FIRST... It is a gorgeous fall day in NE Ohio: Sunshine, leaves floating downward, a gentle breeze, kids playing in leaf piles, and a lonesome train whistle in the background.
SECOND...My report cards are DONE, DONE, DONE!!! No photo to go with this event, but who cares?!?!? Right?
THIRD... This past week was National Chemistry Week. We celebrated this SWEET event in our homeroom by experimenting with candy. Using the materials found in the free Chemistry Week booklet,
we tested and analyzed sweet and sour candies that our parents donated, discovering which contain an acid and which do not.
Of course, we got to taste test the materials as well!
FOURTH... Halloween is at the end of this school week. If you haven't found some fun learning activities to accompany this holiday yet, be sure to attend my Halloween party. You'll find great teaching materials there for all grade levels.
FIFTH... My birthday is this Sunday! To celebrate I'm throwing a one day sale (Oct. 26, 2014) in my TpT store. EVERYTHING is 20% off (I wish I could take 20% off of my age).
I just love exploring poetry with my students. Normally I spend the entire month of April, National Poetry Month, exploring all different types of poetry and famous poets. Because we missed thirteen days of school due to the harsh winter weather, I wasn't able to delve into my poetry material until May of this year. I'm smack dab in the middle of it with my eighth graders and just beginning to hit it with my sixers. Here's a blog post from April 30, 2013, when I was finishing up our study of one of the most FUN types of poetry. ENJOY!
During the month of April my sixers and I have been reading, writing, and ENJOYING poetry! What began as groans after Spring break has turned into eager cries of "What kind of poem are we gonna do today, Ms. A.?"
So far we've enjoyed highly formalized poems such as haiku, tanka, and diamonte; explored rhyme scheme with couplets, quatrains, limericks, and clerihew; and giggled, laughed, and been left speechless by free verse and dada. "What is dada?" you say. Hmmm? Better than I trying to explain this most unusual poetry format, try your hand at a dada poem here:
A poem similar to dada is a Page Poem. I had never seen this type of poetry until I stumbled upon it on Pinterest. Pinterest? Ah, what would I do without Pinterest? Here's what I pinned about Page Poetry.
I absolutely fell in LOVE with Page Poetry. Crazy and deviant as dada, Page Poetry calls for great visual creativity, not something added as an after thought, but art that is essential to the meaning (if you can call it that) of the poem. Some Page Poems appeared to be random ramblings of strange, twisted minds while others appeared well thought out and planned. I can do this, I thought! My sixers can do this! And so they did and with great fun, great thought, great sharing, and great discussion.
I introduced Page Poetry to my sixers by sharing my Pinterest Pins and visiting some of the websites. Fresh from creating dada poems, they were hooked and couldn't wait to begin. Next we began looking through our library for a book that might lend itself to creativity and fun. It also had to be a book that was well loved, meaning it was ready to fall apart. We hit the jackpot with an old copy of one of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. With some sadness at having to destroy the book, I ceremoniously began tearing out pages at random and passing them to my sixers with great dramatic flair. From there my sixers spent quite some time reading and rereading their given page, searching for just the right words.
Once the words were chosen, they had to decide how to present their poems, how elaborate would the page appear? Some simply used black pens to circle the words and draw directional lines, some added color, others added textured lines, while others utilized multiple colors, shapes, and designs.
These are just a very few of the Page Poems created by my students. Enjoy!
I'll be introducing this form of poetry to my eighth graders next week. I'm looking forward to seeing their creations. Perhaps I'll be able to share a few with you then.
I'm squeaking in, just under the wire, to join Tara's April Monday Made It linky!
I hadn't really planned on joining Tara this month; I really didn't have anything to make. That is, until someone gave me a Flip video camera.
Yes, it's a camera that is out of style! However, this was brand new, still in the box, never been used! I used it for the first time to video a special lesson completed by my student teacher at the beginning of the month. It was SUPER simple! However, when it came to working with the actual video, it became a little tricky.
