Julia's+Page

= = =Julia's Page! =

I finally figured out these anchors! Yes! =Week 1 - Photobabble= =Week 2 - Photostory= == == = =

=Week 1 - Photobabble = This week I decided to try a photobabble. This is a program where you can record yourself talking (or in my case, singing) over an image. My class has been doing a lot of rhyming activities because rhyming is a key step of phonemic awareness. So far, only two of my students can produce rhymes this year! One song that my students particularly enjoy is called "A hunting we will go". This is a silly song with animal rhymes. We have a book that goes along with and it has pictures of a snake in a cake, a bear in underwear, etc. Hearing the rhymes is good practice. To use this activity in my class, I would allow students to view the photobabbles in class and play it. They will definitely love to hear their teacher singing on the computer. If I had a smart board or projector, I could create many of these and have the students fill in the rhymes as a class. I could even let my students record themselves singing the songs. They love to see pictures of themselves and would love to hear themselves singing. I'll let you know how they liked this next week. = =

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**Resources**
1. [|Education World] Education World is a huge web site. I would use it to find projects related to a specific theme. For example, since today is earth day, I searched for "earth day" and found a link to multiple lesson plans for celebrating earth day. This is a very helpful tool for teaching science, social studies or art because if you have a theme or a particular artist, holiday, etc in mind, you can find lots of great ideas for teaching it.

2. [|Storyline Online] This is a web site featuring celebrities reading stories and is put up by the screen actors guild. It is amazing! I'm going to be using this as soon as spring break is over. I think the level seems to be more elementary age.They have some of my favorites like Harry the Dirty Dog, Stella Luna and A Bad Case of Stripes. This web site is similar to having a listening center, but it is computer based. This way the CDs won't get scratched and books on CD cost about $30 each so this is definitely a more affordable option than a listening center with a listening library.

**Week 2** - Photostory
This week I decided to make a photostory. I also decided to make the photostory on an art topic that I would not use in my kindergarten class, but in an art class I may teach someday. I would use this photostory to introduce the contour drawing method. A photostory like this would allow students to have a brief intro to the topic, before going into contour drawing in detail. I used my real drawings from college, a video clip from youtube and my own voice for narration. Because I have a mac I could not use photostory, I used imovie instead. I think with some practice using imovie to create lesson intros and content, I could use ths daily in my classroom. Photostory is great for anyone who would like to use a combination of photos, movie clips, sound clips and themselves talking for classes. I think photostory is a great way to capture student interest. For some reason, I think students would enjoy this break from the teacher directly talking. By using a narration of yourself in addition to talking in class, I think overall students would end up paying more attention.

media type="file" key="Contoursmaller.m4v" width="300" height="300" = = =Resources= 1. [|Studio Chalkboard] I wish I had looked at this site before I made my photostory. This web site is a great resource for art teachers. It has pictures and explanations for all sorts of painting and drawing techniques as well as explanations for stretching canvas, preparing grounds, etc,. This web site is probably best for high school teachers or advanced art middle school teachers who are teaching traditional and technical painting and drawing methods.

2. [|Crayola] This is a more elementary art web site. It has tons of lesson plans for art with a photo example of the project for each one. It also has a section explaining how to use various crayola materials with varied techniques. I think this web site is perfect for an elementary art teacher or for a teacher integrating art into the classroom.

= Week 3 -Mind Mapping = I tried using mind mapping this week. Mind mapping web sites allow for making graphic organizers on the Internet. I liked using the web to make a graphic organizer because it was easy to go back and change things and it kept everything perfectly spaced. Making a graphic organizer or word web with a class is much easier using this tool because as you add to it, it color codes and makes space for everything. I made two graphic organizers using the web site [|Slick Plan] I also tried using [|Diagrammr] but it was not user-friendly to me. Slick plan is simple to use. The one thing I do not like is that I could not figure out how to rename the "Home" bubble. The first organizer I made I would use with my kindergarten class when mapping out the parts of a story. I used the __Three Little Pigs__ as an example because that is what we are reading this week. I also made an organizer that I would use for an art history class that was studying the Italian Renaissance to give a secondary example. I included a link to download the PDF file as it appears on the web site. I also pasted a bullet plan of what the mind map looks like. I can't figure out how to put a graphic of the graphic organizer up. Any ideas? media type="custom" key="9276978" media type="custom" key="9276966" =Resources= This week I wanted to share some resources not on the resources page. 1. [|Florida Center for Reading Research] This is a great web site for anyone teaching literacy to K-5 grade. However, I think the center activities would be useful for any teacher who is teaching students reading at this level. You can download and print the center activities to use in your class. The center activities target specific reading standards. 2. A lot of teachers keep a class page which documents all of their new ideas, scope and sequence, related literature, worksheets, schedule, etc. I use these two extensively for my current class(they are kindergarten specific), but I encourage everyone to find class pages of teachers who teach a similar class. [|Heidi Songs Blog] [|Kelly's Kindergarten]

