POST #3: Share a resource

I am the building substitute at City High school, but went to college for Painting and Drawing and Geology, so my post is going to be for if I would make an assignment for understanding the impact of woman artists within the last century on art.

First I went to Iowa AEA Online Resources, then I clicked Britannica Online. I then clicked "High Level", and would have them click under Explore "Biographies". From there, I specified the era to "1900-present", and then under known for I added "printmaking", "painting", "drawing" and "sculpture". I then selected "female". To diversify our search, I would ask each student to select a different "National/Cultural Association". For this example I selected Mexican. Here are a couple examples of the biographies I came upon!

Elizabeth Catlett: https://school.eb.com/levels/high/article/Elizabeth-Catlett/2984
Frida Kahlo: https://school.eb.com/levels/high/article/Frida-Kahlo/44315
Leonora Carrington: https://school.eb.com/levels/high/article/Leonora-Carrington/574133

From there I would direct the students to read the biographies, and then make a poster about the artist and their art, as well as how they may have effected the art world as a woman.

Resources I would absolutely use with my students are bookFLIX and Gale’s kids infobits. Even though my children cannot read yet bookFLIX helps get them interested in books as they have many classics that are animated. I would first show without the words, then later with so they can see that words that are said can also be written and read.
Gale’s kids infobits has an child friendly this is a resource I would use with them for quite a while before I let them click on their own. It has many words that they cannot read, but pictures that they would love and feel important doing their own research.
I do not actually have access to any of these resources so I cannot give links to what specifically I would use. I am just going off the training photos and videos.

CultureGrams Online Database: Subscriber Area Only

The Resource was chosen for a co-taught World Cultures class. The majority of the students in the class will be ninth graders but there will also be a mix of students from the upper grade levels. Students will be instructed to log on to the Culture Grams site, pick a country on the continent of Africa, and create a digital collage of the country of their choosing. This is a nice intro activity and an easy way for students to begin to use Culture Grams on their own. It not only teaches them how to long on but also gives them a chance to navigate around the site and get used to way it is formatted.

Africa Culture Grams Activity


Directions: Using the Culture Grams website, complete the questions listed on your graphic organizer.

Go to:   http://online.culturegrams.com/               

User Name: KAEA006
Password:    KAEA01

Click on:   World Edition
Click on:   Africa
Click on:   the Africa Country you are researching



Pictures: Once you finished filling out your graphic organizer, find Eight pictures that best represent the particular African country you are researching. Using Google Images, insert Eight pictures to a ONE PAGE Word document and then make sure to print your document to the COLOR Printer in the Library.

Find a Picture of the following items:

 Map of the Country
 Flag of the Country
 Holiday
 Food
 Climate
 Sport
 Housing
 Education

The resource that I found was PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next.  You can find this resource by logging into your AEA account, clicking on the AEA Online Resources tab.  Then it will display all of the online resources.  Scroll down until you see PebbleGo.  You will need a Username and Password.  If you don't have one, you'll need to contact them directly.  When you log in, you can choose PebbleGo (for grades PreK-2nd) or PebbleGo Next (for 3rd-5th).  SInce I will be teaching 3rd and 4th Special education, I clicked on PebbleGo Next.  Some subjects were: States, Science, American Indian History, Biography, and Social Studies.  I chose biographies.  When you click on Biographies, you can then choose if you want to learn about artists/composers, inventors, athletes, politicians, etc.  I chose athletes.  Then it brings up a list of several athletes and you can learn about their timeline.  I would use this activity for students when they are learning about biographies.  This is also a good resource to use when teaching about timelines.  I would then have them think of someone they want to write about and have them use this resources, as well as the other online resources that AEA provides.

Honestly, I love so many of the resources provided to us through Heartland! One resource that I would highly recommend to elementary school teachers, more specifically third-fifth grades, the nonfiction resource TrueFlix (https://sdm-tfx.digital.scholastic.com/cb/node-34641?authCtx=U.600055417)! It is an extremely relevant and high interest site created by Scholastic. Within the site there are several different topics with the main focus of “People, Places, and History. With a lot of our reading materials and social studies moving toward nonfiction subjects to meet grade level standards and outcomes, TrueFlix could easily be woven into many areas. It has an option to have the material read to the student through headphones while they follow along or read at their own pace. This option allows teachers to differentiate instruction within their classrooms. TrueFlix could be used for individual research projects or papers. It could also be used to enrich a specific chapter within the required reading or social studies text.

In fifth grade we have a pretty large project where students research a person who has made a positive impact on society. Through this proecess, students will learn how to write topic sentences, how to research and take notes that relate to the topic sentences, and how to write an essay in their own words. Once the essays are complete, we have a Wax Museum where students present their learning to other students and their families. One of the hardest parts of this project is finding reliable resources to research. When I teach this unit, I always go through the whole process with my students and walk them through my expectations step by step. In the past have used Michael Jordan as my example. This year I plan on showing students how to use Britannica Online to find information on the person they will research. I would show them how I navigate to this site: https://school.eb.com/levels/elementary/article/Michael-Jordan/353326 and then I would model how to take notes from the information from this site. The objective of this is not only to write a research essay, but also how to use the site independently. My hope is that this would then be a resource students could use on an end of year project in science where they research something we have discussed throughout the year.

I will use BookFlix  in my 8th grade class for my ELL students. Social Studies is a hard class content & vocabulary wise for ELL students. I have found that BookFlix helps supplement the learning of ELL students by offering them visuals, read along, and easy to follow content. Some of the content is even offered in Spanish which is perfect!

