This week is our 5 Schools, 5 Days with Tech Takeout. The Tech Takeout crew is going to a different school every day and working on specific skills with students. Today was our first day and we kicked off 5 Schools, 5 Days at Lakeside Elementary School. We were so excited to work with the fourth graders there on their geometry skills.
Opening Activity: It is that time of year....REVIEW TIME! I know many of you have been using the student response system, Kahoot! Are you ready to change things up a bit?
Recently we tried out a similar student response system, Quizizz, and it proved to be a great alternative to Kahoot.
Jim Covais and Matt Caratachea had the students use iPads and the Educreations app to show off what they know about geometry. Using Educreations the students created riddles about different polygons. After choosing a particular polygon the students recorded themselves asking questions about their shape. These questions focused on the vocabulary that the students must know including angles, vertices, intersection, parallel, and perpendicular. Once the students had their questions recorded they found a picture of their polygon in the classroom and took a picture. They put the shape picture on a new slide in Educreations and recorded their voice saying the name of the polygon. Check out some of their work below:
Jessica Robinson and myself used Windows Movie Maker and the Dell Webcam to make geometric MOVEies. The fourth grade teachers at Lakeside Elementary really wanted a heavy focus on the vocabulary, so Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Smith wanted to get the students up and moving while showing off what they know. The students recorded videos of themselves acting out the important geometric vocabulary terms (point, line, line segment, ray, parallel lines and perpendicular/intersecting lines) using the Dell Webcam. Once the students had the different clips recorded they used Windows Movie Maker to put them together into a complete movie. These are great tools because not only were the movies fun to make, but they can be used to help the entire class review before their SOL test which is coming up quick!
Sarah Green, Karen Hues, and Stephanie Wright had the students programming using Scratch for their station, and using the MaKeyMaKeys to control the programs the students made. The students used the X-Y grid backdrop on Scratch and programmed a sprite of their choosing to flip, slide, and turn over the X or Y axis. Once the students programmed their sprite to flip, slide, or turn they recorded their voice describing the transformation. While the students were coding they made sure to use the arrow keys to control their sprite. They did this because the students used the MaKey MaKeys to control their sprite.
Julie Franklin led a station where the students created polygons using online geoboards. First the students went to Math Playground to create their multiple examples of polygons. Once the students created their polyon they saved them to their desktop and headed over to Szoter to label their polygons and create a collage with their images. The students had a blast making their polygons and smashing the pictures using the online photo editor Szoter.
