8th Grade Music Videos

I wanted to try something new with my last rotation of 8th graders this year. Students were limited to one week to work on this project.  They were divided into groups.  Then handed a CD--not knowing what song was on it--but they had to create a music video using that song.  It was a great teamwork building while incorporating technology project. Students were able to use the iPads to film and iMovie to create their movies.  Obviously, if we had more time I think their movies would be even more amazing. For launching this as a guinea pig experiment I think they should be proud of what they created!!

Click here is the rubric and instructions students were given.

Click here to view Jacob A., Arden, Wesley, Broc, Serena, and Jenna's music video to the song Hall of Fame by The Script.

Click here to view Erik, Kenna, Shaylee, Sam, Makena, Kaleb's music video to the song Happy by Pharrell.

Click here to view Daniel, Carissa, Amelia, Kira, Dylan, Isabel's music video to the song Best Days of My Life by American Authors.

Click here to view Megan, Kaisha, Mallory, Kendra, Olivia, and Jacob S.'s music video to the song Invisible by Hunter Hayes.

Who guided you to teach?

Who is responsible for encouraging you to be a teacher?  Who helped you discover that teaching is where you should be? Where you belong?  Jean Lethcoe is the woman responsible for me being in the education field.  When I didn't know what direction to take my life while in college, Jean is the woman that arranged for me to observe a second grade classroom.

I was at a crossroads in my life. Confused. Frustrated. Lost.  Placing me in a second grade classroom was a science experiment that I thought would be all sorts of wrong.  She said, "Just try it. You might like it."  I thought this woman lost her marbles placing ME in an elementary classroom just to see if it would be a good idea. I was thinking I should transfer to a Chicago school for Interior Design.  She saw something in me that I didn't.  After one day in a second grade classroom I fell in love with elementary school and teaching.  My idea for Chicago flew out the window.

Jean helped guide me to the life I lead today.  For that I am eternally grateful. I can not imagine my life any other way.  She was a smart and amazing woman with such ambition. Even after I started my classes towards my undergraduate degree she always had her office door open and was always available to listen.  Perhaps it was the comfy chair in her office that called me in...or the bowl of M&M's she always kept filled...she was an asset to my development as an educator.  You may be wondering why I am writing about this influential woman.  Unfortunately, she passed away last Thursday, April 3, 2014.  If you would like to read more about her you can click right here.

Jean, you hold a special place in my heart...and know that you have touched so many lives.  There are so many people out there in this world that have been influenced by your contributions...thank you! Thank you, Jean, from the bottom of my heart.

Stop Motion Animation

Recently, I had a tweet from a colleague of mine to share some student examples of the Stop Motion Animation videos we have made in my technology class.  The eighth graders create this project with a partner and have to follow a general guideline.  We are very lucky to have access to an iPad cart that we used to create these videos. We used the iStopMotion app.  It is SO much easier and faster to use than taking a million pictures, uploading them, and arranging them into iMovie. This app seriously saved a week of work for my students (I was able to create another project to do in a week because of this app).  I only get to see each 8th grade group for something like thirty days, so every day is valued!

When explaining the project to my students I try not to create a daunting list of things students can and can not do just because I feel it can restrict creativity.  I like to see them get funky, silly, and creative while following a general guideline.

Below are links to the documents I share with my students and two student examples of excellent stop motion videos.  You may be wondering why I don't have the instructions and the rubric on the same document.  This is to prevent my students from altering the rubric.  You'll see that in the instructions document is where students update me on a daily basis to let me know where they are filming in case I need to find them.  Enjoy!

Still Motion Movie Instructions

Still Motion Movie Rubric

Still Motion Movie Student Example by Chris and Elijah

Still Motion Movie Student Example by Amanda and Nora

Dr. Seuss Week!

Cat in the Hat Photo Credit: www.classroomjr.com

Last week was a whirlwind week.  But we had a lot of fun at Seward Elementary celebrating Dr. Seuss!  You would've thought I'd take pictures from each day to create a collage of the week...but I didn't!

Read Around the World with the Omaha Zoo

In December my principal, Mrs. Dominy, got a letter in the mail from the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo's Education Department about an upcoming reading contest to win a free trip to the zoo for the whole school. How fun would that be, right?!  Right away Mrs. Dominy and I were on board!  We asked the students at Seward Elementary to keep track of every book they read and to bring their reading sheet to the library.  The contest started on December 16, 2013 and ended February 28, 2014.  That is a long time to keep track of reading!  And our students did an amazing job!

In the cafeteria we have a huge brick wall that rarely is used for displays.  I took this as an opportunity to display our reading achievements.  Each class chose a country and I printed off the country's flag with the teacher's name on the side, then the student paw prints would line underneath it.  For every twenty books the student read, they got to write their name on a paw print. Just look at all those paw prints!

Every couple weeks we tried to have incentives for the class that had the most sheets turned in or the class that improved the most since the start of the competition.  The incentives included cupcakes made by our amazing library para (and also cupcake baker), an extra recess, participation in a library display, and finally a dance party.

This is what 15 pounds of reading sheets looks like!

Unfortunately, we didn't win the competition.  Congratulations goes to Randolph Elementary in Randolph, Nebraska for winning the free trip. They read an average of 99 books per students.  But, we did rank fourth place out of fifty schools!!  Our school read a total of 27,371 books, that is an average of 55 books per student.  I think that is pretty impressive.  Even though we didn't win, the Omaha Zoo did remind us of some free resources that they offer, that you may find useful, too.  Here is more information about their Distance Learning.

Mrs. Dominy and I couldn't resist the urge to do something to celebrate.  After we exchanged many ideas we decided to end of our crazy Dr. Seuss celebration week with a dance party.  Who doesn't like to move it, move it?  Or...how can you NOT feel HAPPY about reading so many good books!!??

Biography Bottles

This month I asked the five sections of fourth grade to participate in our Biography Bottle project.  There are so many fabulous examples out there on Pinterest, where the idea came from.  We had already done a biography research project and thought it would be a fun extension of that project.  The four fourth graders that chose to participate on this project enjoyed it and were very proud of their work!  One student did his project on Alton Brown, the Food Network star.  We added Alton Brown's Twitter handle to his picture on our @SESBluejays Twitter feed and Alton Brown retweeted it!  I haven't see a fourth grader beam the way Jack did in a long time! It was a pretty fun experience for him!