In Addition to That ...

Haha, so I guess we're supposed to actually answer a few questions on our blog. Oops! But I maintain that it's not my fault ... I got an email telling me to do this this morning. So here I go!
Something that works best for my program ... I would have to say that I love the links. I think it's really cool that I can link other websites or webquests to mine so my students can use those as resources.
I wish that I could make this lesson plan something where I can use technology to enhance instead of only using technology in the lesson. Does that make sense? While I was writing my lesson plan, I came up with all sorts of things that I could have my students do that didn't involve technology, so I kinda wish I could have used that somehow.
The peer evaluation and planning sheet were very useful to me. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to set the webquest up or how many resources I needed and things like that. I thought the planning sheet did a good job at helping me see what I needed and giving me advice on how to make it better. Feedback is always a good thing.
I have learned that you have to really think about what you want the kids to know. You can't just make up a fun activity and do it ... the activity needs to mean something and there are a lot of ways to help that happen.
Uhh ... I hope this is what I was supposed to do! Later ...

Lesson Plan!

Hallelujah! It's the end of the semester and I have FINALLY finished the last project for this class. I know, I know ... it's a fantabulous accomplishment. Just kidding. But I really have finished, and a few days early to boot! I hope you all (if anyone even reads this) are proud of me.
Anyways ... to the point of this entry. So I finished my project and it's quite fun (if I do say so myself) It's a lesson for fourth grade students about ... CLOUDS! So if you wanna look at it, here's the link:
http://ia.usu.edu/viewproject.php?project=ia:12976
Hope you like it!

Digital Photos!

Today in class we made geometry photo things! (specific, I know) In my group, we took pictures of rectangular prisms, cylinders, squares, trapezoids, and pentagons. It was really interesting to go into IPhoto and ComicLife because I've never used them before. I think that doing digital photos in a classroom with young children is something that they will really enjoy because they can take the pictures and I'll upload them and stuff. I really liked this activity and plan on using IPhoto in my future classroom.

Games for Kids!

Today we looked at web applications and how we can use those applications in out classrooms. There were a lot that I looked at (and if you really think about it, they're just games) and a few that I really liked.

I was looking at games for fifth graders, and one that I really liked was found at www.history.org/kids/games/foundingFather.cfm. What I really liked about this one was that it taught about the founding fathers in a game show kind of a thing. It asks questions about a founding father (like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc.) and the children would have to decide who did that. This game would fit the fifth grade Standard 2: students will understand teh chronology and significance of key events leading to self-government. In my classroom, I would use this to reinforce what I was teaching my students about the founding fathers during this time.

Another fifth grade game I found was for math and it reinforces about the order of operations. The website was www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/alg.cgi. What I like about this game is that there are different levels, so the children can do it at their own level instead of having it be too easy or too hard. This works for Standard One: Students will expand number sense to include integers and perform operations with whole numbers, simple fractions, and decimals. I'm focusing on the performing operations part of this standard, which is one of the objectives.

All in all, I think that web applications are a good thing to use in the classroom.