VOTE FOR BON AIR ON FACEBOOK!

Vote for BON AIR on

 

Bon Air Elementary is applying for the “Share the Good” grant offered from the Seeds of Change program in hopes to win $25,000 to put towards creating a community garden. Our students will learn where food comes from, the importance of a healthy diet, the process involved in food production, and the preservation of food for later use. The students will participate in the planning and construction of the school community garden, nurture the garden, and harvest healthy foods. The harvested fruits and vegetables will be a fresh and healthy addition to the “Buddy Bags” that are provided by a local church and sent home with our students to provide nutritional meals to our students on the weekends. Additional produce would be donated to local families and community food pantries.

We need your help to be selected!! Please visit the Seeds of Change Facebook page (link below) and LIKE their page. Then visit the “Share the Good Area” and type in Bon Air’s zip code (46901). Open our application and vote! You can vote one time per day. If you have any questions or you cannot access our application please call Bon Air for help. Also share this on your own Facebook page so your friends and family know to vote for us too!

Seeds of Change Facebook Page

https://www.facebook.com/seedsofchange?fref=ts#!/seedsofchange

Check out our Chicks!

BABY CHICKS!

Mrs. Jensen’s science classes will be welcoming several new feathery members to their class VERY SOON! Check out the link below to view the status of their baby chick eggs and watch in real time on the day they make their arrival (as soon as tonight or tomorrow). J It is currently Day 19 in their life cycle so it will be any time! You can view her live feed by visiting the link below.

https://new.livestream.com/accounts/3593751/events/2023729

You will have to create a Livestream account using your school email. This will allow you to view the feed and make comments as your class watches. It only takes 1-2 minutes, very simple. Just set up email and password, click on confirmation link, a few profile settings and you are in.

TIPS

11) The Livestream feed works best in either Firefox or Chrome. You have Firefox already installed on your tablet. Just use the Windows Icon on the bottom left hand corner of your screen, and then in the search bar type in “Firefox.” You can then click on the Firefox browser to use the Internet. Copy and paste the link above into the browser’s top search bar and you are on your way to Livestream.

22) You will have to create a Livestream account using your school email. This will allow you to view the feed and make comments as your class watches. It only takes 1-2 minutes, very simple. Just set up email and password, click on confirmation link in your inbox, a few profile settings and you are in.

33) It will show a puzzle piece and will instruct you to “click to run Adobe Flash.” Click…..and ENJOY!!!

 

 

 

 

Using Virtual Manipulatives to Create Digital Pictures in Mathematics

All students learn differently. This is a proven point. It is also proven that students prefer to demonstrate their knowledge of curriculum in multiple ways. Our visual/spatial learners gather and demonstrate knowledge using sight.  These students prefer designing a mural or diorama over a written book report or a worksheet.  During Digital Learning Day, our third grade math classes used virtual manipulative sites to create visual representations of mathematics concepts. The goal of their lessons were to prove their answers were correct by creating picture graphics on their device.

Here are some of our favorite virtual manipulative sites.

http://www.glencoe.com/sites/common_assets/mathematics/ebook_assets/vmf/VMF-Interface.html

http://www.fuelthebrain.com/Interactives/app.php?ID=201

 http://nlvm.usu.edu/

A student in Mrs. Catt's class uses geometric shapes to create a picture.

 Students in this class were allowed to use a certain numbers of shapes and then were required to identify all the shapes in their final picture.

 Students in Mrs. York's class worked on multiplication. They used virtual base ten blocks to solve double-digit multiplication problems. They were required to show their work (with the virtual manipulatives instead of paper/pencil) before moving on to the next problem.

 

 

Ideas for using virtual manipulatives in your classroom:

• Use fraction bars to find like fractions
• Create patterns
• Count money
• Use base ten blocks for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
• Create graphs
• Use a virtual hundreds chart for addition and subtraction
• Create various types of geometric shapes
• Tangrams and Pentominoes
• Digital geoboards (eliminate those flying rubber bands!)
• Practice with clocks and telling time

 

 

Spelling City

The Internet has tens of thousands of websites available to teachers to use with our students. But sometimes we come across valuable websites that can engage students in purposeful practice and skill building over and over. These websites, also known as "reusable learning objects" offer more than just online gaming. They allow the teacher to give students ways for repetitive review anytime throughout the day, including after school hours.

One popular site used in our classrooms is Spelling City at www.spellingcity.com. This site includes over 42,000 pre-loaded spelling words with customizable sentences and definitions. It also included a read-aloud function where a real person reads words aloud for students. Teacher can also load in their own spelling words for the week. There are twenty-five interactive games available to students to play to practice their words. Students can also take practice tests and print flashcards to help them prepare for the actual end of week test in class. Check out some screenshots from the site below and some photos of our second graders using the program.

 
Home Page

Example game-Hang Mouse


Matching Practice

African American Read In

In honor of Black History Month, Bon Air hosted guests in our building (rescheduled to March because of a two hour delay at the end of February) who read stories by African American authors to all of our classrooms. Many of our guest readers shared their connections and personal lives with the students before reading their picture books.

 

 

 

 

 

Animoto

Animoto (available on the web or as an Android app) gives teachers even in the youngest grades the ability to introduce digital storytelling into their classrooms. According to Discovery Education, "Animoto is one of the marvels of Web 2.0. It is a wonderful initiative and a true benefit for teachers and students." Animoto allows users to create stunning cinematic slideshows using photos, text, animations, video clips, and audio for free (up to 30 seconds).

Mrs. Miller's first grade class used their KUNO device to take photos of areas around their classroom. They then made presentations including simple sentences to introduce viewers to some of their favorite places around their room. Check out the photos below taken as they were editing their videos. Also click on the Animoto presentation to see a sample video.





Check out our videos from our Bon Air first graders!

Ways you could use Animoto in your classroom:

• Make a book trailer for a book report
• Student portfolios
• Make a visual dictionary of vocabulary words
• Introduction videos
• Show how to solve a math problem step by step
• Document a science experiment

Student Treasures Online Publishing

Every year classrooms at Bon Air participate in the Student Treasures Publishing project. Student Treasures is a company that promotes literacy skills by inspiring students to create their own free published story free of charge! Students write and illustrate their books using publishing kits or using the online database. After submission, each child recieves a hard bound version of the story they created.....for FREE!

This program motivates young students about writing, encourage students to use the writing process to create their own piece of work, and challenges students to use creativity and imagination in their stories. Their own copy of their book also provides them with a piece of work they can be proud to showcase with their family and friends. Student Treasures was recently named the "Best Free Program for Schools,"  by Scholastic's Instructor Magazine.

Check out their website at www.studenttreasures.com.

This year some classes chose to participate using the manuscript kits. Manuscript kits allow students to draw their illustrations and write their stories in their own handwriting. The fourth and fifth grade students used the new online publishing program. The kids typed their stories directly into the publishing program. For their illustrations they used Bloggie cameras to capture photographs around the school and browsed Google Images for clipart off the web.

We are anxious to get our books back soon! We hope you will come check out our books at the Young Author's Conference March 22nd at Indiana University Kokomo from 6:00-8:00.

These are the topics we wrote about this year!
The A to Z of Fourth Grade
My Memories of Elementary School
Lego Alphabet Book
All About Me Autobiographies
Animals

 

 

 Downloading pictures off the Bloggie camera

 

 

 What the online data base looks like up close

 

 The online program also allows teachers to provide comments and feedback and message the student back and forth with suggestions.