Week 4 - Rubistar This week I decided to use [|rubistar] to create a rubric. Rubric grading is very popular with a lot of the charter schools I am applying to next year. I like using rubrics as a grading system because it makes grading completely transparent for students. Expectations are clearly established. Rubistar is easy to use, much easier than creating a table in word. Rubrics are great for grading projects, presentations, lab reports, essays, performances, etc. This rubric I created would be used to grade a final drawing project.
 * ===Final Project - Drawing Class===


 * Ms. Wiener** ||


 * CATEGORY || Composition || Line Quality || Value || Perspective & Space || Form & Mass || Work Habits & Project Completion ||
 * 1 - Needs Improvement || Student did not complete at least 3 preliminary sketches of composition ideas. Final project shows little or no evidence of compositional elements such as motion, rhythm or balance. || Little to no variation in line thickness, direction, curvature, or value. Lines are not varied. || Picture contains some dark and light elements, but very little gray scale variation. || The drawing is flat and contains no evidence of space or perspective. || Abstract or realistic objects in the drawing have no sense of form or mass. || Student did not show focus on drawing completion during class time. There was no evidence of work done outside of class. ||
 * 2 - Meets Expectations || Student completed 3 preliminary sketches of composition ideas. Final project shows some consideration of compositional elements such as motion, rhythm or balance. || Some variation in line thickness, direction, curvature, or value. Many lines are similar. || Picture contains a small range of light and dark values. || Student attempts to show evidence of space and perspective by using some overlapping, atmospheric or linear perspective. || Abstract and realistic figures and objects in the drawing have some sense of form and mass. Student has used some overlapping, line quality and light and shade to give figures in the drawing mass and weight. || Student showed some focus on drawing completion during class time. There was evidence of work done outside of class. ||
 * 3 - Exceeds Expectations || Student completed more than 3 preliminary sketches of composition ideas. Final project shows careful consideration of compositional elements such as motion, rhythm or balance. || A lot of variation in line thickness, direction, curvature, or value. Lines are mostly unique and varied. || Picture contains many different values of light and shade from light to dark. Picture shows evidence of values in a range of 1-10. || Drawing shows evidence of space and perspective. Student uses overlapping, atmospheric or linear perspective. The drawing has a clear sense of physical space. || Abstract and realistic figures and objects in the drawing have defined form and mass. Student has used overlapping, line quality and light and shade to give figures in the drawing mass and weight. || Student was very focused on drawing completion during class time. There was evidence of a lot of work done outside of class. ||

=Resources= 1. This week I re-reviewed the common core standards for [|ELA] and [|Math]. I can't speak to any other grade level but the K standards seem really hard in particular areas. In ELA, the writing standards seem very high; Kindergarten students are expected to write expository and narrative pieces. The math standards I do like, but the K standards do not include time or money which I think are important to introduce. The K standards also seem very hard with regard to place value. Place value can be very difficult for young children. Other than those two sections I really like the common core standards, especially because they mention active and enthusiastic participation in reading literature, non-fiction and emergent texts. I think enthusiasm for books is an important standard. The standards also very specifically designate language and speaking skills which are very vague in CA current standards. I wonder when the curriculum will change to accommodate the new standards which really vary from the current CA standards. 2. I looked at a video about [|Assistive Technology]. These stories remind me about how useful technology can be in the classroom, especially for students with disabilities. I wonder about how future budget cuts are going to affect access to technology for special education students. Many of these technologies may be required by law if they allow students better access to the curriculum. I wonder how districts like Oakland will handle future law suits having to do with district provided technology and budget constraints.