First Meeting...

After playing phone tag for about 2 days, the parent and I were finally able to make contact. The parent was very supportive of the project and was eager for her daughter, Amy to begin working. We were able to schedule our first meeting on a Saturday morning. The Zuniga Family was extremely nice and welcomed me into their home. Amy was sitting at the kitchen table with her mother's laptop waiting to begin working on the project. About 2 minutes had gone by when the door bell rang, it was their neighbor's from across the street coming over to let me know they had hit my car as they were backing out of their drive way! I was in complete shock! The neighbor and I quickly settled the accident and exchanged all the important information.

It was a little difficult to regain my composure and focus on the project. However, we were able to discuss the basics and expectations of the project. She was able to give some insight on her prior knowledge of her topic, the "Early Man". This was a topic previously learned, so we did not have to spend too much time researching more information. I explained my purpose was to do my very best to teach her the technology aspect of the project and we begin by creating her blog. We then preceded to complete the KWL chart on google docs. Due to the family having plans to feed the homeless, it being Easter weekend, my son's 4th birthday party, and a minor accident, we had to cut our meeting short.

Overall, I was pleased with the outcome of our first meeting. My goal was to create the blog, begin the KWL chart, and begin searching for images relating to our topic. I asked Amy to answer a couple of questions on her blog and have some idea of pictures she would like to use in her voice thread.

CCMS Tour

Visiting CCMS was quite an experience. Although I did not visit during regular school hours, I was able to receive helpful information from my student and her friend. I visited the school after hours and saw a small group participating in their after school care program. It was a group of six to eight students. The students were listening to their teacher explaining a science topic. The rooms I visited was next to the library. In my opinion the rooms were a little smaller than a classroom at a public school. Inside the rooms were tons of manipulatives for the students to work with during their daily activities. Manipulatives provide a better understanding for students and allow them to see things from a visual perspective.

I found it very interesting the students are allowed to work without shoes. Students are encouraged to be as comfortable as possible and working without shoes is one way to provide a comfortable atmosphere. The students at CCMS usually do their activities on the floor or a mat as a oppose to sitting at individual desk like the public schools. Small group participation is encouraged throughout the classes and the higher grade levels usually are grouped in three's. The student I worked with on the spring project loves attending CCMS and looks forward to going to school everyday. She was also pleased about the additional grade levels that the school will be adding in the future. The school appeared very clean and academically successful. The staff members I met were very nice and professional. Despite the fact I was not able to see the full effect of the school, it left me wanting to return to the school to see the students in action.

I love this quote!

"Whoever touches the life of a child touches the most sensitive point of a whole, which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future." -Dr. Maria Montessori

Below is a link to read more information on the montessori method.
Maria Montessori

Homo Erectus

Voicethread Interaction

Amy and I were able to work on her Voicethread at CCMS. Although we didn't have the voice recording tool, we are able to put a little soomething together. Amy did an excellent job of searching for own images and creating titles for each image. She had a good time making it.

One of my students was able to comment on her voicethread!!

See Amy's Voicethread here.

Anxiously Waiting....

I am anxiously waiting to meet my student!! I got off to a late start signing up for the project, fortunately a parent was also late signing up. I have contacted the parent two times through email, but I have not received a response. I am looking forward to our first initial meeting.....I hope we are able to meet soon! In the mean time I will begin exploring possible ideas and information that may be helpful to the "Early Man" project.

In the future, I have learned as a teacher I must be patient and not give up when a parent is non responisive. Working with parents to ensure their child successful is the ultimate goal. Both parents and teachers should be on the same page working towards the same goal. Learning from this experience about parent contacts is just to keep pursing the parent through emails, mulitple phone numbers, and any other means of communication.

Possible Questions:
1. In your own words, describe your description of the the "Early Man".
2. If you could travel back in time 3.6 million years ago as one of the first "Early Man", what would you do differently for mankind?
3. List and describe the animal population during the "Early Man" period.
4. Chose any animal from the "Early Man" period and compare yourself to the animal of your chosing.


Here is a link that might be useful to our project.

Digital Movie

Super Spreadsheets!!!!

Creating a spreadsheet can be very difficult. Working with numbers and functions are not my specialty, but somehow I was able to get through this assignment. Spreadsheets can serve many purposes, such as monitoring your finances, creating your own grading system, and basically to manage any kind of important data.

