. In some cases, they even have some more features if you are using an older version of Word. These tools can be very powerful for the whole writing process as well because they allow multiple people to work on the same document. You can collaborate, edit, and share very easily. If you have access to the internet you can create, open, and save your documents even if you do not have Word on that computer. Click the links below. Each site will have a tour of their offerings.

* ThinkFree

* Writely

* Zohowriter

*Update: Writely.com was purchased by Google a while back and it is now part of Google’s docs & spreadsheets. This is great because now you have word processing and spreadsheets in one online tool.

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Originally uploaded by KnowledgeFarm.

The last day of the school year for students! Wow! This year has flown by . I can’t believe how quickly it has gone. Now is a time to rejoice, reflect, and rejuvenate. We get to rejoice and celebrate so many success that all our students have had throughout the year. I wish our 5th graders the best of luck as they move on to new adventures in middle school. As a teacher, reflection can be a very powerful process to help improve and discover new methods. And finally, rejuvenating is necessary to help us comeback strong and refreshed. I look forward to next year, but not just yet.