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I apologize for the late report on for Thursday. We had a wonderful day learning about the new term, “conditionals.” There are many videos of the students engaged developing their own games using cards as most of you have viewed.
We started our day with the writing prompt: what was your favorite activity during Thanksgiving and another prompt of, “what do you think the word conditional means. Students were a little stumped on this word and they were asked to just make a guess and that we were going to talk about the new word. We did a fun lesson after our prompt of IF we could be quiet for 20 seconds, then we could get 5 extra minutes of exploratory time. I watched the clock and they stared deeply at me and waited. We celebrated our 30 seconds and I discussed what we just did. This is a “conditional” using a conditional is a programming process of programming a robot, computer, games and/or apps to direct the process. We worked on Kodable.com and ended our day journaling about conditionals on Google Classrooms. Have a great week!
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Welcome back to TAG! I sure hope that everyone had a safe and warm Thanksgiving break? It was wonderful to see students today in class as they were full of excitement with the fun unplugged game we played today!
We started off our learning with this warm up and discussion: Summarize what you believe Computer Science is and how coding plays a role in the world of technology. This lead us into our fun topic about "conditionals" today. Students practiced being the robot and the programmer by setting up conditions for the robot to adhere to by using cards. There are some fun programs set up by the students, see Class Dojo for photos and videos. We had another discussion about how we have conditions in life and at school. We even came up with a condition that may be set up later in life by our parents when it comes time for us to sleep at night without our cell phones. After we had our engagement with conditionals, students began working on the Scratch and CSFirst. The connections that they have made today as a programmer with conditionals will help them with their block programming with Scratch. The end of our day is completed by students writing what the achieved in class today on Google Classroom. It is always enjoyable to read students thoughts about their time in TAG after they leave the classroom. It's Giving Tuesday! Please share our Donors Choose website to raise funds for more of our hands on computer science tools. https://www.donorschoose.org/Ms.Love-T.A.G. If you have any questions, please feel free to email, text or call me. Have a wonderful rest of the week! Ms. Lovce Today in TAG we did a little research and online game simulation about being kind and helping a bully become less aggressive. Students enjoyed the game, "It's Cool to Be Kind" simulation online. "The digital world creates new challenges and opportunities for social interaction, for kids and all the rest of us. Social cues can be harder to read online, constant connecting can bring both comfort and anxiety, and anonymity can fuel crushes and compliments as well as harm to self and others." (It's Cool to Be Kind Curriculum) The game, "It's Cool to Be Kind" was a great way to help the students learn how to share kindness within the game. It was fun to watch them collect hearts and then give the hearts to the sad little icons along with helping the bully shrink from huge to small by giving the bully lots of kind word.
Fifth grade also gave their feedback on a video of what they learned while playing the game and what they thought was unique about the game. (See Class Dojo for the video) Several really enjoyed the set up of the game, the animation and how the programmer uniquely programmed the game as an important learning lesson of how to help a bully become less aggressive. Being kind to others is not always easy and it is extremely hard while online. I enjoyed the students comments of how they felt the online game was a great learning tool. I heard many saying, "this game is so fun, love the way the little animated characters are moving around along with the questions and tasks to help the other sad characters." We took a photo of their certificates that were earned for the Kindness Kingdom as we are taking part of the Donors Choose challenge to earn funds towards our project that is posted online. Thank you for sharing your wonderful students and have a relaxing and safe Thanksgiving! Ms. Love  On Monday and Tuesday of this week we did something a little different to take a break form the Scratch coding. Students were subjected to an online game called, Kindness Kingdom, It's Cool To Be Kind. Students enjoyed working on our "It's Cool to Be Kind" simulation online. "The digital world creates new challenges and opportunities for social interaction, for kids and all the rest of us. Social cues can be harder to read online, constant connecting can bring both comfort and anxiety, and anonymity can fuel crushes and compliments as well as harm to self and others." (It's Cool to Be Kind Curriculum)
