Monthly Archives: May 2015

May 31, 2015 · 6:55 pm

3 D Space Fun! Augmented Reality Style!

We have been having a lot of fun with our Space theme! We created this movie trailer in iMovie using the pictures we created using a green screen app called Green Screen by Do Ink and the NASA 3D Spacecraft app. We took all the pictures we created and popped them into the storyboard in the iMovie app and then worked together to add the captions! We LOVE our movie trailer. We have watched it numerous times! We hope you will watch it too!

We used the movie trailer to get our imaginations going. We brainstormed together and talked about the things we had learned about space. Then I encouraged the children to write a story about their adventure in outer space. I printed off a colour print of the picture we created for each child and added it to a writing frame. The children seemed to find it very easy to imagine themselves in the story when they saw themselves in outer space. They wrote and wrote and wrote!

The stories are amazing. I have put them up in the hallway. Please come and have a look!

I attached the movie trailer to the creative writing using the Aurasma app. The rocket ship picture is the trigger picture for our movie trailer.

If you have the Aurasma app loaded on your idevice and you follow our channel you will be able to activate the movie trailer! Our channel is called mrsantonsclass.

The stories are amazing and a lot of fun to read!

Come and take a trip with our Mountain View Astronauts!

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Filed under Augmented Reality, Aurasma, Green Screen, iPads, Space, Spacecraft 3D, Youtube

Tagged as Augmented Reality, aurasma, Creative Writing, Green Screen by Do Ink, iMovie trailer, ipads, space, Spacecraft 3D, Youtube

May 31, 2015 · 6:53 pm

Frog Fun!

We have been having a lot of fun with our frog unit! The children have been working on creating a page using the iPads and an app called Strip Designer to create a page about the life cycle of a frog.

I pre-loaded some pictures of the various stages of the life cycle on the iPads and saved them to an album for the children.

They had to open up the camera roll and place the pictures in the frame we had chosen. After they had chosen their pictures and placed them in the corresponding spots they had to add the text.

As usual, they were fearless.

I had the children take turns one at a time on one iPad.

When one person finished they passed the iPad on the next person!

We also completed a research project about frogs!

We read the facts together and sorted them into the appropriate categories!

Then we put these covers on them! And we put them in a little pond! Ribbit!

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Filed under Frogs, iPads, Pow Strip designer

Tagged as comic strip designer, frogs, ipads

May 19, 2015 · 9:14 pm

Fun in Space! Using Green Screen and Augmented Reality!

We have been having a lot of fun with our new green screen app called Green Screen by Do Ink and an app I found last year called NASA Spacecraft 3D.

The NASA Spacecraft 3D app is an amazing augmented reality app! You can download a trigger image from their website, and use it to view an amazing variety of spacecraft that NASA has deployed in space over the last few decades. My favorite is the Curiosity spacecraft that went to Mars. I showed the children a few examples of the various spacecraft and then they chose one to pose with. Last year we took the pictures with the classroom for a background but this year we have green screen technology! We used our improvised green screen made of construction paper on the back of our classroom door to take the pictures this time. Now we can add an background from outer space!

We quickly were reminded that you cannot be wearing green!

When we put the picture taken with the green shirt as one of the images in the green screen app we found out that part of Celia had disappeared! She quickly put on her sweatshirt and we retook her picture!

I have downloaded a variety of images from the internet to use as our background images. The children picked the image they wanted to have in the background too! Now I have to figure out how to add videos to our green screen images!

The NASA Spacecraft 3D app is fun because not only does the trigger image allow access to a variety of spacecraft it also show them moving! It also gives a lot of information about the various spacecraft!

We will be using these images as a starting point to generate some creative writing!

It is a bit easier to imagine yourself in space when you have a picture that shows you there!

Watch for the voyages of the Starship Mountain View!

To boldly go where no child has gone before!

(Courtesy of Green Screen and augmented reality technology!)

(I love Star Trek!, Can you tell?)

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Filed under Augmented Reality, Green Screen, iPads, Space, Spacecraft 3D

Tagged as Augmented Reality, green screen, Green Screen by Do Ink, ipads, NASA stpacecraft 3D

May 19, 2015 · 8:53 pm

Sound Sort Fun!

We have an activity bin in our classroom that we call Sound Sort! It is a bin full of lots of little things that children seem to like.

The object of the bin is to sort all of the objects into the correct letter tub that matches the beginning sound of the object.

