Everything Your Caraway Reader Needs to Know for the Summer!

Kahoot Gets a Thumbs UP!

Ms. Henegar's third grade class answered comprehension questions in a new way last week. After reading a Time for Kids magazine, students logged onto Kahoot (https://getkahoot.com/)  for a fun (and quick) activity.

In a 20 question quiz designed by Mr. Sosa, students were asked comprehension questions that were found in the magazine but had to be answered within 30 seconds.

Students were given immediate feedback for correct and incorrect responses and class discussions were held between questions.

Ms. Henegar's class gives Kahoot a big thumbs up!

Students using Google Forms

The 4th grade TAG math class has been studying data and graphing. Each student came up with a survey question to ask fellow 4th graders. The survey questions were then placed on a Google form and sent to Mrs. Kolodzinski, who forwarded them on to each 4th grade student to respond. The results were then recorded on a spread sheet and the data will next be displayed on graphs.

IPod Touch Serves PE Well

Thanks to our marvelous PTA who gives Enrichment Funds to grade levels and the Instructional Technology Specialist, Ms. Barnard, she was able to purchase an IPod Touch for Caraway's Wellness/PE teacher, Ms. Cavazos,  to use for the entire campus.
Ms. Cavazos shares, "I love my iPod Touch! I use my iPod Touch for its blue tooth capabilities to connect to the audio system. Students know when the music is playing they are participating in the activity; when the music stops the students know to freeze and look at me for further instructions. The blue tooth capabilities allow me to move around the room and still control the music.  I also use my iPod Touch for its instant feedback when videoing a skill a student has performed.   This summer I plan to make several brain break videos with the iPod Touch.  With the iPod Touch, I can make a folder on the share drive for teachers to access the brain breaks as needed."

GoNoodle Brain Breaks

"I know I said this last week, but I love this site!"  Second Grade Caraway teacher, Ms. Gregory-Wilder, is quite excited and wants to share this site with all.  

https://www.gonoodle.com/

Ms. Cavazos, Caraway's Wellness/PE teacher,  sent this link out once again last week.  It is so easy to sign-up! You get an avatar that the students' pick and they earn points to go to new levels.  All the brain breaks are awesome! Dance to Cupid shuffle, Sing to Let It Go, and a Freeze Game that drills on math facts and time.  

"I'm sold!  I'm using it for frequent breaks and for behavior incentives.  Awesome behavior and on task as a group for 20 minutes, and then we can dance to Despicable Me Happy song for 3 minutes.  I feel like it is time well spent and here at the end of the year it is keeping them focused and excited.  They love it!  Sorry for my crazy long rant.  I just can't believe how awesome and free and easy and fast this is!"

Ms. Gregory-Wilder is truly sold on this site!  Try it out!  It is on the Caraway teacher resource page of our website under Online Resources.

Padlet in Science

Ms. Jean's fourth grade class met with Mr. Cook's class to discuss inherited traits versus learned behaviors. They gave Padlet, a Google App, a try to document examples of each. After writing a few down in class, they e-mailed the students a link to the Padlet wall so they could go home and add to it. Here's a screen grab of what turned out:

Reflex Math

For part of math today Mr. Sosa had his third grade students work on their math facts using Reflex Math. Reflex math was a program Mr. Sosa wrote a grant for at the beginning of the year and was awarded. It focuses solely on math fact fluency. Students design an avatar and earn points for avatar swag by playing fun and interactive games that use only their basic facts. As they master facts to fluency those facts will come up in the games less frequently allowing the facts that the student struggles with to be practice more often. The game has a carnival like atmosphere, which Mr. Sosa finds the kids really enjoy. There are also coaches embedded through out the game to help teach strategies and mini-lessons to allow student success in fact mastery. 

Using Google Drawing

During writing time today, Mr. Sosa had his third grade students access their Google Drives to brainstorm and rough draft their writing. Students used Google Drawing to make an idea web for the writing topic: "activities I like to do outside". After the web they made a Google Document to start their rough drafts. They created these documents in a shared folder so that students can edit and revise collaboratively inside and outside of school with their peers and teacher. Mr. Sosa loves that he will be able to access their writing at any time to leave comments on their writing without the hassle of lugging 20 writing journals around. 

Kahoots!

Today Mr. Sosa's third grade class used Kahoot! "Kahoot! empowers educators and captivates learners through the creation of a trusted learning space. Educational content is delivered by asking meaningful questions in real-time creating a social, fun and game-like environment." This program was used today with their Time For Kids magazines. Mr. Sosa made a Kahoot!, or intereactive quiz game, with questions and answers that can be found in the magazine word for word. The class was working on reading for information. Students read the magazine before the quiz game and were allowed to used the magazine as they searched for the answer. This also reinforced the use of text features in expository text to locate and find the answers. 

Math Word of the Week through Email

Here is an example of this week's Math Word of the Week Email by Ms. Ray and the problem Mrs. Barnard presented to the students.  The students will reply to both teachers during their independent time.

Math Word-of-the-Week

		x
Kristin Ray		5:56 PM (3 hours ago)

Hi Students- 

Thank you so much for participating in the online version of the weekly math 

vocabulary scavenger hunt! The winners will be announced on the K-OWL

news on Friday! Make sure to listen for your name!

This week's word is PERPENDICULAR LINES. You can find the definition 

on the Caraway website AND I found it on iXL too! I hope to hear from even 

more of you this week!

Thanks Mathematicians!

Bunny Barnard

Caraway Students, 

I had such a good response from my first math question.  That gave me

 the incentive to add another question for this vocabulary word.

Just for your information, I made my drawing in Google Drive with Drawing.

Google Mail is our Educational Answer!

Since the beginning of the year, Ms. Ray, our interventionist, developed a weekly scavenger hunt of math vocabulary words and definitions.  Ms. Kolodzinski, our TAG teacher, has her students create Screen-O-Matic.com videos of examples of the definition in action.  Ms. Letendre, our librarian, has students introduce it on broadcast each morning.  Ms. Barnard, our ITS, adds the word, definition, examples, and video weekly on the front page of our school website.  All this participation by the teachers was getting less and less participation by our students until our students received their Google Email!
Ms. Ray thought what would happen if we emailed the math vocabulary word to the students and let them watch all the places for the definition and send her back the definition to be entered into a drawing.  The first vocabulary word we tried was Prime Numbers.  Ms. Barnard added to the conversation thread by proposing a problem using the vocabulary word.  Her problem was, "Is 51 a prime number?" All this got great response by the students!  Not only can they email their classroom teacher, but now they were emailing the ITS and the Interventionist. They were giving definitions and answering the math problem and one student even used the Sieve of Eratosthenes to explain the answer. When the students weren't quite right, Ms. Barnard was able to give them hints.
The students love their independence with email and are "owning" their learning.  Ms. Ray writes, "I received SO many responses yesterday from students! Much more than the rest of the year combined. It has been really fun. When they have submitted a definition, I have asked for examples, and the students have again quickly responded. Awesome! It makes me really excited!"
Our principal, Ms. Hohmann, writes, "That's awesome!  I'm loving this student g-mail system, too."  She said, " I was able to praise students for their hard work." 
Ms. Letendre includes, "I saw reporters/ anchors who weren't on the air during our broadcast checking their email and responding in the newsroom.  Kudos for using brand new technology to get everyone learning math vocabulary!"

Students Receive GMail Accounts

This year RRISD has introduced Google Apps for Education, GAFE, for elementary students in grades 2-5. These accounts give students access to an email account and Gooogle Apps that include Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and the Chrome Store. 

Student activity is monitored using a tool called Gaggle which will let teachers and administrators know if problems arise. Student accounts are for educational purposes only.
 
Students may use their Google Drive accounts to work on some of their assignments at home and to work collaboratively with their peers. Teachers can communicate easily with students and give them specific and timely feedback.
 
Here are some of the capabilities:

• Gmail: Students may email their teachers. Currently, student to student email is disabled, and students cannot be emailed by anyone outside RRISD.

• Google Drive: Students can create, edit, and collaborate on documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and drawings with their teachers and peers. Google Drive is available anywhere the student has access to the internet.

• Google Calendar: Students may create and use electronic calendars.

• Google Sites: Students may create web sites that are managed by RRISD.

• Chrome Store: District approved apps and extensions are available in the Chrome Store. These educational apps may be added to enhance productivity and student achievement.

The fun part of all this is to see the students' total involvement when we introduce it to them. Mrs. Gros sent a letter to all her students.  Read her email to her students below and the precious reply she received.

