Mrs. Anton's Class!

September 17, 2012 · 9:39 pm

Ant Antics

I hope you have had a chance to look at Tumblebooks! We have used it almost every day. The children loved the Purple Yellow Green story that I read by Robert Munsch and asked if it was on Tumble books too. Luckily for us it was! This is a screen shot of our screen!

Last Friday we learned about ants! Ants are one of my favourite insects. Can you guess why? We read a few nonfiction books about ants and tried to make a list of some of the different kinds of ants. I have to admit I learned about a few new ones today. For instance, did you know that there is an exploding ant. Seriously, there is an ant the explodes when it senses that its colony is in danger! There is a pink-faced green ant too! The children thought that the honeypot ant was hilarious. I was checking on the species names when the children were at music and found some awesome videos of fire ants and leaf-cutter ants on the National Geographic Site. It was really neat to be able to share this with the children so easily today. Without the new equipment this would have been very tricky… but with the touch of a button I had pictures and videos of real ants. Take a look! Just search the National Geographic Kids website for the leaf cutter ants video. Here are some screen shots of the video site.

I love the way the leaf-cutter ants scurry along! My favourite part of the video is the sight of all those caterpillars chewing on the same leaf! Here is just one of them!

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Tagged as ants, leaf cutter ants, tumblebooks

September 12, 2012 · 8:40 pm

TMF X 2!

September is about new beginnings! A new start to a school year, a new grade, new school supplies, new shoes, and so on! That’s one of the reasons it is TOO MUCH FUN! But today it was two much fun times TWO!

The first reason happened when I arrived at school to find that our projector had been installed! We are very lucky at our school because our parent group has provided us with some new technology to use with our students in our classroom! The projector and computer allows us to present the material in a really accessible way that the children really enjoy! So, you can see why I was so excited! Today at lunchtime I was able to use the online reading program TumbleBooks to show some Robert Munsch titles. We enjoyed Moira’s Birthday! It is a really fun story about how a little girl invites the whole school to her birthday party… EVEN the kindergartens! It was so nice to have the pictures up on the big screen with no one saying that they couldn’t see the pictures! I think Robert Munsch himself narrated the story! TumbleBooks is a really awesome website with a huge inventory of stories! The stories are leveled to grade level and have a variety of activities attached! There is a link to their website on our WIKI page! Check it out! It is really worth the time!

We also looked at some of the neat material on the BrainPopJr. website. It looks like it will be a lot of fun!

The second reason is a publication I picked up tonight called iPads for Kids! It is probably going to be a dangerous acquisition! It has a ton of apps that I can’t wait to try and share with the kids!

It is really going to be TOO MUCH FUN!

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Tagged as brain pop jr, tumblebooks

June 14, 2012 · 9:05 pm

Don’t Let the Water Out!

Today we had a lot of fun doing “fishy” things! We have been working on a seashore/ocean theme and today we put together our Rainbow Fish. The children worked on symmetrical printmaking on a fish shape and today we stuffed the fish and added the shiny scales to make our Rainbow fish. We watched the video based on the cool book called The Rainbow Fish. It is a great book about sharing. We hung our fish from the ceiling and of course the room is now filled with water for our swimming fish! Hence the signs on both of our doors!

We also had some fun with the iPad writing a little poem about the ocean using Doodle Buddy. First, we brainstormed words to go with the ocean stamps in Doodle Buddy. Then the children chose three stamps to make a short poem. Using the text boxes they put in their choices of ocean animals with a describing word. Then they illustrated their poem using the stamps. I found this cool idea on a really neat blog called ilive2learnilove2grow. I even like the name of the blog! Sounds like a great way to look at learning.

Yesterday I added a new link to the WIKI. We now have access to the site TumbleBooks. It is a really awesome site of excellent reading material. Make sure to check it out!

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Tagged as doodle buddy, rainbow fish, tumble books

May 16, 2012 · 9:02 pm

Frogs and Flutterbies??

We have been working on a mini unit on life cycles. We started with frogs and are now moving on to butterflies. My husband always says they should be called flutterbies. I started looking around for apps that would relate to frogs. I found a really cute app based on the Mercer Mayer book Where is My Frog! It is a neat little app that allows the user to have the story read to you or the option of reading it yourself. I like that it highlights the words that are being read too. Like most of the iPad story apps there are “hot” buttons that animate parts of the screen. I have also found a version that can be found online. I will put a link to it on the WIKI when I get a chance!

We are also working on the life cycle of the butterfly. Today we started adding some math to our study by looking at symmetry. Butterflies are awesome examples of symmetry. It is fun to put math, science, and art together! TMF! The children worked in partners taking turns putting pattern blocks on each side of the butterfly. One partner got to be “the boss” and put a block on one wing. The other partner had to put the same block on the other side to make both sides symmetrical. Then, of course, the other partner got a turn to be “the boss”!

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Tagged as buttterflies, frogs, pattern blocks, symmetry

May 9, 2012 · 9:26 pm

TMF! It’s Okay to Have Too Much Fun!

I love to collect sayings and if you came to my house you would see them all over my house. One of my favourites is “It’s Okay to Have Too Much Fun! or TMF!

Yesterday the children asked to watch the Monster at the End of this Book during storytime/eating time. As I suffer from allergies I leapt at the opportunity to save my voice and set up the story. I had the special helper of the day turn the pages as he had already gobbled up his sandwich and was eager to have the job. It was delightful to watch the engagement of the students in the story, but especially the engagement of the page turner!! During the story, the monster pleads with the reader to not turn the page by clasping his hands together and saying “Please, please don’t turn the page!” . The student turning the pages on the iPad actually was so involved in the story that he was acting out the story as it happened complete with pleading hands! Magic! Definitely TOO MUCH FUN! Of course, then we had to listen to Another Monster at the End of this Book! Love those monsters!