The game, "It's Cool to Be Kind" was a great way to help the students learn how to share kindness within the game. It was fun to watch them collect hearts and then give the hearts to the sad little icons along with helping the bully shrink from huge to small by giving the bully lots of kind words. The students loved playing the online kindness game and continued to the other worlds after printing their certificate. On Tuesday, we had a four part writing prompt: See the photo..................> Students wrote their thoughts in their composition books and we discussed our thoughts as a group. After our very deep discussion, Ms. Love gave a slip of paper with a scenario for them to discuss with a partner. The three groups discussed the options and then we came back to our group and went over their decisions of the scenarios. The sixth graders also gave their feedback in a video of what they learned while playing the game and what they thought was unique about the game. (See Class Dojo for the video) Several really enjoyed the set up of the game, the animation and how the programmer uniquely programmed the game as an important learning lesson of how to help a bully become less aggressive. Being kind to others is not always easy and it is extremely hard while online. I enjoyed the students comments of how they have helped others walk away and/or block those that are being hurtful and/or harmful online. What thoughtful friends we have in the sixth grade! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and be safe, Ms. Love Today we had a wonderful time working on our "It's Cool to Be Kind" simulation online. "The digital world creates new challenges and opportunities for social interaction, for kids and all the rest of us. Social cues can be harder to read online, constant connecting can bring both comfort and anxiety, and anonymity can fuel crushes and compliments as well as harm to self and others." (It's Cool to Be Kind Curriculum) The game, "It's Cool to Be Kind" was a great way to help the students learn how to share kindness within the game. It was fun to watch them collect hearts and then give the hearts to the sad little icons along with helping the bully shrink from huge to small by giving the bully lots of kind words.
Students were also given time to use the Compliment party time today that they earned the last few weeks. They loved the online game so much that they continued more of the simulations of how to be safe online, played chess, worked with KUBO the Robot and other educational online games. . We will talk more about how to be a better upstander instead of a bystander next week to compliment the game simulation along with working on our story that is being developed on Scratch. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Ms. Love Our writing prompt today: What can you do to show kindness? And, What is technology and coding? (review from last week)
Today in TAG we ventured to an online game that focused on being kind and how to be a upstander instead of a bystanders. We went through many new terms such as: Target, Bystander, Upstander, Amplify, Exclusion, Block, Mute, Anonymous, and Trolling. We also talk about several scenarios to identify, evaluate, learn and know how to respond to a bully situation. "The digital world creates new challenges and opportunities for social interaction, for kids and all the rest of us. Social cues can be harder to read online, constant connecting can bring both comfort and anxiety, and anonymity can fuel crushes and compliments as well as harm to self and others." (It's Cool to Be Kind Curriculum) he game, "It's Cool to Be Kind" was a great way to help the students learn how to share kindness within the game. It was fun to watch them collect hearts and then give the hearts to the sad little icons along with helping the bully shrink from huge to small by giving the bully lots of kind words. We will continue our coding venture along with kindness lessons after we return from Thanksgiving. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Ms. Love We welcome another student to our 1st grade TAG group. We now how two boys and one girl! Our first order of business when we come to class is to read our writing prompt and answer the question within our writing. We are learning how to stay on task with our writing prompt so we can get to our exploratory time next. We sat in our Socratic circle to talk about what TAG is and what we do while in TAG. We also talked about how we work on challenging activities that may frustrate us and how we will learn from making mistakes. Lastly, being in TAG means that we are talented and gifted in particular areas, it does not mean that we are better than other people and/or that we are the smartest, but we see the world very different than others. We will always work on how to be kind to others and how to work through our frustrations. Students were given time to build with blocks and stacking little plastic chairs, see photos on Class Dojo. This is called our "exploratory time." We reviewed our terms we have been working on and to help our new friends understand what we are doing as well. Our new terms are: programmer, program, technology, coding, command and algorithm. We had our old time friend, help us with our robot game programming the arrows on the floor. We all took turns being the robot and the programmer. We ventured into a new programming type of robot named, Root. Students used algorithms, step by step, block programming to program Root to light up, turn, make music and/or draw. You can see photos on Class Dojo of their time using Root. At the end of class all of our friends were able to do a little more problem solving with programming on Kodable.com. We have enjoyed our time today in TAG by learning more about the coding world. I look forward to next Thursday as our friends dive deeper into the learning world of coding in a plugged and unplugged manner. Just a reminder about our parent conference coming up on November 27th at 6-8 in Columbia. Please let me know if you are able to attend as the students will meet other gifted students in the area to play chess, checkers, marble run and other fun games while parents are listening the the speaker. See the information below: Tuesday, November 27, 2018 Registration 6:00 pm Speaker(s) begin at 6:30 pm Location: Columbia Independent School, 1801 N Stadium Blvd, Columbia, MO Speakers for parents/guardians