I happened to mention that last year someone had sorted all of the items into the bins and we had finally seen the bottom of the bin!

I guess that was a bit of a dare! A group of students started trying to sort all the objects and see if they could see the bottom of the bin!

We decided to leave the bin out and lots of students started helping!

When we finally got everything sorted we had to take a victory picture!

Don’t they look proud!

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Filed under Reading game

Tagged as Beginning Sounds, Reading Game, Sound Sort

May 19, 2015 · 5:00 pm

Mother’s Day Fun!

Hopefully, everyone had a great Mother’s Day! The children had a great time making their special project for you! Some of them were very comfortable making a video and some were a bit shy but I think they all turned out perfect!

Thank you for your help sending me an email so I could forward their special Mother’s Day cards to you! It made the whole process a bit simpler. We use the app Explain Everything to make the cards. I took a picture of each of their cards that we made using their hand prints. Then I superimposed a video onto the page and recorded their comments. Some of them need a little prompting but I think they were pretty happy with their efforts! Then we saved them to the camera roll as a movie.

I copied them off the iPads and saved them onto my computer at home. And sent them to you!

We hope you enjoyed your Mother’s Day flower pen bouquets as much as we enjoyed making them!

When I explained that putting the florist’s tape on the pen was like wrapping a hockey stick with hockey tape the boys really got it!

I wish you could have listened to their comments as they were making the flower pens! Lots of nice comments about their Moms. It was fun to hear about why their Mom might like a particular color or flower!

Hope you all had a Happy Mom’s Day!

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Filed under Explain Everything, Mother's Day

Tagged as explain everything, Flower pens, Mother's Day

May 19, 2015 · 4:57 pm

Fun with Hungry Fish and QR Codes!

We have been having fun with a new to us app called Hungry Fish by Motion Math! It is a great little app that lets the students practice their addition facts.

We have the free version loaded on our iPads at school which only has the addition operations displayed.

If you want you can download the paid version to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication and division operations.

The object of the app is to join bubbles with addends that make the total!.

You can add more than two or more bubbles together to make the sum!

We have also been having fun using the shortcut QR code that I created for our class website. The children can use the Scan app and hold the iPad over the code and it takes them right to our class website. I have them scattered all around the classroom so the children can access them easily!

That is a lot easier than trying to type in the urrl! QR codes are fun!

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Filed under Augmented Reality, Hungry Fish, iPads, Math Apps, QR codes

Tagged as Augmented Reality, hungry fish, math, QR Codes

May 10, 2015 · 3:49 pm

Fun with Shapes!

We have been using the Explain Everything app to create our Shape books. The children used the camera option within the app to take pictures of objects in the classroom.

We made a list of the different shapes and they scoured the room taking pictures of the shapes they wanted to put into their books. Then they added a sentence describing their shape using the text option. After they had completed a cover page and their pages they went back to each page and recorded their voices reading each page. Some students even added arrows pointing to the words or objects on the page. Once that was complete I saved their project to the camera roll and uploaded it to Youtube.

The children were amazing. They found the objects that they needed and even learned how to crop their pictures so that only the part of the picture that had the shape they needed would be in the picture! They also recorded all of the pages all by themselves!

It was really fun to watch them create this book! They are becoming so independent and proficient on the iPads. Nothing scares them!

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Filed under Explain Everything, iPads, Youtube

Tagged as explain everything, ipads, Shape Book

May 10, 2015 · 3:48 pm

Green Screen Fun!

We have been having a lot of fun experimenting with a new app called Green Screen by Do Ink. I decided to give it a go on Earth Day. The children who wanted to be Earth Day reporters volunteered to be videoed sharing their thoughts about Earth Day. We downloaded some images from the internet about Earth Day and saved these images to the camera roll. Green Screen by Do Ink is a neat little app that lets the students be reporters just like on TV! You can add any image to the background using green screen technology! I placed several green construction papers on the back of our classroom door and presto! We had a green screen! Just like the weatherman! I am looking to improve our screen but it worked for our initial attempts!

First we created our video using the video option on the iPad. Then we opened the Green Screen app and begin layering our images! The first image to import is the background we used for our project. We had a few images that we had chosen to download to the iPad. The announcers chose the background they wanted for their project from that selection. Then we imported the video that we created and added that to the project.

We view our project and made some minor changes to the sensitivity of the filter.

When I downloaded the app I unfortunately did not download the animation component! I should have! Can you imagine if we had the opportunity to add an animation to our project! Will definitely have to download the upgrade!