We’re putting an EDU spin on the series originally by Amoeba Records! In “What’s in the Bag EDU,” educators share tools that they’re using in their classrooms. When possible, we’ll provide links to purchase the items discussed, just below the videos. Today, we welcome Amber Hinkel, or @Hinkels_Hangout, from Naples, FL!
We challenge ourselves to try and find things we could not only use in our classroom, but to find things we could use differently than they were designed and marketed for. We often get questions about what we go for so we thought we would put a post together about some of of favorite finds from IKEA!
Maybe one of the main reasons why I love using picture books in the class is because they are responsive—they are a result of people’s reactions to the world around us. Picture books help me pivot. They help me change up what I am doing to connect with and meet the needs of the students I currently have in the classroom.
We as teachers need to make sure we are doing our students a favor by teaching them the right way to use the tools in the most meaningful and effective ways. Throwing tips and tricks at them in an unorganized manner, or failing to fill in the gaps they may have will only lead to more misconceptions and bigger problems for students down the road.
What if you could bring characters to life by generating a text message thread between them? Now, you can!
First, we read the story, “Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon.” After we read the story, the students had to think back to various points in the text to determine how the main character (Molly Lou) was feeling. To do this, we used a “Bubble Map,” which is used to record adjectives. But, I also wanted them to focus on the emotions at different times in the story. So, we combined the bubble map, with a “Flow Map.” Smashing these two together gave us a “Blow Map!”
Using their “Blow Map,” we went through the story describing Molly’s emotions. I expected this to be challenging, so I was prepared to allow the kids to give me both adjectives and emojis - which they could then talk through to come up with an adjective. To help differentiate, I put the Blow Map on OneNote and shared it to certain students on Microsoft’s Teams. Here’s a shot of the OneNote file:
After going through the story, we used the recording sheets below to create a fake text message thread between Molly Lou and her grandmother. A student quickly pointed out that some of the adjectives we came up could be used for Molly’s Grandma, too!
Next , we took the recording sheets and created a fake texting thread using the app: TextingStory. Then, we shared our responses on Flipgrid to produce a class discussion and share our ideas. Here’s a 40 second tutorial:
Last but certainly not least, we created a fake Instagram generator to post “updates” on how Molly was feeling throughout the story. The kids even used the hashtags: #Beginning, #Middle, and #End. Grandma also got in on the fun!
To create something like the images above, just google: “fake Instagram profile.” There are a bunch of options, depending on your comfort level. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions on how this all worked!
—J 👓
We’re honored to announce our new @YouTube series: “Journey to Microsoft” is now LIVE!
Students needed to show that they were able to summarize a story and then use that summary to tell the theme. I referred back to that quote—if I were a child, how would I want to show my ability to retell a story? In today’s digital world, retelling and summarizing happens in 30 sec clips, 7 sec vines and numerous other forms of visual media. So when I looked at it through my students’ eyes the answer was crystal clear!
Programs and applications often try to market themselves as THE one to try and we often get steered into the idea that we need to use this one particular program for everything. Or we begin to think that one program is just plain better to use than another. Rather than looking for the “one size fits all” tool, educators will be more successful piecing together various tools into the same lesson.
