Happy Birthday Hat for Dr. Seuss

In celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2, 1904) and Read Across America, which was recognized this year on March 3, 2008, every classroom in Delevan Drive Elementary School created a hat using the basic design of the "Cat in the Hat". To the right is a photograph of the hat our class submitted to the school library where it is currently being displayed. We chose Horton Hears a Who! as our theme for the project for several reasons. First, the animated movie version of the story is soon to be shown in theaters, and we felt that it would gather a lot of attention from our schoolmates. Second, we identify with the book's main message mentioned throughout, "a person's a person, no matter how small." You will notice in the photograph that each of the Whos displayed all over the hat we made shows a picture of each of our faces. We have thought about who in our lives represents Horton, the elephant that does his best to be our protector.

Who is your Horton? And do you agree with us that "a person is a person, no matter how small?"

Best Buy Teach Award

Hooray! Our classroom was recognized for its learning by Best Buy. Because we have been talking and sharing our learning with others outside our classroom through videoconferencing, our classroom blog, and other projects that allowed us to share "our living world", we were recognized with a Best Buy Teach Award. We treasure times like our connection with Los Angeles County Mueseum of Art back in January and our oppportunity to participate in the world-wide student conference called Megaconference Jr.

What's next? We'll be connecting with a park ranger at Crystal Cove State Beach to share our learning on tide pools and to ask a number of questions the students themselves will develop in preparation for the event. We will be preparing a set of images gathered by taking digital photos with cameras, finding/citing resources from the Internet, and scanning hand-drawn work. With our award, projects such as this one are supported through materials and tools that allow us to create, share, and learn about "our living world".

Virtual Field Trip to Museum by Videoconference

On January 30, 2008, we had a special trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), but we never left our school. Instead, we used a videoconferencing unit to connect with Toni Guglielmo through the museum's Distance Learning Program. Toni Guglielmo is the LACMA program coordinator for their distance learning program, and she served as our guide on this day. We learned to look at paintings, and really focused on the various characteristics found in portraits such as emotion. For example, we looked closely at the English artist Thomas Lawrence's Portrait of Arthur Atherley as an Etonian (circa 1791) pictured on the right.

We learned that the boy in the painting was showing how proud he was to be a student at his school. Far in the background you can see his school, Eton. His pride showed in his face as well as by the way he positioned his arms. We all wanted to show our pride in our school, Delevan Drive Elementary School, too. So we also stood up with Toni Guglielmo's guidance and tried to stand as proud as the boy in the portrait. Our arms were positioned just like the arms of Arthur Atherley.

We had a great virtual trip to LACMA, and Toni Guglielmo also provided each of us an Arts for NexGen LACMA free youth membership. We received our membership enrollment forms this past Thursday, February 14, 2008. What a wonderful Valentine's Day gift that the museum provided our class!

Our next classroom videoconference will be just as exciting as we virtually attend a conference just for students called Megaconference Jr. That's this Thursday, February 21, 2008!

T-Shirts Designed By Us

On Friday, February 2, our classroom t-shirts were delivered. Each one of us, including our teachers, took time to draw a self-portrait that was included in the t-shirt. Take a look at each of these drawings in the slideshow generated from our classroom Picasa Web Album.



Can you figure out who each of us is? Happy guessing!

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

This school year has definitely been busy for us. We are currently working on an arts project that you will read about later. But we already performed a play depicting our version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. With help from our drama teacher, we worked on our set as well as practiced our lines. We hope you enjoy this rendition performed on December 6, 2007.



This video was edited using Microsoft Windows Movie Maker and uploaded to TeacherTube.

Back from Winter Break - Boomer is Still Here!

We finally returned from a long Winter break. It was reassuring to find that Boomer, our dog, was still around. This was unlike the time in September when he decided to have a "day out" wandering around the school. Based on a book, Boomer Goes to School by Constance W. McGeorge, our adventure was well documented with pictures of our search for Boomer. We used Microsoft Photostory to help us create this synopsis of our day looking for the dog. Of course, we were also learning to spell. Can you find the misspelled word in our story?

During Back to School Night in October, our parents were able to hear our voices and see pictures of our expedition as we learned to describe the experience. We now know how to tell our story orally from creating presentations like this one. And now we wanted to share it here as we continue to show what is happening in our classroom.

Snow in Los Angeles?

