DEN STAR – Teach It, Tech It, Learn It, Lead It – Take II

Mathalicious

I came across this site via Twitter yesterday and have been thoroughly impressed!  I teach 6th and 7th grade math to gifted students in the morning and today I used the proportion lesson comparing the iphone and ipad.  It was great!  My students were highly motivated and it fit perfectly with the work we have been doing with proportions and ratios.  If you teach math 6th grade and up YOU HAVE TO CHECK THIS SITE OUT! 

The handouts for students have already been made to accompany the lessons! 

Thanks Mathalicious, me and my students find you delicious! 

Well, I finally sat down tonight to catch up on some feed reading, while reading I discovered this morsel from Google!  A Docs help page for students!  So cool!

” Welcome to the Docs for students page! On this page, we’ll be
demonstrating how Google Docs can be used by many students for various
classes and interests. We’ll show you real examples of how useful docs
can be in your personal and academic life.”
 
Docs for students – Google Docs Help

I came across this video today and was amazed!  I’m sure McKenzie could stomp Mr. A in a typing contest. 

Whiz Kid Typist

Many of my students are hunt and peck typist and with no formal training until they hit the Middle School I think that it would be appropriate to learn proper technique on their own.  Below are some websites where kids can go to learn and practice typing skills.

http://www.typingweb.com/
http://play.typeracer.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/
http://keypractice.pbworks.com/Keyboarding-Links
http://www.techconnect.glencoe.com/techconnect/keyboarding/start.htm

I will update more later…

http://www.communitywalk.com/united_states_of_america/what_are_the_odds_of_a_white_christmas/map/449720

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, check out the probability of snow on December 25th.  Think MATH!

Last week I taught a powerful lesson on ‘character conflict in literature’. This lesson came out of the grades 6-7 Interactive Read Alouds by Linda Hoyt; the lesson was taught to my 4-5 challenge students.  The lesson used the book Faithful Elephants:

This true story is a tear-jerker! The story is laden with conflict, and in the lesson you work as a class to break down 4 types of character conflict: character vs. character (external), charcater vs. self (internal), charcater vs. nature (external), and character vs. society (external).  The students used a premade organizer that came with the lesson.  The next day (in step with the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model) the students worked in pairs to synthesize information from thei S.S. book (A History of Us) a few chapters on Christopher Columbus.  The students used the following Google Docs template to organize the conflict examples they collected.  This lesson was powerful and thanks to Google Docs I am able to easily keep track of what my students are thinking as they work through their assignment. 

A big thanks to Mental Floss for this find!

Grammar Blog – A blog that mocks poor grammar. Lot’s of great examples to share with your class!


Apostrophe Catastrophes – Tons of examples of apostrophes being used incorrectly!

Apostrophe Abuse – Similar to Apostrophe Catastrophe

http://lowercasel.blogspot.com/

http://www.diigo.com/list/tanktu79/web-20-smackdown

I had a great time sharing with Cathy Sheets and Ginger Lewman today at the Indiana High Ability Conference.  Ginger and Cathy were nice enough to let me share some cool websites!  Above are some of the links I shared and a little more.

I am so excited to be able to present my poster session at the Indiana High Ability Conference. The Title of my session is The Connected Classroom: How Google Apps, Blogging, and Web 2.0 Can Transform Your Classroom. If you are interested in getting Google Apps going in your school or district I would be glad to help you along the way!

Slides from the poster session: