Professional Development…

http://ms.barbati.googlepages.com/home

It doesn’t look like much, but follow all of the links.  Yeah, I know.  It was a lot of work.  That’s only the beginning of it, and guess what I am still not done.  I love the smell of work on Memorial Day weekend.  What is even sadder is that it’s true, I really do like it.  Yet again, I know it is sad.  Have a great weekend, and please for the love of sanity someone take my laptop away for summer.  (Both of them.)  Please.

Don’t rock the boat….

My class is awesome!  The eighth grade class is on fire!  The are almost done with their EDP’s, and the will ALL be certified technologically literate(I tested them).  They should be so proud of themselves.

Other news:

I created webpages for each grade level ,and completed Mrs. Wright’s site as an example.  I kind of wish it were my site…. I know jealousy is an ugly thing.

 Second grade bookmarks are DONE for next year!  I have almost all of the topics for next year from the teachers, and I am ready to put it together.

What’s the matter?

Where do I begin the lab has been so busy since the last time I wrote I don’t know where to begin. 

 I will start with kindergarten, and their amazing advancements in headsprouts.  They are really moving through their episodes, and some may even finish this year! We have been giving them a break every once in a while, and enriching their studies with Discovery Education. 

First grade has been busy with fossils, indians, pioneers, and quilts.  My favorite by far was the Smithsonian dino dig.  The students went on a virual dinosaur fossil dig, and learned all about a real fossil found in Wyoming. 

Second grade has been to outer space and back!  They used ikeepbookmarks to go on a virtual field trip with Mrs. Frizzle on the Magic School Bus to Outer Space!  They also fine tuned their research skills to learn more about space.   Next, they were of to the rainforest!  We made a human rainforest on my blue carpet to reinforce their reading.  Interested?  Ask one of Mrs. Schafer’s students.

 Third Grade watched matter lessons on United Streaming, explored the states of matter on the internet, and will show what they know in a kidspiration written report next time!

Fourth Grade is working on division online, science reports, moon phases, space, early american settlements, and probley even more!  Rock on fourth graders!

Fifth grade has been typing science experimental results, reports, charts and graphs, and some are finishing a kispiration living things written report.  Busy, Busy, Bees.  Wait, are fifth graders aren’t insects! They’re mammals!

Learning about volcanoes through united streaming, google earth, and the stupid rock page leads our budding scientsts to the rock cycle on Inspiration and kidspiration.

Mrs. Wright’s group learned the power of problem solving when we had to hyperlink language arts websites to a word document because of technical difficulties.  Two lessons for the price of one.  Priceless.

One career cruising group cruised on out of here, and another took their place.  We start the cycle again with a new group of …brace yourself…teenagers. 

Oh, the places we’ve been!

This past week I had been working on a project with Where the Wild Things Are.  We used United Streaming to view a narrative presentation of Where the Wild Things Are.  Then to reinforce the first grade study of Venn Diagrams we compared our classes to the Wild Things.  There wasn’t much of a difference!  Finally, we made our wild self using the website, buildyourwildself.com.  We looked at what animals our wild parts came from, and what they are used for in the wild.  Next week, we will be taking a virtual field trip to the New York Zoos and Aquariums. 

Our second graders observed island life in Japan through the eyes of teenagers.  Then, they compared and contrasted life in the U.S. with life in Japan. Some students even used google earth to look at the Japanese Islands.

Our third and fourth graders were researching states, the mayflower, presidents, and animals-Oh My!  They even made their own PowerPoint Presentations.

The fifth grade classes made graphs of a science experiment they did, and experienced how simplistic excel makes graphing.  Need to convert a line graph to a bar graph?  No problem- Just ask a fifth grader.

Sixth Grade experienced the effects of the shifting tectonic plates, put the “puzzle pieces” together, and even talked about the earth’s layers!  Throw in Mr. Prieur, hula hoops, and a united streaming video or two-what more could a kid ask for?

Seventh and eighth graders have been publishing science works, paragon papers, math projects,and much more.  They have been producing so many published pieces that I feel I may have cause the paper crisis!

Eighth Graders are at 100% in career cruising, and began editing and proofreading their EDPs. They are making friends and reinforcing comprehension by asking their first grade buddies higher level thinking questions!  Wow, what a volunteer project!  Not only that, but they published their first newsletter this week! 

Are we all here?

Yessiree!  We are all here!  Today was a great day!  We finished part one of our EDP!  We were on task and on a roll!  Need I say more?

Could you be a surgeon?

In class today, I asked my students if they would be interested in a career as a surgeon.  One responded, “What is a surgeon?”  Brilliant Question!  I informed them that the knowledge was at their fingertips!  Luckily we have a technology lab with career cruising.  We logged in, and clicked on careers.  “Now what?” I asked.   The response was type surgeon in, and click search.  “How do you spell surgeon?”  I questioned.  The ensueing rumble was  a jumble of  I don’t knows and shotty guesses.  I wondered how we could we find out about surgeons now because we didn’t know how to spell it.  Aha!  In a moment of sheer brilliance and in a display of problem solving at its best, one student suggests we use the index.  Look under “S”.   What a breakthrough!  We read and discussed what a surgeon does for a living.  As it turns out they are like repairmen for humans-pretty cool!  In order to furtherion this exploration, we decide we must preform a surgery ourselves.  We all double click-”two quick clicks” on the icon-”the picture”  above ikeepbookmarks.  Then cross-curricular activities, and finally interactive science activities.  Viola!  On to EdHeads virtual knee and hip surgery complete with blood, guts, tools, veins, bones, noises, Oh My! 

What can I say, its just another day in the lab!

Welcome to Ms. Barbati’s Class Blog!

Today I learned about this site, and I decided to use it to communicate with my class.  I think it will be a great way to get to know them, and let them chat with their classmates!  Since e-mail, my space, facebook, the unit, and many more are off limits , I thought this would be a fun communication tool!  Enjoy!

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