PebbleGo - News Flash!

For some of us we now have a new subscription! All three K-2 Schools have a subscription to PebbleGo - The Emergent Reader Research Solution - Animals. Pleasant Hill has used this before so they may have some good ideas about integrating this resource.

This will be great for animal research, for non-fiction reading and for practicing with non-fiction text conventions. Plus, we can access it simultaneously (think - we won't all have to share the same chipmunk book if we each have first graders studying that animal!).

PebbleGo reads to you appropriate for all three grade levels, may be a bit basic for 2nd grade ocean research at the end of the year but see for yourself if you're a second grade teacher. Here are some annotated screenshots I made to show you some highlights. Please comment below if you have questions or ideas. We are better as a team!

Splash Screen

Individual Animal

Animal Printout

Word cloud for Open House anyone?

Check out this Poster made from the web application Wordle! The folks over at Technology Tailgate, a fun and informative blog for primary grades,  have some clearly written directions here. By the way, I found this on Pinterest. Here's a link to my Tech Pinterest Board if you are on Pinterest. 

Also, Tagzedo is a fun way to make word clouds and you can select a certain shape, words in the shape of an apple anyone?

Inquiry-Driven iBoat Project- 21st Century Message in a Bottle, 2nd Grade

Hello Second Grade Teachers!

I am creating some iBoat modules that I am offering to teach to your class throughout the year. They will be inter-disciplinary, mainly with geography and technology but some other subjects embedded as well. I believe the modules will be of high-interest to second graders and developmentally appropriate helping to drive home the point that geography is interesting and as second graders you can connect to geography! Here are some bullets describing the first two modules.

1. The iBoat will be in the Scarborough Schools in September. Then it will be prepared to be launched after that. I will do a lunch-time introduction for all grades on the following dates. If you would like me to come to your classroom or your second grade team on that date, please let me know!
1. Wed., 9/11- PH
2. Thurs., 9/12- BP
3. Tues., 9/17- EC
2. Before the end of September I am also offering to come into your classroom or do a second grade meeting on the day I am in your building focusing on: What information about ourselves can we share with whoever finds the iBoat? How could we share this? This will be along the lines of expository composition with a real-world audience. 

• After these two modules, I will share more information with you. I don't want to give you too much all at once as you are probably already on information overload right now!

You could respond with interest to the email I wrote or to this blog post. Please include when it might work for me to come in for module two if you are interested.

~Courtney