Here is an example of how I'd use this resource.
Lesson: Presidents of the United States
Objectives: Identify our founding fathers and what their contributions were to the United States of America.
Directions: (1) Go to BookFlix  for this assignment. (2) Login using the username 3141sout and the password is gwood10! (3) On the BookFlix homepage click "People and Places." (4) For this assignment you will select both Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, choose which one you will start with and click that icon. (5) Read the biography of the president by clicking "Read the Book," you may choose to have the book read to you by clicking "read along". (6) After you read the biography, learn more about the president by reading the next book by clicking "watch the story". Make sure "read along" has been selected to have captions show up on the screen during the video.

There are many other options for students to explore within each president, this is just a brief overview of how I would get them started with exploring their given topic within BookFlix. I would have worksheets for students to complete based upon the resource they are exploring on BookFlix.

I shared the resource of Facebook.  I wanted the students to be able to send pictures from their own cell phones.  Half the students weren't able to send pictures on Facebook.  So I showed them how to take a picture.  Email it to the school account so you could send the picture to your parents to have them show the parents how to put pictures on Facebook.  

Also, using schools student emails they would be able to show parents videos and pictures of what is going on in the classroom. It was a quick easy way to keep parents informed in what is going on in the classroom and the parents can send pictures to share also.  Great way to have communication in the classroom from shcool-home.  

I would choose CultureGram to prepare our students for new ESL students joining our student body.  I would tell the students to go to our Great Prairie AEA website and search for Digital Resources, then K-5 resources.  While we have that open, I would give a brief summary of what each site is and ask them to explore what is available and how they might be able to use it after the CultureGram assignment is completed.  I would have a paper with Cloze statements about the culture of the new student(s) and ask them to fill in the appropriate answers.  I think this would be a valuable learning and exploration experience for everyone.

After looking around a bit, I thought I would share the Gale resource.  Here is the URL for my resource:
https://go.gale.com/ps/start.do?p=ITKE&u=iowaec&sid=geolinks
I chose this resource because I would like my resource students to become more independent and once they know how to maneuver this site, it would be a wonderful resource for them.  When I am working with other students, they could look up the topic of their reading passages.  There are so many amazing options available for them. We will have to practice using them and how to maneuver the site.  This would also be beneficial to them as they get older and have to research different topics.  
        Upon opening this website, you are given the options of topics, news, pictures or videos.  Clicking on the topics option I was brought to another page in which there were now 13 areas to visit or a random question in which you could click on for more information and an answer.  This page had a search bar I could use, or I could click on the 6 fairly recent articles which dated April to May of 2023.  Below these articles, there were interesting random facts and more options for exploring.   From the news page, I again returned to the home page and checked out the pictures and video pages.  There were a lot of pictures and videos available.  
        So as a special education teacher, I was impressed and excited for my students, to see all the available options to differentiate their learning experiences.  They have the option to listen to the article, make the text either larger or smaller, change the font to Dyslexic friendly fonts (Open Sans & Open Dyslexic), change the color of the background to light gray, peach, or green, and change the spacing of letters, words, and or lines.  In addition to all those options, there is also the option to translate the article into about 50 languages ( I didn’t count them but I did have to keep scrolling down to get to the bottom!).  Individuals can also cite, share, download, print, get a link, or highlight the article.  The only thing I was disappointed with was that the above-mentioned options were not able to be printed.  But that is doable, just happy they are available online!  

The resource that I chose to explore was CultureGrams. To access this site,  go to the URL https://online.culturegrams.com 

Once you have navigated to this site, you will need to use the username and password provided by your local school librarian or AEA. I will have my students use the Kids Edition, since this section is for upper elementary students. This site provides a wealth of information for over 200 countries around the world.

I will have my students use this site to explore informational text and gather research about a country of their choosing. They will use the information and create a Google slide presentation. Information that they need to collect will include the colors, patterns, and meanings/symbols on the country flag, population, major religions, major languages spoken, indigenous plants and animals, climate, famous people, and any interesting facts. Students will add images, photos, graphs, and tables to add visual interest to their presentations.

Students have been given direct instruction in writing throughout the year. They will take notes on necessary information, then write that information in age-appropriate sentences and/or paragraphs. They will be instructed in the pitfalls of "copy and Paste", copyright, and plagiarism.

I've been using Mission's interactive games in my Social Studies classes, and they are such an engaging tool! The first game, Crown or Colony, lets students explore life in the 1770s by making choices about being a loyalist or patriot, bringing the pre-Revolutionary era to life. The second game, Flight to Freedom, immerses them in the Underground Railroad experience, deepening their understanding of this crucial part of history. Both games really hold my students' interest and make these historical events feel real to them. I haven't tried Cheyenne Odyssey, though, since it focuses on post-Civil War events, which are beyond our current curriculum.

By the way, if anyone's looking for a different kind of game, Hungry Shark mod APK is another fun option to consider for a change of pace!

Plan: Teaching about safely online

Goal: to teach 2nd/3rd graders how to be safe online

Steps
Have an open discussion with the students before seeing the video. Have students explain what they think internet safety is and how they work to be safe online.

Have them explain in small groups what they think is private information online and what they think they can share.

Show a video similar to this: Internet safety for kids

Small groups: Students have flashcards to practice with each other what is safe and not safe online.

After small groups, students will come together in a large group. We will discuss what they do to stay safe. They will also discuss what is not safe on the internet.



Assessment:

We will play a game with the students to assess their skills. It will be similar to Red Light/Green Light.
If the student thinks an option is safe, they step forward. If they think it is unsafe, they will stay still.

Students will do individual worksheets to check their knowledge. They will give examples of how to stay safe online and examples of not staying safe online.