VoiceThread
VoiceThread allows students and teachers to put images and comments together easily and share them with a broader audience. Here are some possible ways to use VoiceThread to support your Red Clover Program.
1. Create a bird gallery. Students can add comments or even create the images that are shared.
2. Display art inspired by Calder. Each student explains her/his own piece and comments on the work of others.
3. Take photos of a tree planting inspired by Wangari’s Trees of Peace. Upload the photos into VoiceThread and have students narrate the events and explain their importance.
Check out VoiceThread by visiting http://voicethread.com.
Ideas to Support Student Learning
1. I teach students who have difficulty reading how to have the computer “read” text to them. This is useful for research purposes. On a Mac this can be done using a Safari browser. Have the student highlight the text they want read (smaller amounts is better- 2-4 sentences at a time). Students then click on “Safari,” “Services,” “Speech,” and finally “Start Speaking Text.” I have not been able to figure out how to do this on a PC.
2. All students can benefit from having their work “read” back to them by the computer in the same manner as above. This helps them to spot spelling and grammatical errors. The only word processing program that I have found that allows you to do this is Pages.
3. I often take screen shots to add to written directions. On a Mac you can do this using the shortcut: Shift Command 4. You can also use this using the free software Jing (www.jingproject.com/).
4. Jing is also great for creating tutorials for students that they can watch as needed.
Links for Wangari’s Trees of Peace
The Green Belt Movement: http://greenbeltmovement.org/index.php
Taking Root: http://takingrootfilm.com/
Vermont Tree Society: www.vermonttreesociety.org/
Links for Finding Home
Alan Marks’ website: www.marksonpaper.co.uk
Baby Animal Names: www.stteresa.net/babyanimalnames.htm
Marsupials: www.marsupials.org/
Koalas at National Geographic Kids: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Koala
Video of burned koala saved by fire fighter: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/animals-news/koala-australia-fire-video-apvin.html
Links for Pale Male
Meilo So’s website: www.bluemull.com
Pale Male: www.palemale.com/
Vermont Institute of Natural Science: www.vinsweb.org/index.html
The Great Back Yard Bird Count: www.birdsource.org/gbbc/
Google Maps Pale Male sightings: http://maps.google.com/maps, search for Pale Male
Links for Sandy’s Circus
Tanya Lee Stone’s website: www.tanyastone.com
Boris Kulikov’s website: www.boriskulikov.com
Calder Foundation: www.calder.org/
NGA Kids MOBILE: www.nga.gov/kids/zone/mobile.htm
Videos of Cirque Calder: www.nga.gov/feature/artnation/calder/fascinations_2.shtm; www.nga.gov/education/classroom/counting_on_art/popups/pop_calder_1.htm
NGA Virtual Tour of Calder Exhibit: www.nga.gov/exhibitions/calder/realsp/roomenter-foyer.htm
Animal Research
Collaborate with classroom teachers to work on a research project that meets their science curriculum standards. Here are some excellent resources for elementary school students:
www.kidsclick.org/midanim.html
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals
Equipment needed: computer and color printer
Software needed: Internet browser, Kidspiration or online graphic organizer software such as Webspiration or Bubblus
1. Introduce students to graphic organizer software. Explain that they will make a bubble for each fact they find about their animal. Think out loud as you demonstrate separating a bundle of facts about hawks or koalas. Model putting the facts in your own words. Model saving your document.
2. Allow students several classes to research their animal and collect their facts in the graphic organizer.
3. Demonstrate creating “super groupers” and sorting facts. Have a class discussion about how you can divide up your facts. The science teacher I collaborate with likes these categories: facts, families, and habitat.
4. Students create super groupers and sort their facts. At the end of the class they have an outline to guide their writing.
Links for How to Heal a Broken Wing
Vermont Institute of Natural Science: www.vinsweb.org
Project Pigeon Watch: www.birds.cornell.edu/pigeonwatch
Links for A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
Marla Frazee’s website: www.marlafrazee.com
Read Write Think’s Comic Creator: www.readwritethink.org/MATERIALS/comic/
Animal Comic
Last year my third graders researched animals for a science unit and created animal comics to show what they learned. These were a huge hit and students were incredibly motivated to finish their work and to show them off to their families and peers.
Equipment needed: computer and color printer
Software needed: Comic Life and word processing software
1. Explain the criteria to students. Our criteria looked something like this:
Write at least 2 sentences in the third person that include facts about your animal. For example: Hello. I am a red-tailed hawk. I get my name from my cinnamon red tail. I am a large bird with rounded wings and a short tail.
Write at least 2 sentences in the third person that include facts about your animal’s habitat. For example: I can be found in most of the United States. I prefer open land where there are fields for hunting the small mammals I like to eat.
Write at least 2 sentences in the third person that include facts about your animal’s family life. For example: After my mate and I build a nest I will lay eggs. The eggs will hatch in about a month and my young will spend another 45 days or so in the nest.
2. Explain what it means to write in the third person.
3. Give students time to write their sentences, typing them into a word processing document.
4. Remind students to spell-check their sentences.
5. Show students how to find a picture of their animal. I prefer to use a public images such as those found at www.morguefile.com.
6. Demonstrate how to use Comic Life to insert an image, add speech bubbles, copy and paste text from a word processing document into the speech bubbles, and add a title.
7. Students should save their work and print it when finished.