I chose to not install the accompanying FLIP software and utilize what I already had on my computer. After downloading the raw video, I found it was in .mp4 format... sigh! All my video editing software utilzes .avi or .wav format. Soooo, I had to convert the video. For this task, I use FreeMake Video Converter... user friendly and as its name says... FREE!
Next I imported the converted video into Windows Movie Maker, added some transitions, a title page, and credits, clicked FINISH, and within a few minutes an awesome video was created!
Now for today's MADE IT: a video of my fifth and sixth graders rehearsing for our school spring program. I shot the video at school this afternoon, then created the video while cooking dinner. Please notice the chandeliers hanging above the students. These are the Dale Chihuly replica projects I blogged about HERE. Our art teacher will be hanging more of them tomorrow morning.
I am VERY happy with how my video turned out, and I'm VERY, VERY happy with how my kiddos' program is shaping up. I can't wait for the performances tomorrow afternoon and evening. I wish you could see and hear them in person.
Don't forget to visit Tara's blog, Fourth Grade Frolics to read more Monday Made Its!
I had planned something else for today, but just had to change and share some great videos with you that my sixers are creating. Their assignment was to create a book trailer about a book that they have recently read. They were required to read two books over the summer. The first book was promoted via a Newbery Book Report and the second with this book trailer project. My sixers had been waiting for this video project; they've seen the three classes ahead of them produce poetry videos and book trailers and couldn't wait their turn.
I begin the project by sharing a book trailer for a book we are reading or have read in the past (a quick search via Google or comparable search engine will yield you results for a myriad of trailers). We talk about the video's features: graphics, text, video, pacing, effects, etc.; and how these combine to entice the viewer into reading the book. I end this first lesson by asking them to consider what a book trailer for their second summer book might look like. They are asked to simply jot down their ideas for tomorrow's lesson.
On the second day, I present the project sheet to the class. You can download this sheet HERE. It is in Word format so that you are able to edit it as you might see fit. It contains the specific pieces of information that they must include in their own trailer: graphic of the book's cover, the author's name, pictures, background music, minimum length, credits.
I also show them two book trailers from former students, one that meets the criteria and one that does not. As we view the trailers we discuss whether the video meets the requirements or not. This lesson ends with an invitation for my sixers to explore the links given on the instruction sheet and an invitation to bring their technology "tools" to school the next day so that they can begin working on their videos during free time. I only have five computers in my classroom, so I bend the rules (with the permission of the school president) of no personal ipads, ipods, or laptops by inviting them to use their tools at schools... we have a long and detailed discussion of do's and don'ts with these tools as well.
On the third day, I demonstrate how to make a simple video using Animoto, a free online video editor. I've blogged about this terrific website before so I won't go into its virtues now. I walk them through the features of this editor, demonstrating how to select a template; how to add a picture, a video clip, and text; and how to publish the final video. At the end of this lesson, my sixers are invited to begin experimenting by making a "for fun" video, one to just help them navigate the app, editor, or piece of software they are choosing to use.
The final developmental lesson that I present is how to download/upload photos, graphics, and music, and how to save these items to a flash drive. Along with this lesson we discuss copyright infringement and fair use for education copyright. I insist that they include simple citations for any media that they will be including in their book trailer. The exception to this is media used directly from a video editing website does not need a citation.
In past years I have required my sixers to use Animoto for this project. However, this year, because several of the girls and one boy were already using a video app called Video Star, I left out the Animoto requirement and gave them several options for creating their book trailer. Even so, I did create an Animoto account for each of my sixers. As it turns out, after three days of experimenting, all 22 sixers are using their Animoto Education accounts to create their trailer.
Yesterday and today I started receiving email notifications that book trailers were being published (they're not due until Oct. 23rd). This particular crop of sixers is usually a bit slow in completing a project. I generally have to provide loads of encouragement and plenty of reminders. I was suppose to give them the assessment rubric today to help them understand my expectations but ran out of time due to recess duty, a visit from a new born, and a school photo op... sigh!
Here are the first few trailers... LOVIN' them!
For this last trailer I can only provide a link. The author changed her password and I don't have it here at home: The Encyclopedia of Me.