Incorporating creating spreadsheets in the classroom will allow students to substitute their calculators for a spreadsheet program. Inquiry based learning will definitely be the center of attention when using spreadsheets. Both support the main elements of teaching students to learn through a hands on approach. Three questions I would suggest students to consider while tackling a spreadsheet are:

1. Which plant or flower grew the fastest/slowest in 6 weeks?
2. Determine the hottest and coolest days along with any rain, and the positive or negative affects the weather had on the plants during a 6 week period.
3. Create a budget of all the necessities to grow a garden. Your allowable budget will begin at $100.

Basics of Gardening Digital Storytelling

This was by far the most interesting and extremely challenging project I have ever experienced! What a great tool to promote education to students! The numerous resources available such as MovieMaker, to create a minimovie was very fun to play with and become familiar with the resource. I chose MovieMaker and mostly all of the images used in the digital story were actual pictures taken from my in-laws' beautiful garden.
It is truly amazing the wonders of technology and how we as future educators can incorporate these types of resources in our teaching. Although my movie was not directed in a classroom or the script was also not student-teacher friendly, I believe the main points were given. Teachers who would like to begin a unit on plants or gardening now have a new and simple guide to use by viewing my movie. The simplicity of the movie was created intentionally so the viewers would not be overwhelmed with a great amount of information.
As a future teacher, this project will instill the knowledge I need to pass on this awesome new way of teaching to my students. Designing a digital story is million times more engaging as oppose to pencil, paper, and textbook. All students would appreciate this particular type of project and embrace the challenges that comes along with it.
Go watch my movie

7 Elements of Digital Story Telling

Teaching teachers and students the basic tools to grow a garden will intergrade math, science, social studies, and reading. It is a great hands on project and can be a great opportunity to focus on all core subjects with one project. My unit plan will be a wonderful experience for all children.


The seven elements of Digital Story Telling are related to my storyboard for the following reasons:

1. Point of View - I simply started with my view on the basic and most simpliest tools to plant a flower.
2. Dramatic Question - This will be located at the end of the video when the viewers will be able to see the end product, a fully grown plant or flower.
3. Emontional Content - The importance of planting flowers is good for the bee population to continue to pollanate and carry it over the enviornment.
4. The gift of your voice - My voice will be spoken in a calm manner.
5. The power of soundtrack - The soundtrack will touch on a calm but soothing melody and also the sounds of digging, and children having a good time planting.
6. Economy - Growing a garden can have an overwhelming amount of information, so I chose to focus on growing a plant or flower.
7. Pacing - I think the amount of time for each clip is long enough for the viewers to absorb the information. The clips are short and straight to the point.

Digital Story Telling

Digital story telling is a wonderful tool to implement in the classroom. It is a tool that is used to tell a story through text, images, audio, and video clips, or music. The computer will substitute the actual book and children will be able to appreciate a story through wonderful and exciting images. In a sense, viewing a story from a digital aspect brings the story and it's characters to life. Digital story telling ranges from recapping historical events to biographies, and personal tales. This form of a story telling usually requires at least 10 minutes of length.

The great thing about digital story telling is teachers along with their students can collaborate together to create interesting images, audio, clips, and much more to produce a story. During the process, the students will enjoy and have fun completing the story telling project. For example, if students are assigned to create a digital storytelling project based on historical events,this will allow students to explore their own creativity and research historical events they may not be aware of the occurrence. Students will gather as much information as needed including video and audio clips, and images.



Voice thread, Slide Share, and Slide Cast are all great tools to use in the classroom. Students will be to learn the core subjects and more through these high tech tools. Why should our students be restricted to the same old text, worksheets, and pen? They should be exposed to more technology and fresh ideas to enhance their learning. Students will be able to retain the information provided by this new age technology because of the way it is presented. These new technology tools will also give students an opportunity to be creative, work in small groups, and just the idea of exploring other possiblities of learning.



All of the tools mentioned above are great to enforce in the classroom. How will these ideas correlate with growing a garden? The voice thread method provides a mini slide show. Students will be able to research images of the basic needs or steps in order to grow and maintain a garden. Students can also record their own voice to provide information to go along with each slide. The students will be responsible for including all the important elements in their voice thread but all the hard work will be extremely rewarding because it will have been published by them!



