FebActivities09-10


 * = == Activity == ||= == Description == ||= == Files/Links == ||= == Extension == ||
 * = **Virtual Valentine's Greetings**

|| Teachers create a Voki for each class and record or type a Valentine's question or instructions on how to comment for their class. Students will then comment on the Teacher's voki answering the question or leaving the required comment. This option allows each student to create a voki but only the teacher needs to have an account.
 * -OR- **Students in the class will create a Voki (one Voki per class) at Voki.com and record or type a Valentine's Day message for all of the other classes participating in the Winter Wonderland Project.

Finished Voki's can be posted on each teacher/class page and on **our Virtual Valentine's page**.  Note: Students cannot register for an account at Voki.com until they are at least 13 years old. This project should be completed without registering or under the teacher's account. || Voki.com ||  || I Love** ||  Students will create a picture in PowerPoint or Kidspiration or KidPix of things they love. Students will insert clip art into graphic organizer and also include captions. Files can then be exported as JPEGS and into a slide show or VoiceThread to be narrated. || ||   || Graphing** ||  Each student (or student pair) will get a box of conversation hearts. They will open and line these up on a sheet of paper by color to create a bar graph on the paper. They will then count each color and record each color total in the Conversation Hearts Graph in Excel or other spreadsheet program or online tool. They will compare their real conversation hearts graph on paper to the one created in Excel or other spreadsheet program or online tool. || [|ConversationHeartCountSheet.pdf] [|ConversationHeartsGraph.xls]
 * = **Things
 * = **Conversation Hearts

//__Supplies Needed__// One box of Conversation Hearts per student or student pair. || Compile results for whole class into one spreadsheet to calculate the averages for the class. Visit the [|Necco site] to learn the history of the Conversation Heart and see how they were made and even play a Valentine Message Game. || Sentences / Poems** || Students will create sentences or short poems using candy hearts which could be created in a drawing program or by using the ACME Heart Maker. The Heart Maker only allows 8 letters (in 2 lines of 4) per heart so students will need to get creative in what they put on their hearts. Also, students should be supervised when using the Heart Maker and should not go to the see recent hearts link due to possible inappropriate content. The sentences or poem could be created in Word, Google Docs, Powerpoint (so they could be exported as an image) or even Paint. This would allow the students to combine actual text with the hearts they have created for longer words. Once the sentences or poems are complete they could be saved as images and added to the wiki. || ACME Heart Maker ||  || Had...** || Students will complete the Kidspiration activity "If my Heart had..." (e.g. If my heart had hands it would feel...).Students will type a sentence telling what their heart would see, say, feel, and hear if it had those senses. Save pictures as jpegs and post as slideshow or VoiceThread on the wiki. A PowerPoint version is also available for those who do not have Kidspiration. || __[|If my Heart had... Kidspiration Template]__ [|If my Heart had... JPEG] ||  ||
 * = **Candy Heart
 * = **If My Heart

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 90%;">Collaborative activities involve all participants in a single activity. Theses are typically things that will not take large amounts of time. ||= == Files/Links == ||= == Extension == || Please vote before February 23rd! || <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Teachers will introduce students to the Winter Olympics. The Story of the Winter Olympics site is an easy to understand site good for a brief introduction to the Winter Olympics. This site was created by 4th Grade students for a prior Olympic Games but the historical information still applies. The same school has also created introductions to Winter Olympic Sports. The Vancouver 2010 official Web Site has a lot of information Winter Olympic Sports. Just click on each sport and you can read about the sport, watch videos or see photos of the sport, read about the training record or listen to some information from actual athletes in the sport.
 * = == Collaborative Activity == ||= == Description ==
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Favorite Winter Olympic Sport**

After the introduction to the Winter Olympics and Winter Olympic sports, teachers will poll the class about their favorite Winter Olympic Sport and enter the results for each class on our <span class="wiki_link_ext">Favorite Winter Olympic Sport Survey. Please note that we want counts for all Winter Olympic sports that receive votes and not just your class favorite. This way we can try to determine the favorite Winter Olympic Sport for all Winter Wonderland participants! <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;">** The results are in!! What was our favorite Winter Olympic Sport?** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: center;"> Thanks to everyone who participated! || <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Story of the Winter Olympics Winter Olympic Sports Fact Monster: Winter Olympics Vancouver 2010 || <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Use an Excel Spreadsheet or Google Spreadsheet to track which countries are winning the most Gold, Silver & Bronze medals during the Olympics. You can visit the official site for the Olympics to get the latest results to enter on your spreadsheet.

Mrs. Golubic's First Grade Class at Market Street Elementary School in Boardman, Ohio is also doing a Favorite Winter Olympics Sports poll. Why not participate in Catch Winter Olympic Fever too! You will already have the polling data available to send in for this project - for this one you only need to send in your class favorite Winter Olympic Sport and not totals for each sport. ||
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">**Valentine Traditions VoiceThread** || <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Students will comment on our community VoiceThreads on the **Holiday Traditions** page about any traditions they have for Valentine's Day. This is a great follow-up if you participated in the Holiday Traditions during December but you can participate for Valentine's Day even if you haven't participated yet. Each student can comment individually or you could discuss your traditions as a class and have a few students add comments for the whole class. Here's what you need to do to get started with VoiceThread:
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">You will need an account on VoiceThread. There are 3 options for educators and one is free.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Free Option Hints & Restrictions: If you are using the free option, you will have to have your students record one at a time. This may be the way you want to record anyway to reduce background noise but it is the only option with the Free Educator option. If you choose the free option, you may want to set up identities for your students or classes and then have them select the appropriate identity for recording.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Pro Educator: This option give you a free Pro Account which gives you more space for VoiceThreads but it would work similarly to the free option as far as your students go.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Class Subscription: This can be a great option for any classroom, even a computer lab. It is a more controlled environment if you are going to have your students creating their own VoiceThreads in the future. If you have more than 100 students in a computer lab, set up your students as your Computer Numbers (so if you have 30 computers, you will have 30 student accounts). Then set up identities for your students who sit at that computer. Since you won't have multiple students sitting at the same computer at the same time you can still have all students log in and comment at the same time if you wish. Note, that doing it this way means that all of your grades will share permissions on the VoiceThreads for that computer. You can also set up a School Subscription for $1/user which lets each student have their own account and their own permissions on VoiceThreads they create.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">It is preferable that you have a microphone for commenting but it is not necessary. You can upload previously recorded comments saved as MP3 from other audio records or you can use a WebCam to comment (this would mean you student's faces would also show so make sure you have permission for that) or you can comment by telephone or you can just type your responses. For the basics on how you navigate and comment in a VoiceThread check out this tutorial.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">That's all there is to it. We will be moderating all comments so you will see your comments when you are logged in but the public won't see them until they are approved. This will keep these VoiceThreads safe from inappropriate comments. Ready to get started, then:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Click on the correct VoiceThread for your class
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Login to your VoiceThread account
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Make sure you have the correct identity selected, if you are using identities
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Navigate to the Valentine's Day slide
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Click on comment and go! || <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Direct links to grade level VoiceThreads:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Kindergarten Holiday Traditions VoiceThread
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">1st Grade Holiday Traditions VoiceThread
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">2nd Grade Holiday Traditions VoiceThread
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">3rd Grade Holiday Traditions VoiceThread

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">If you have a multi-age class or a grade level not included, feel free to participate in the VoiceThread that matches the most closely. || <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Students can draw pictures of their favorite Valentine traditions. ||