United States of America - by Lincoln Middle School Students!

The middle schoolers over at Lincoln have been very busy!   They have created a Google Site with videos for each one of the 50 states!  Some states even have more than one video.  This would be great to share with students, as they learn about the 50 states, or even regions in 4th grade.  

Check out all of their hard work - as you may recognize some of them at Roosevelt Alumni.  Click here to visit their United States of America Videos!   Thanks to Amanda Walsh, ITC at Lincoln, and Tom Nasshan for sharing their students hard work with us!

We Give Books

I'm all about a good, free resource.   Especially one that will help others by using it.

Today, a friend of mine shared with me the site We Give Books.  This site allows you to read books on your computer or SMART Board from their extensive library!   They are broken into various age categories.  There are books for various age groups - starting at babies all the way until age ten. The books include a mix of fiction and nonfiction, a range of authors, and an equal balance between read alouds and books for independent readers.    The We Give Books team is committed to adding books every month, together with seasonal offerings.  This digital initiative enables anyone with access to the internet to put books in the hands of children who don't have them, simply by reading online!   The more books you and your class read from We Give Books, the more books they donate to children in need.

To get started, all you need to do is create a free account, then click on read - and scroll through this here.  
surprising large library.   There are also some great educator resources which has activities to go along with the various book - check them out by clicking

After exploring this website today - I could see uses at all elementary grade levels - as well as reading some of these stories to my kids at home!    Some of the "editors picks" books even work on the iPad - no app required.   The library isn't as large, but using the Safari Internet App that is on all iPads, you can log into your account and read books on there as well.    I hope you find this to be an awesome resource - as I think it's truly a fabulous find.

 

Special thanks to Barbie Murphy for sharing this awesome site with me!

Making New Friends

This past Wednesday, Mrs. Kulnig's class of 4th graders Skyped with their new “mates”.

Mrs. Kulnig arranged the opportunity through the family hosting her son who is playing soccer there.  The host family’s 9-year-old is in the equivalent grade as her Roosevelt fourth graders.  We Skyped through the classroom’s SmartBoard with their counterparts in teacher Gemma Taylor’s class at St. Katherine's Primary School on Canvey Island. The island sits in the River Thames’ estuary directly east of London along England’s southeast coast.

The 9-year-old students on both sides of “the pond” had been busily brainstorming topics to present to their new friends.   They both shared “big picture” information about Roosevelt School’s location and make-up, and what they study as fourth graders including art, music and gym.  They also decried the many ways they use technology in their learning, and wrap up with a topic of universal interest – homework, describing assignments and the school’s after school homework help club. We heard similar accounts from the St. Katherine’s students. 

Check out the quick highlight video below to see more - and hear some great accents!

4th Graders at Roosevelt "Hangout" with the Atlanta Zoo

This morning, the 4th graders in Ms. Wingader's class had the opportunity to go on a virtual field trip. We were able to "travel" to the Atlanta Zoo this morning to learn about the physics and biology of flight.   This was honestly such a cool experience to be a part of!   We were connected via Google+ and were joined by two different people from the Atlanta Zoo and another 4th grader who is home schooled.   You can check out our virtual field trip below!  Towards the end you will notice that quite a few students were able to ask questions.  A special thank you to the Atlanta Zoo for hosting this "On Air Hangout" and to Jeffery Salvitti from Google for making this possible for us here at Roosevelt Elementary School.  I'm excited for our next field trip later this week with third grade, as well as exploring more opportunities with other museums, zoos, and aquariums that hopefully we can connect with so other students can experience this exciting new way of going on a field trip!