I have continued to bring my iPad to school each day and when the children have completed their independent projects they have the opportunity to sit at my desk on my chair two at a time working with the apps I have downloaded onto my iPad. Two other children sit on my other big chair at our classroom computer. Little people in big chairs totally wrapped up in what they are doing is definitely Too Much Fun to watch! Needless to say those chairs fill up fast. At the end of the day I shut down my iPad and shut down the apps that have been opened and I get to do a little survey to see which apps are the most popular… Really fun! The Monster at the End of this Book and Peter Rabbit are really popular which tells me that I need to find more story apps!

The class WIKI is also really popular on the computer. It is neat to see what their favourite sites are. I need to find a way to let two children use the headphones… There must be a gizmo for that!

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Tagged as another monster at the end of this book, Peter Rabbit, The Monster at the End of this Book

April 30, 2012 · 9:07 pm

Working with our WIKI!

We now have a WIKI on our website. The WIKI is a site with quick links to cool websites that we have found! It is a more user friendly site for the little ones! Basically I have tried to find a few good websites in a variety of topics or interest areas. The WIKI allows me to create quick links that the children can click on to get to their favourite sites. There are quick links to STARFALL, Suessville, Junie B. Jones, ABCYah and so on. You can find it on the menu bar at the top of the website menu bar. Click on the page called “Mrs. Anton’s WIKI Page. Click on the link on the page and then click on the link that interests you! The children have worked with the page at school and seemed to really enjoy it! Check it out!

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Tagged as abc ya, junie b jones, seussville, starfall, WIKI

April 11, 2012 · 5:44 pm

25 and Counting!

Today I introduced a new app to a small group of children who had finished their independent assignments. Actually, I didn’t have to introduce it…. I mentioned that I had a new app for them to try and was about to explain how to use it when the child calmly pointed out that it wasn’t necessary because “they could figure it out!” And they were right! I had found a storybook app based on Toy Story. It lets the child read the story or have the story read to them. I like this one because it highlights the words as they are being read. It also has a variety of other activities that the children really enjoy! The children taught each other about the app and they were off!

Over the past few months we have been experimenting with iPads in our classroom. I have been having a grand time researching other websites and searching for ideas and apps that would work well in a classroom. Tonight I decided to review our journey and just see how many different apps or strategies we have used so far on the iPads. Guess what! If I have counted correctly today was number 25!

Now I am thinking and wondering if we could get to 100… I would sure love to try!

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Tagged as toy story

April 10, 2012 · 6:51 pm

Another Monster?

We have continued to have fun with the Peter Rabbit apps. It is hard to figure out which app is the most popular. They all seem to be getting a lot of use! I love the coloring one in the official Peter Rabbit website app. The magic paintbrush colors the pictures in the same lovely colours that can be found in the books.

We did a story map based on the story Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. You can’t go wrong with a Margaret Wise Brown story! The children sequenced the story and then we made some boo-boo bunnies for them to use as a story prop to retell the stories! We didn’t manage to get them all finished on the day we did the story maps so we didn’t send them home until the next day when everyone could take their bunnies home! They were pretty popular bunnies and they had a lovely time “resting” in their Easter bunny baskets.

I love the app The Monster at the End of this Book so I couldn’t resist getting the next story called Another Monster at the End of this Book. Really cute story! I used the projector to show the story using my special adaptor cord so we could all see the story on the big screen. One of the students took charge of turning the pages. Another hit!

Poor Grover! He sure doesn’t like monsters!

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Tagged as boo boo bunnies, home for a bunny, ipads, monster at the end of this book, Peter Rabbit

April 3, 2012 · 9:37 pm

Peter Rabbit has an App!

Today we continued our bunny projects with the beloved Beatrix Potter story Peter Rabbit! I am a bit of an Beatrix Potter nut. I have all the books and we have been reading some of them. I also have a really good version on video. So, of course, I went looking for Peter Rabbit apps! I found three in the short time that I went looking and we tried them all today! All were big hits! Not everyone got a chance to work with them yet but we had several children demo them on the big screen using the projector. I have a special cable that lets me show whatever is on my iPad using the projector. That makes it really easy to share with the students and I always have lots of volunteers who want to be the “demo guy”!

We watched the video first today. I had already read the story previously. Then we did an sequencing activity. I chose 12 pictures from the book, and the corresponding text. The children had to sequence the pictures, find the corresponding text, and then collate it altogether into a personal little Peter Rabbit book. We also made a paper bag puppet to go with the book.

Later we worked with the story again using the three iPad apps I found. One app allows you to either read the story yourself or have it read to you. It has neat little pop-ups on each page that the children enjoyed. It is called PopOutPeter!

There is also another Peter Rabbit app created by iActivecom that also reads the story. It has a neat addition in that each page can be made into a jigsaw puzzle. That was fun!

The last Peter Rabbit app is the one from the Official Peter Rabbit Site. It also tells the story. It has some neat features as well. There are some fun games and pictures to colour. I liked the coloring one where you could use the magic pencil that colored the picture the same as the book. The games are cute too. I suspect that all three apps will be popular picks.

I would find it really hard to choose between them. I like them all too!

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Filed under iPads, Peter Rabbit, Story Books

Tagged as ipads, Peter Rabbit, PopOut Peter

April 2, 2012 · 9:02 pm

Hoppity Hop

We have been working on a mini theme about rabbits! On Friday we managed to make 3 different bunnies! We began our project by learning about the characteristics of real rabbits and then we compared that to the characteristics of the Easter Bunny! Then we completed a cloze to make a big bunny!

We also made standup bunnies with our Big Buddy class. The bunnies even had baskets! Both groups really seemed to enjoy the activity! Wish that I had remembered to take pictures of them in action!