Organizing my Videos

So cool. I just figured out today how to organize iMovies I've saved on YouTube. There's a playlist feature and I put the movies into categories so now I don't have to scroll through ALL of them to find what I'm looking for. I've got my math instructional videos, the different classes movies, holiday movies, reading class movies. Since I'll have parents coming in to watch certain movies from different classes, it will be so much easier to find what I'm looking for as an audience waits and watches. So convenient! Modern technology!

Movie day

We have made so many movies this year in fourth grade that we literally could watch them for hours. A parent of a student of mine, asked if we could have movie night at school, serving popcorn and treats to watch student made and teacher made iMovies and educreations videos.
This was a great idea! Tweaking it a little, I'm having a movie day, where parents can come in during their regularly scheduled child's math time (an hour for each class) and watch the movies! We will have treats too! Doing this at the end of May. :)

iPad centers today

An idea came to me to send a math review lesson via email to our student iPads today. Students were grouped according to ability, and worked together to solve problems. They opened the link to the lesson and went at a pace similar to each other within their group. I was so impressed with the cooperation and quality of the review. I, naturally, made an iMovie of all three math classes working. Very cool to see an idea implemented, and work so well! It was a good day!

Perimeter and area

A day before testing began, I had one day left to review any math concepts from the year, and what do I decide to do? Took each math class out on the field and had them line up shoulder to shoulder, the length of the side of the rectangular shaped field (the base), and then the other side of the field (the width).
Since I only had about 26 students per class that day, the children kept moving down the line, to form new parts of the line, to cover the entire base and width of the field.
At first I made them hold hands so they'd stay in straight lines, but then they got the hang of what we were doing and just followed each other making up the new parts of the sides.
Our results were that it would take 764 students standing shoulder to shoulder, to make the perimeter of the field at our school covered.
Next we found area by multiplying the base X the height, and found it would take 32,760 students standing shoulder to shoulder to fit on the inside, in the area of the field!
I hope the students remember the difference between area and perimeter now!

Harlem PSFigLang Shake

Today we'll be finishing off my little Harlem shake video where I'll include all the students in the dance, intermittently between interviews about prefixes, suffixes, and figurative language. Why not!?
What a way to review for state testing that starts next week! :)

Review videos

Next week our students will have their state tests, and all year I teach math to all the fourth graders at our school. Students rotate from class to class, and I've addressed with them the state standards in math. This year a change has been that I've also been working with students to teach them more about technology. This has made the year super fun, with all the new innovations in that arena. As it is, teaching math alone has been fun through the years.

My goal each year is that students like or love math more than when they came into 4th grade. It is so necessary in practical daily situations, for problem solving, and for higher level thinking skills. I am thrilled when girls get excited about math, and hope that after fourth grade that spark will continue. So important for our girls to develop and maintain this strength. (Boys too of course!)
All week students have been watching my review lessons, with daily attached activity sheets to go with the review videos. The students have learned so much this school year! It is more than rewarding. :)

Planets

If you want to see what planets are in the sky at this very moment, get the "Planets" app and a compass of where to look will appear. Here's a screenshot I just took a minute ago of the app picture representing the sky above my head. Cool.
And just added a photo from this morning. As you can see Saturn moved overnight!