I can't wait to see what the coming week will hold with my sixers' videos. Several others are in process and just waiting to be published. Maybe I'll be able to share them during the week.
One of the best technology "things" that I've stumbled upon in the past few years is a video processing site called Animoto. If you have not seen this website I encourage you to hop on over and check it out. It allows the user to create 30 second video slideshows featuring original photos and/or downloaded pics from the internet. Paid subscription accounts are also available, but Animoto does a great service for educators. Teachers can apply for FREEBIE educational accounts for themselves and their students that allow them to develop videos of longer length. Education accounts are similar to a paid account with a few very minor exception. The one drawback to the educational account is that it expires at the end of six months. Teachers can renew their accounts and their student accounts but it is a bit of a process. My suggestion to Animoto is that they increase the length of the account to one year, or at the least nine months.
One of the first videos that I created is this brief one that I used with my fifth grade class last year as we were delving into Newbery Literature. I have a great poster that features all of the Newbery award winning books from the inception of the award through 2012, but I wanted a video to capture the attention of my fivers. They loved music and singing and all things technology. Animoto was the perfect tool for me to whip up a quick video to accompany my lessons. This was playing when they entered the room. They LOVED it! If I recall I think I played it four or five times before I could go on with the lesson.
Animoto is exceptionally easy to use. Animoto provides an instructional video but I chose to skip it since I found the site quite intuitive. Additionally, there are several good tutorials on YouTube for anyone who likes step-by-step instructions. Just use any internet search engine to locate them or go directly to YouTube to search.
Animoto's interface is user friendly and works similarly to a typical word processing program. To begin a project you select a template. Depending on the type of account you have will depend on the kind of template that you may select. Free accounts have far fewer choices and fewer privileges, however, stunning videos can still be created. The next step requires the selection of photos, either from Animoto's vast onsite collection or by uploading your own. Snippets of videos can even be added if there is enough time available in your project (this is where it is advantageous to have an education account). Each template has a pre-selected audio file. This, too, can be changed. You may select from Animoto's list of musical pieces (a rather limited database) or once again, your own. Finally, you can tweak your video using a few special effects, the variety and number vary with the type of account you are using, and then produce it.
Your video can be shared on social media site, such as FaceBook, with the click of a button or embedded in blogs and websites with HTML code. Individual video links can even be shared via email by copying and pasting the web address. Education and paid account users can even download their videos for playback on PC's and handheld devices.
The following three Animoto videos were completed as an assignment by sixth graders. The class had been reading realistic/historical fiction centered on the Holocaust. We had spent time learning and researching actual historical evidence (newsreel videos, history texts, personal memoirs, et al.) and comparing this with the fictional text in The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. My sixers could select from several methods of presenting what they learned: an Animoto video, a powerpoint presentation, or a Social Media book response (something I developed and is available for purchase in my TpT Store and Teacher's Notebook Shop). This assignment was very open-ended. I really was interested in seeing what my kiddos would do without strict parameters. I had spent the year developing these types of projects with them, giving specific directions and instructions. They had made Animoto videos before, had watched me use and demonstrate PowerPoint, and the Social Media book responses were patterned after Pinterest, FaceBook, and Muzy, all sites I used with them on a weekly basis.
Needless to say, I was quite pleased with what they had produced. The only complaint I have is that some took an improper shortcut to their image citations, simply stating they got their images from Google, even after I had talked and talked about this over and over, off and on, all year... get my frustration? I would've required those who had taken this shortcut to make corrections, but their accounts had expired on Sunday, May 5th... thus my suggestion to Animoto as I mentioned above.
If you are interested in using Animoto with your students you might be interested in seeing a few of the items that I use with my sixers as I first begin teaching them about making videos. The first project that they do is making a book trailer, patterned after a Hollywood film trailer. You can download the instruction sheet HERE and the assessment tool to accompany the project HERE or by clicking on the individual graphics. These items might provide some help for you as you begin developing video projects with your students.
Do any of you use Animoto? What are some ways that you use it with your class? Do you use any other video websites? I'd love to hear from you!