Thanks to our dedicated Parent/Teacher Association (PTA), we were able to experience something many of them had not yet seen in their young lives: SNOW! Brought in by an ice company on December 14, 2007, snow transformed our school into a winter wonderland with a visit from Santa, a place to make snow angels, a refuge for hot cocoa, and a hill to slide down.



This movie was edited with Apple iMovie and uploaded to TeacherTube.

Holiday Card Exchange 2007

Our kindergartners sent and are receiving holiday cards to and from schools throughout the United States. This project was organized by Technospud Projects. The cards were designed in Microsoft Publisher, and it includes a digital photograph we took of ourselves. Take a look at what we have created below (and see where each one was sent in our Holiday Card Exchange 2007 Picasaweb Album).

Future Use

I think I can use this blog for next year when our school goes full day Kindergarten. Since we'll have more time to do more activities next year, I can use this blog to post what's happening in our class. I can post future and current activities. I can post my reflections as well as my student's. I can post pictures of our activities so that busy parents can still take part of their child's growth. My students can also share their days with their family and bring them closer together.

Blog Post Assignment #5 for John Rivera's Learning & Teaching with the Read/Write Web

Love Video Streaming

I learned about video streaming last year when I took a class on how to create my own web site. I loved video streaming the moment I learned about it because it engages students and offers them experiences they may never encounter.

This past February I taught my students about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I read books and showed posters and pictures about him. I read a part of his speech, "I Have a Dream". I talked about segregation and the Civil Rights Movement. But even after all of my efforts, I still felt that it did not and could not give the same impact as if they saw and heard it... because that's exactly what happened to me when I was in grade school. My elementary teachers read books and showed pictures and posters, but, when I first heard his speech on television, that's when I really understood what my teachers were trying to convey. I wanted my kindergartners to really understand as well, but I couldn't leave it to chance that they would individually see a video or clip of the speech; so I used video streaming to bring the speech into the classroom. During the video, my students were engaged and the responses were doubled from our typical daily discussions that don't incorporate technology resources.

In short, try to use a video instead of you doing all of the acting.

Blog Post Assignment #4 for John Rivera's Learning & Teaching with the Read/Write Web

Wikis and Barriers to Technology Use in the Classroom

After exploring some educational wikis, I found some benefits of using technology with students. Using technology with students captures their interest and raises enthusiasm in learning and participating in class discussions. Also, using technology in the elementary classroom now prepares students for the immediate future, for high school, and college. Teaching students how to use wikis for research will save them a tremendous amount of time, time that they can pour into out-of-the-classroom activities and interests.

Some challenges of using technology with my students are the usual barriers. One major barrier in my school is not having enough updated computers for our students. There is an average of four or five computers in the fourth through sixth grade classrooms and two or three in the Kinder through third. We don't have a computer lab and having just two to four outdated computers in the classroom is a challenge to get some projects done. Another challenge in using technology with my students is the lack of tech support in the school. When we begin experiencing technology problems that I can't solve, I really don't have a "go to" person that will come quickly and is knowledgeable. Interruptions such as these on a daily basis can be very challenging in keeping up with student technology use.

Blog Post Assignment #3 for John Rivera's Learning & Teaching with the Read/Write Web

Education Blogs

I'm starting to see how blogs can be used for education. I still need some concrete examples I can put to real use in my classroom. Maybe this blog will become where I put my educational practices later on next school year. I'm still learning about how to encourage my student's parents to use blogs and to make it safe for my young students.

Blog Post Assignment #2 for John Rivera's Learning & Teaching with the Read/Write Web

jamr

Hi everyone, I'm Maria Rivera. I received my B.A. in Child Development and my Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from CSULA. I teach Kindergarten at Delevan Drive Elementary School. Delevan is in the Eagle Rock area in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Local District 4. This is my fifth year teaching Kinder, I taught first grade for six years. I've only worked for LAUSD as a lead teacher at Delevan. This is our school's last year at half-day Kinder. Next year, we'll be going full-day. I'll be teaching Kinder again next year. I would like to teach second grade some day.

On a more personal note, I've been married for ten years, and have a seven year old son. I like going on trips whenever I can. We're going on a two week tour of Alaska this Summer. We'll be in a cruise for the first week and then the land tour for the second. We'll be flying up to the Arctic Circle and then head down by train to Denali. I like shopping when we travel. During the school year, I enjoy taking my son to different places and doing things with him. We enjoy going to the beach, parks, museums, swimming and karate lessons, fairs and soon, soccer league!

That's it for now-talk to you later.

Blog Post Assignment #1 for John Rivera's Learning & Teaching with the Read/Write Web