Hello My Sweet Second Graders,

I am excited to tell you that you have your very own school e-mail account to use for learning at school.  I think this is going to be a fun way to learn at home and school. Please respond to me and send me a note! 

Love,
Mrs. Gros

Student's actual reply:  

dear Mrs.Gros,

Thank you Ms.Gros for letting me have my first Gmail acount! I love you!

Family Dinner Night Funds Technologies and Many Other Programs

SAVE THE DATE
Family Dinner Night 2014 is coming!

"The biggest Caraway PTA fundrasier of the year" 

When:     Saturday, March 1, 2014 

Where:   Kathy Caraway Cafeteria

What:     Caraway Family Dinner Night, Student Raffle, & Silent Auction

Why:      To bring the latest tools, technologies, STEM & art programs that the RRISD, State, and Federal funding does not cover to ensure our students have a solid, positive, and enthusiastic start to their educational future.

Goal:      To raise $15,000.00 (the money raised stays @ Caraway to fund programs for our students)

Tickets:   $8.00 per person before 2/24 ($10.00 per person after 2/24/2014)

(Ticket order forms will be included in 2/4 Tuesday folders and online via the PTA store)

Free State Programs

Calling all 3rd-5th Students and Parents-

By now your child has come home with login cards for two educational computer programs that can be accessed at home! Both IStation (for reading) and Think through Math are excellent resources and tools that teach students in a fun and interactive way. And the best part is- it's FREE! Children love working on the computer and what a wonderful way to integrate technology and reading and math into one. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact your child's classroom teacher,

 Ms. Ray: Kristin_Ray@roundrockisd.org

 or Ms. Barnard: Bunny_ Barnard@roundrockisd.org

 Go for it... reading and math lessons are just one click away!

Lovitt's Lovable Learners

Check out Ms. Lovitt's 4th grade student-run website http://lovitts4thgrade.weebly.com/ms-lovitts-lovable-learners.html.  The students are blogging a minimum of once a month. They were allowed to pick which topic they would write about. The 4th graders love having something to call their own!

Great Communication with Students and Parents

Check out the front page of Mr. Gareth Cook's 4th grade Google Site website.  He has 31 parents currently signed up for Remind 101 (a safe way for teachers to text messages to students and stay in touch with parents), and the RSS feed is displayed front and center for those without texting capabilities.  Mr. Cook has a class calendar, student work, links, videos, downloadable files, a wish list and much more.  As he says, "A one stop shop for all 4th graders' needs."
Along with Mr. Cook's class website, the 4th grade also has their team website https://sites.google.com/a/roundrockisd.org/4th-grade-central/home.

All About Thanksgiving

Ms. Leyva's first grade class has been studying Thanksgiving and have each summarized a section of the book they were reading.  They shared in their class using the document camera and recorded it for their parents and families.

                     

Ms. Hadden's first grade class also read a book about Thanksgiving, ABC Adventures of Thanksgiving and shared with the use of their document camera to present to their parents too.
                   

TAG Students are Reviewing Algebra Vocabulary

Mrs. Kolodzinski, our fourth grade TAG teacher at Caraway, has the students reviewing Algebra Vocabulary by using the Smartboard Notebook software.  To show us a quick quiz she has made for the students, she used the Screencast-o-matic videotape program to show the interactiveness of the program.

Students Use Technology to Review Their Music Lessons

Mrs. Angela Padilla, one of our music teachers at Caraway, has embedded YouTube videos of songs that the students listen to in class onto her website.  These songs relate to what they are learning in class.  The piece may have the rhythm or pitch they are learning about, or it may be something for fun.  They listen to just a few minutes of it in class, but are encouraged to listen to the full example at home.  Go to Mrs. Padilla's website to enjoy!

Education Go Get It Week

At Caraway, the Librarian, Melanie Letendre, the Instructional Technology Specialist, Bunny Barnard, and the Counselor, Susan Creason,  worked together to expose children to materials about higher learning and future career choices.  There were lessons in the library regarding the myriad possible careers using resources including literature as well as technology such as Discovery Streaming, Flipcameras, and Animoto.  On the broadcast, student reporters talked about the importance of higher education and showed Animoto projects by second grader classes.

Miss Schmidt's Class

Miss Hoveland's Class

Mrs. GW's Class

Mrs. Gros/Lieurance's Class

Mrs. Foux's Class