For future use, these tools will work well for all core areas. Students can work on sequential ordering for a story, recipe, historical events, and even the scientific process. A science project can be recorded through voice thread and each step will be noted. Students can use images and other video clips from the internet or if they have particular information saved on their own personal computer. Technology is a new and exciting way to engage all students. If the students are taught the proper way to take advantage of technology and it's tools, the students will definitely benefit academically.

Internet Resources

Good Afternoon to all of you who possess a "Green Thumb",

I have done extensive research through the internet to provide more resources to assist my fellow bloggers on gardening. These we websites include, informational sites, videos, images, and so much more. I encourage all of you to take some time and search through these websites for additional information on how to grow a garden.

See what I've found in my works cited document so far!

Great Info!

I found a great article by David Warlick on 2Cents Worth he stated very interesting ideas on questioning our students. Check out his article link..... Are You Asking Dead Questions?

It is very interesting to read about the type of questions we as educators should be asking our students. He points out great ideas about starting off a question by taking small steps and then eventually leading into higher level thinking questions. These types of questions will encourage students to promote classroom discussions that students will be able to enjoy. He also discussed a reverse method about teaching History. Warlick along with other educators feel to teach History, we should begin in the present and then proceed to discuss the past.

Bottom line, if we want our students to ask questions and become activley involved in our lessons, we need gain the focus by asking questions that will lead to bigger and greater questions.

Questions to ask your students......

Good Evening,

I hope you all have had plenty of time to process the information in the previous post! Now, what possible questions could you ask your students that require high level thinking beyond the basic knowledge they already possess? You are probably wondering if growing a garden is recommended for all grade levels or perhaps just elementary. In my own opinion, I believe students of all ages could benefit from this project and the learning process would be ongoing. For now, let us just focus on elementary students, particularly 2nd-5th grade.

Possible unit questions would be:

Predict which flower/plant will grow the fastest and explain your answer.

Analyze the process of a specific plant/flower and explain the life cycle.

Compare your plant/flower to a classmate and make comparisons and differences among the two. Include the color, texture, historical roots of the plant/flower, and time it takes to grow.

Explain why certain bugs and insects are harmful or helpful to a plant/flower.

Create your own new species of plants/flowers and provide an illustration of your new species.

If you used a specific brand of plant food different from another classmate, complete a brief project of which one worked better and why.

I am sure you all have grasped the idea of these types of questions. The students will be so engaged in the project and will lead to higher level questioning and answer skills.

TEKS
(6) Science concepts. The student knows that systems have parts and are composed of organisms and objects. The student is expected to:
C) observe and record the functions of plant parts;
(7) Science concepts. The student knows that many types of change occur. The student is expected to:
(A) observe, measure, record, analyze, predict, and illustrate changes in size, mass, temperature, color, position, quantity, sound, and movement


View the blog next time for more helpful information!

FYI: For Teachers & Students

Growing a garden is an extremely long process and requires a great amount of effort and responsibility to maintain. Gardening for some provide a sense of enjoyment, relaxation, and a great opportunity to spend time with family members. Depending on the type of garden you choose to grow, the finished product can transform into a profit. So how does growing a garden relate to education? Well, how about starting a class garden at your school with your students? Teaching students the simple skills to have a green thumb would be a great class project. The concept of these basic skills will implement the core content areas, such as science, math, reading, social studies, and reading. Not only will the core subject areas be covered throughout the project, but your students will also be involved in becoming inquiry and project-based learners.

First of all, allow me to explain inquiry and project-based learning. Inquiry-based learning is one of the best methods for teaching students hands-on activities, and what better way to expose them by starting a garden. Students will collaborate with their peers, become comfortable with their natural curiosity to extend their learning from knowledge of basic facts to comprehending higher level questioning and thinking skills. Inquiry-based learning is the searching for the truth, information, or knowledge. It is a process derived from birth and continues on until death. It is also a learning that begins with gathering of information by using human senses, such as; seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. Through this project, your students will also be introduced project-based learning.

Project-based learning is an instructional approach built upon genuine learning activities that engage student interest and motivation. These particular activities are designed to answer questions or solve a problem. Project-based learning builds on communication and presentation skills. It also focuses on organization and time management tools. Research and inquiry skills, self-assessment and reflections skills are more components students will be exposed to by project-based learning. Group participation, leadership skills and working towards a common goal will be introduced as well. Project-based learning can be used in the class to expose children to hands on learning.

I will end this post and allow you to soak up the information I have provided. Stay tuned for the upcoming blog on possible questions you can ask your students through this project.