Sorts - for All Sorts

Word Work Edition

A major accomplishment of the first grade teachers has been to make SMART Notebook activities to correspond to each topic of their word work lessons. The activities are for the students to use on their own after each lesson is taught. Some of the digitized activities replace the need for paper copies. For example, a common paper activity is to cut out the words from one piece of paper and then glue them onto another piece of paper. Word sorts have been easily incorporated into each Notebook file that was created. Here are directions on how to make a word sort in Notebook as well as a few other ways to make or find them.

Software

SMART Notebook: If you own a SMART Board, you have unlimited licenses to the Notebook software. In notebook, it is possible to make a rudimentary sort, but why not upgrade it using templates from the Lesson Activity Toolkit? These include the option to self-grade the student’s work. When the student has completed the sort, the student can click on “check” to see how well he or she did. The Toolkit can be found by clicking on the gallery tab on the side and choosing the Lesson Activity Toolkit folder. In the Activities folder there are two options: category sort image and category sort text. Once an activity is dragged onto the page, click on the “edit” button on the activity to insert the words or images. With the above mentioned sorts the words or images stay on the page as they are sorted. There is another possible way to structure the sorting process by using the vortex sorts that provide immediate feedback as each word or image is placed in a category. A new version of Notebook has been recently released, and I look forward exploring all of its new possibilities!

  

More information on The Lesson Activity Toolkit

Presentation Software: A program like PowerPoint or Keynote could be used in a similar manner to make a table and a bank of words to use. A sort created in one of these programs is not self-grading and requires the teacher to check the students’ work.

Websites

Create Your Own Word Sort: Use this website to make a word sort with up to four categories and the possibility to add a “check” option. The final sort is saved as a webpage on your computer and distributed to the students as a file. After students complete the sort, it can be saved as an image file or printed out.

Word Family Sort Short Vowels: Choose a short vowel word family and sort the given words. This is not self-grading.

iPad Apps

Beginning Sounds Interactive Game: Sort the pictures based on their beginning sounds. This is great for use with Kindergarteners. ($0.99)

Cooperative Garfield – Changing the Classroom Environment

All too often I observe classes in which students are instructed to silently interact only with their assigned computers and any communication with other students or movement around the room is not allowed.

This past Halloween, I added a new game to my list of seasonal games: Garfield’s Scary Scavenger Hunt. Personally, when I played the game, I thought that Garfield walked too slowly and that the game took too much time to play. However, I decided to let my students have an attempt at it.

Immediately, it was a success with the second grade students; then it trickled down into the first grade and has now become a favorite of the kindergarten students. The game is still played even though Halloween is long since over, and when students are given a few minutes of “free choice,” at least half of the class is working on Garfield.

I admit that Garfield’s Scary Scavenger Hunt is not a very educational game. Although, you could claim that it promotes spatial awareness, allows for the practice of reading skills, requires an eye for detail, involves the use of logic, and lets students observe cause and effect situations.

Most prominently, this game has transformed the classroom into one in which the students work cooperatively. If one student does not know how to do something, an “expert” is always willing to help. Some students find this to be an opportunity to really shine because they can provide assistance along and gain a feeling of importance. Best ways to beat the game or how to overcome the obstacles generate discussion. Behavioral problems have disappeared, unless students getting out of their seats to help each other and a little extra noise can be counted as problems.

As a teacher, this is how I want my classroom to operate on a daily basis: students are able to work independently, be challenged, and step in as experts when possible in a student-centered environment.  If only Garfield was more educational…

P.S.

If one Garfield is not enough, there is a sequel to the game: Garfield's Scavenger Hunt: Donuts of Doom 2.

Memory "Books"

In my school district, the students are fortunate to be able to purchase a full color yearbook starting in Kindergarten. Even with the existence of a yearbook, second and third grade teachers have their students make their own classroom memory “books” full of pictures taken by their teacher or fellow classmates throughout the year. This year, one teacher decided to start her memory “books” at the end of September and has had monthly “scrapbooking” sessions to keep up with the sheer volume of pictures her classroom photographers snap.

This entire project can also easily be turned into a portfolio of student work. Helen Barrett describes in Collect, Organize and Publish Image Based e-Portfoliosusing Apple’s iPhoto.

Why do this?

A project like this provides the students with experience using the chosen software or website, thereby making other uses of it easier. When choosing a format, it is a good idea to think about how the program can be used for other purposes throughout the year.

Depending on the format, writing practice is incorporated. This includes the use of complete sentences, capitals, periods, and correcting spelling using spell check.

This is a good exercise in putting events in order. Students need to know how to sequence events especially, when writing or recalling what they have read.

Students can reflect on and review past events and learning situations. Each individual’s work and projects can be included in his or her final piece.

Format Considerations

The first step is to decide how the final project will go home with the student. Do you want it to a printed copy? Black and white or color?  Do you want it to be a movie that can be watched either on a computer or on a DVD player? Are you going to add copyright free music? Is it going to be emailed as a PDF or movie file? Does the file size matter if it is going to be emailed?

Paper or Electronic PDF Copy

The most basic way to complete this project is to use a word processing program. Pictures can be imported into the program and descriptive captions can be added. A step up from this is to use presentation software or websites such as PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Presentations. Presentation software definitely helps with the formatting and overall organization (whereas word processing programs may put pictures on different pages from their associated text, thus requiring the insertion of page breaks). Each slide can be a different event, topic, or project. Other programs such as Comic Life or paint programs that allow for pictures to be imported can also be utilized.

As an option, if you are planning on printing this out and trying to save on paper, multiple pages can be printed on one sheet of paper. Some programs will automatically allow this or just select the option when you go to print.

If these are going to be emailed to parents, I recommend saving them as a  PDF. This format is more universal and will ensure that what the students had created opens and looks the same on any computer. If you need help making the PDF see: How do I create PDF documents with Mac OS X?.

Movie – More Like Moving Images

The best option for this would be to use a program like iMovie, which integrates the iPhoto library right into the program to create easy access. Voiceovers can be utilized to provide the additional information that does not fit on the title pages or in the captions.

Music can come from various sources such as the program being used, copyright free websites, such as dig.ccmixter, or be original pieces created by the students.

Distribution of the movies is typically accomplished by giving each student a DVD with only his or her own project. Sometimes, the teachers allow the students to decorate the DVD cover and label. Copies of these can be given to the students to decorate with markers.

If these are not being distributed as a DVD to watch in a DVD player, make sure to export the project to a movie file such as QuickTime. Simply putting the iMovie project file on a DVD does not work.

Also, be sure to keep a copy of the students’ project for a week or two beyond its completion to make sure that the students can view the projects and that the DVDs work.

Getting Photos to the Students

Sharing photographs can be done in a number of ways. We normally put the pictures on a file server to which the students have access. Our current network is extremely inadequate for this next option, but it is possible for the teacher to share the images directly from iPhoto on his or her computer. This will require the teacher computer to be turned on while the students are accessing the photos. A third, more time consuming, way we have made photos accessible to the students is by actually copying them from a flash drive or CD directly onto each computer’s desktop.

Conclusion

As with any project, apply your creativity to the resources to which you have access. There are unlimited options as long as you are open to them.