The Digital Scoop

Summer Reading- Crash Course by Kim Bearden

Welcome to summer blogging!  I have now been out of school for a couple of days and have eagerly jumped into my summer reading routine.  I have always loved reading and the summer provides a great time to focus a bit more on it.

I just finished reading Crash Course: The Life Lessons My Students Taught Me by Kim Bearden.  Kim Bearden is the co-founder of the Ron Clark Academy.  

This book was very easy to dive into!  Kim shares great details about her incredible teaching career and imparts beautiful pearls of wisdom in every chapter.  I laughed and I teared up over this book.  It made me think about myself, my students, my colleagues, and my classroom. I love how it inspired me to think of new teaching ideas, but mostly I know I will pull it out after a tough day of teaching for inspiration.

I read the Kindle edition and love the fact that I can highlight quotes and then can easily pull all of them up after reading. I am always torn between a physical book and a digital version.  I'm glad I went digital this time.  I was able to pull a couple of the quotes into the Typorama app and create some fun images.

I look forward to going back over the comments and questions she poses at the end of each chapter. I know this book will inspire for years to come.

Do you have books on your summer reading list?  I would love to hear about some more great reads!

Scratch Week: Books I Love!

Today, I thought I would share several of my favorite Scratch project and inspiration books!

Coding Games in Scratch- This is my current favorite!  All of the projects are fun and engaging.  I devoured the book and learned so much from the projects.  I was then able to utilize the concepts I learned with my students.

 

The Official Scratch, Jr. Book- This book contains great ideas for integrating coding and Scratch, Jr. with other curriculums.  I also learned some great tips and tricks for this amazing app!

Scratch for Kids For Dummies- This book contains fun projects and great tips for using the drawing and painting tools in Scratch.  I learned a lot about being creative and creating my own sprites from this book.

 

Super Scratch Programming Adventure!- Kids will love the comic book theme of this book.  All of the projects in the book can be downloaded in full or as project starters.

 

Scratch 2.0 Game Development- I have not completed every project in this book yet.  These projects are definitely more advanced than the ones found in the other books I shared today.

I hope you have enjoyed my Scratch Week ideas and I hope everyone has a fabulous Scratch Day on Saturday!  Get your code on!

Webmix Wednesday: Books, Books, Books!

 

Books, books, books!  My love for reading books was created at a very early age.  My parents and teachers all encouraged me to read and read often.  With Read Across America day coming up, I thought book/reading themed webmixes were just what was needed!

Online Children's Books by Kimmie C (Webmix for regular Symbaloo users)

Online Children's Books by Kimmie C (Webmix for SymbalooEDU users)

 

 

UFL Books #1 by Kinderchat (webmix for regular Symbaloo users)

UFL Books #1 by Kinderchat (webmix for SymbalooEDU users)

Summer Reading 2014 by Deanna Wallace (Webmix for regular Symbaloo users)

Summer Reading 2014 by Deanna Wallace (Webmix for SymbalooEDU users)

These are just a few of the many webmixes for online books, authors, and reading.  I encourage you to search the Symbaloo Gallery for more!

Webmix Wednesday: Authors and Illustrators

Welcome to the middle of the week!  Check out some great webmixes focusing on Authors and Illustrators!

Authors and Illustrators by Sarah Staudt

 

Favorite Authors and Books by Shannon McClintock Miller

 

Authors' Sites by Readerroberts

Do you have a favorite author or illustrator site?  Leave a comment to let me know!

:) 

Summer Reading List

Summer break is officially here for me!  With summertime comes time for reading!  Here are some of the books on my summer reading list: 

 

Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller

 I read Donalyn's book, The Book Whisperer, and loved it!  I can't wait to see how she inspires me with her new book.

 

  

Teach Like A Pirate by Dave Burgess

This book just sounds like all kinds of fun!  Can't wait to dive in...just hope I don't have to walk the plank!!!

 

 

Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids by Chris Biffle

I have been a fan and user of Whole Brain Teaching methods for the past 2 years.  I can't wait to dig a little deeper with this book.

What's on your summer reading list?  I have lots of other for fun books to go with these...hope I have time to read all of them!

Happy summer!

Fabulous Book for Learning Scratch Programming!

 

Super Scratch Programing Adventure! is a fabulous book for anyone wanting to learn Scratch programing.

The projects in the book are well thought out and very appealing to re-create.  Each project focuses on having the user create a game.  You can download all of the resources for the book and upload them to Scratch for practice.

 

The above image is a screen shot from the project tutorial I am working through now.  

I have learned so much in the short time I have had the book and I know it will help me in teaching Scratch to my students.  

I bought the book at my local Barnes and Noble.  I'm sure the online price would be cheaper...here are a few places to find it:

No Starch

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Happy programing!

 

Related articles

Hour of Code...More Than An Event!

Teaching in the Digital Age: Ch. 1

Now Kids Learn Coding with Super Scratch Programming Adventure

Super Scratch Programming Adventure Is an Awesome Way to Get Kids Into Programming

Webmix Wednesday: Ebooks for Kids that don't use YouTube

Hi, blog readers!  If you've visited my blog in the past few days, you know if was no where to be found!  Typepad had a massive denial of service attack!  I knew they would get things back up and running and here we are!

On to the webmix!  I have seen several webmixes full of stories for kids to read online.  The only trouble is many of them utilize YouTube videos and they are blocked for my kiddos.  

I did some searching and put together a mix that doesn't use YouTube videos.  My Kindergarten and first grade students are loving it!

 

E-Books for Kids by The Digital Scoop

My students are lucky enough to have access to several online book services through our school district...but you can never have too many books to read! :) 

I look forward to sharing my NETA presentations later this week!

Toy Shopping at School! What???

That's right...we went toy shopping in 3rd grade today.  

Well... we used the Toys R Us web site to make pretend purchases and entered our "buys" into a spreadsheet.

The kids absolutely loved it!

The idea was inspired by an activity from the book Spreadsheet Magic by Pamela Lewis.

This spreadsheet activity involves entering item names and costs, using a Function to total the items, and setting up conditional formatting to show if we are under, on, or over budget.

I tied in cause and effect with the conditional formatting and the kids really got it.  They loved seeing the total change color with different purchases.

Google Drive makes it so easy for students to learn and apply these concepts!  

You can find my template below.  I did not set it to total the amount.  I had the kids do that along with the conditional formatting.  Feel free to make changes to my template to fit your lesson.

 

 

Happy shopping!

Webmix Wednesday: Golden Sower Books

 

 In Nebraska, we have a Nebraska children's choice literary award called The Golden Sower Award.  My friend Margo has put together a webmix with links and videos for some of the current Golden Sower nominees.  

 

 Golden Sower K-3 by Margo Hirschfeld

Check it out!

Onomatopoeia and Dr. Seuss

 This week is all about Seuss in my classroom!  The third graders loved reviewing onomatopoeia with Mr. Brown Can Moo!  Can You?

We began class by watching the iPad book version fo the story.  Mr. Brown Can Moo!  Can You? is currently on sale for $2.99.  

The kids really got into listening for the onomatopoeia and even reading out loud along with the story.

I then had them open their Google Drive accounts and create a new drawing.  They used Word Art (under the Insert menu) to add text. They searched for images using the Research tool.  I asked them to add at least four examples of onomatopoeia.  It was really fun to see all the creativity the kids used!

This was a fun and easy activity that I will be sure to use again!