H T A D T N A S I T
Volume 6 Issue 19 May 2018
Idea & activities to finish out the school year Engaging Students after GSA When the General Summative Assessment is finished and you still have days, maybe weeks, left in the school calendar, a teacher may become frazzled with how to keep the students engaged in the classroom. We often think, “I’ve already taught the necessary content,” or “What’s the point, my students won’t remember this information in the Fall.” However, this is the perfect time to be able to remember why we became teachers in the first place. We have the time to implement creative, engaging, and fun-filled lessons that we dreamed of doing when we first earned our teaching degrees. Now is the time to try those lessons and implement technology to keep students engaged, prevent them from swinging from the light fixtures and keep our sanity until Summer Break.
They’re Too Young for Technology With elementary students, we can sometimes sell them short on their abilities to interact and use technology. Often times we find that if students, even kindergarteners, are given the opportunity, they will surprise many of us with their ability to adapt to the learning environment. One fun way to keep students engaged during the last few weeks of school is to implement STE(A)M projects. STE(A)M projects when used in conjunction with Project-Based Learning are a great way to keep students engaged in the classroom. Students can be presented with problems and basic materials in which they must work together to construct a solution to the problem. Students can construct mazes out of paper plates, colored paper, pipe cleaners, glue, and tape for a marble to pass through. When reading passages on inventions or flight, students could create some vehicle that must fly and have a competition for the furthest flight. This could easily be turned into a writing assignment to discuss the process in creating the vehicle,
the results, andimprovements for future trials. Allowing students’ interests and inquisitions to spark ideas provides a limitless source of ideas for projects. Coding is another great way to keep students engaged until the end of the school year. Several companies have introduced basic coding robots. These robots can be used to move the robot to review sight words, order a set of words in alphabetical order, order a set of fractions and/or decimals from least to greatest. Many people have made an apparatus to allow these robots to hold a writing utensil. Wonder Workshop has recently released an add-on that is compatible with their DASH and Cue robots. By having the robot hold a writing device and placing it on an appropriate surface, students can code the robot to draw images. This could be used in art for drawings, in math for geometric shape instruction, and in science to draw the parts of a plant. The uses for this technology in the classroom are endless. Misty McNeeley New River Elementary School Fayette County
While preparing for the end of the year can be stressful for some, it got me thinking about how I can incorporate a little fun and quirkiness into my students’ day here at school. While listening to the radio one morning on the way to work, they were talking about a holiday I had never heard of so it got me thinking – what other unique holidays are there? With a quick search online, I found there are a TON! So many in fact you can celebrate something whacky, fun, and quirky every day of the year. On page four of this newsletter, you will find a calendar full of some of the fun holidays I found to celebrate until the end of June. Using the links above the calendars will also allow you to gain further information concerning those holidays and much more. Kara McDaniel Eagle School Intermediate Berkeley County
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