Learn about current legislation regarding gifted programming in the state of Missouri Class Dojo announcement yesterday: I am working on setting up a Maker Space in the classroom with the Google Goggles I won at conference. I need an old android or iPhone that you would not need to put the app on the phone and use in the classroom. Does anyone have a cell phone they would like to donate? I need two phones. Also, My TAG budget has been cut down somewhat this year for supplies. I will be ordering a few items for our Maker Space that the kids loved at Morenet, but I will not be able to buy all of the items with our funds.I have set up a Donors Choose site for all of the world to see and share. Hopefully, we will have donations that will come in to help us learn more about coding through robotics. It's a cold day today at David Barton, but that didn't stop us from having a fun and engaging day today in TAG. We started off our day enjoying the NEW (old smart board from 5th grade) we received! Yea! Love it! Then, we watched a video of how kids their age meet their best friend. Students wrote their story of their best friend in their composition books. We then shared our story to the class if they choose to share. Wonderful friendship stories they shared. Students enjoyed their exploratory time for 15 minutes then we were off onto our CSFirst and Scratch. The coding a story has been a frustration for a few, but they have come to understand that frustration is a form of learning and that making mistakes is OK and a part of the learning process as well. This is Ms. Love's overall goal with the students. We also discussed working on our research project from our trip to the Anthropology museum. We will take breaks from the coding to work on our research in the classroom and students may work on it at home as well. Don't forget about the Parent Gifted conference on November 27th in Columbia from 6-8pm. I realize there is a play that many are practicing form during this week, but if you have time to be informed by a wonderful speaker who will inform you of how gifted students think, I would highly suggest the drive to Columbia. Students will meet other gifted students to play chess, checkers, marble run and other games while parents are listening to the speaker. Please let me know if you would like to attend. We are trying to get a head count. Tuesday, November 27, 2018 Registration 6:00 pm Speaker(s) begin at 6:30 pm Location: Columbia Independent School, 1801 N Stadium Blvd, Columbia, MO Speakers for parents/guardians
Learn about current legislation regarding gifted programming in the state of Missouri Class Dojo announcement this morning: I am working on setting up a Maker Space in the classroom with the Google Goggles I won at conference. I need an old android or iPhone that you would not need to put the app on the phone and use in the classroom. Does anyone have a cell phone they would like to donate? I need two phones. Also, My TAG budget has been cut down somewhat this year for supplies. I will be ordering a few items for our Maker Space that the kids loved at Morenet, but I will not be able to buy but two or three items with our funds. I will be setting up a Donors Choose fundraiser to help with funds. I will be sending that information out soon. As always, thank you for sharing your student with me in the TAG classroom. They are a joy! Ms. Love Students in 2nd grade came in today excited to begin their writing prompt, How can you help someone who is being bullied? Students gave thoughtful responses in their writing.
We then played a game of Robot and Programmer with arrows and other codes to help our robot understand what we needed them to do. Sequencing of steps which is all about Algorithms. Mrs Spaedy in the Library invited us over to work with a new robot, Root. The students learned how to program Root to make music, move in different directions, pause, change colors and light up. Root moves around on the white board and is programmed through the IPad. Students came back to the classroom to work with Kodable programming Algorithms in a different manner such as the maze maker and the Smeebug sequencing of steps. We took a break in-between our programming and wrote all about what we did today on Google Classroom. Just a small reminder that the Gifted District is holding a parent conference in Columbia on November 27th, 6-8 pm, in Columbia. Please let me know if you are interested in attending to her our guest speaker. I have posted all of the information in the past on Dojo and email. If you need more information, please let me know. Students will be able to play chess, marble run and other games with other gifted students while parents are listening to the speaker. As always, thank you for sharing your students in the TAG program and let me know if you have any questions. Ms. Love |