A New Look for Gallimore Learning

I am in the middle of renovating gallimorelearning.com. I don't know if people actually like the orange color scheme, and I'm wondering if it is a bit too hard to read. I'm changing it to match this layout. Please preview the site and leave your comments or ideas.
Here are some questions to consider:

Is the site easy to navigate?
What do I need more of?
What are you having a hard time finding?
What do you need as a teacher?
How can gallimorelearning make your life easier as a teacher?

Thanks for your input in advance.
I'm working to make our lives easier. I just need a little feed back.

Diorama (Foldables Part 3)

Dioramas in the classroom can be a wonderful teaching tool. They are very cheap and easy to make. The students only need two sheets of regular (or construction paper), scissors, and glue (or staples if you want to be really cheap; staples also work a lot quicker because you do not have to wait for the glue to dry.)
When you think of a diorama you may be reminded of the old shadow boxes that you made when you were little. These shadow boxes were generally made from old shoe boxes, construction paper, and enough glue to keep Elmer's in business. However, the modern diorama is a very close cousin to the foldable. Here is how to make one.

To create a simple diorama, take a square piece of paper. (8 1/2" X 8 1/2" works well) Fold the paper diagonally, open it and fold it on the other diagonal. Then, cut on one fold to the center. Bring one of the flaps over the other flap and staple. This makes a little tent shaped space for your scene. Color the scene, add the setting, and then you can also have your students write a small paragraph about why they chose specific things.

Once the diorama is complete you can have the students combine four of the dioramas together, and they can be used to compare or contrast various ideas.

Foldables Part 2

Think about it! People learn though the use of their senses, so logically a better way to teach would be to involve as many senses as possible. In creating and using the foldable, many of the senses are involved from tactile to auditory.
Foldables can be used to teach vocabulary terms, concept mapping, and as study aides. However, the list is only limited by your imagination. Here are some ways that I have used foldables in my classroom.

Now for some usable ideas:

• Foldables for Vocabulary Terms-
• Have the students fold the paper in half by making the longer sides of the paper come together.
• The students can now write the new terms on the front side of the foldable.
• Using a pair of scissors the student can cut under each term to create term tabs.
• Once these tabs are flipped open, the student can write either the definition or a personal connection to the term.
• Because of the tab the students can actually quiz themselves, then open the tab to check their answer.
  
• I use this a lot at the beginning of a lesson.
  
• This method can be for any subject, from kindergarten through college.

• Foldable as Concept Maps-
• Have the students fold the top of the paper until it meets the middle.
• Then fold the bottom so that it also meets the middle of the paper.
• Basically the paper should now be folded in thirds with the two short sides touching.
• The students should now fold the paper in half so that the newly formed shorter sides are touching.
• Once you unfold the paper four squares should be present.
• The students can now label these squares as you see fit
• Whether you are teaching story elements, compare & contrast, outlining, or even just simply reviewing the chapter. You can use this foldable for all of these depending on what you have you kids write on the top.
• Story Elements
• Kids should write "Characters", "Plot", "Setting", and "Conclusion" in the four squares.
• They can write the key details on the back side of each square, these squares can be cut to allow each square to be opened independently
  

• Compare & Contrast
• Kids should write the things being compared in each of the four boxes
• They could then write how the items are different on the backside of the terms square.
• Once the foldable is opened similarities between the four terms can be written in the central box.
  
• This foldable can be used like a Venn Diagram, except up to four things can be compared.

• Outlining
• Kids could write the "Key Term" on the top of each square.
• The details can be written on the back side of the term.
• The children can write a summary of what they have outlined in the center of the opened foldable.
  

I will write about other ways to incorporate foldables into your lessons as the weeks progress. I guess this could be considered my first series.
Well, I hope that I have given you some useful ideas. Enjoy

A Drug Free Me

As my students filed into the cafetorium, I heard some of them remark, "Man! I'm too old for a puppet show!" However, as they sat down and watched the actor do silly dances across the stage their "macho" attitudes started to change. They began to laugh at the silliness that they were witnessing, but all the while they were chanting along with the anti-drug rap.

Once the actors called for volunteers, my children were waving their hands frantically, trying to become involved in sharing the Kiwanis Club's message.
A few of my kids were actually picked to be part of the band during one of the segments. The other students laughed at the wigs the band wore, as they danced across the stage. My kids were now saying, "Man! I wish that I was picked! I can dance too!" They ended up really enjoying the show and they learned how to say no to drugs and deal with peer pressure.

Happy Holidays!!! (Christmas Activities and Testing Strategies)

Cheers to whatever you're celebrating this time of year! Whether it's Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, New Years, or just enjoying some time away from work. Enjoy every moment. I will be including some great holiday activities in this post to help ease your party planning.

However, this time of year does mean one thing for most teachers. It means the
year is about halfway over. Not to be a "Grinch", but testing is right around the corner!!! I always get nervous around this time of the year. I wonder if I have done all that I can to cram as much information into those tiny little brains as much as humanly possible. Then again what if my kids just freak out once they get the test and everything that was learned just fades away. I know that I'm over reacting, but deep down many of us feel this way.

So my question is how are you preparing your students for the upcoming testing sessions?

I teach 6th grade in Louisiana so we take the ILeap, which is basically a comprehensive test which includes several constructed responses. Below are some sites that I have found really helpful in getting my kids prepared for Standardized Testing.

(Right click on the links below to open in a new tab or window.)

1. Louisiana Pass-- A great site for Math review.
2. PSSA Math Practice Grade 5 (PDF)
3. Houghton Mifflin Math-- Test Prep, Brain Teasers, and Testing Techniques
   
4. Brain Child-- Preparation for many different state tests.
   
5. Test Taking Tips-- Several ways for your kids to stay cool under testing pressure.
6. Leap4Fun--Engage up to four players in this interactive board game. (Perfect for the one computer classroom)

Be sure to leave comments on your favorite standardized testing tips. As a community we can help each other to reach the demands of accountability.

I was going to incorporate a "Test Prep" section into Gallimore Learning, but there are so many tests out there, that it's hard to easily organize them all.

Now that I have stressed you out, it's time to sit back, relax, and enjoy some class holiday party plans.

Holiday Ideas

Happy Hands Wreath-- for lower elementary

• Trace about ten hand prints on green paper. Glue them onto a wreath shaped chunk of cardboard. Decorate with glitter, fake berries, a bow, whatever...they are adorable. You can also use the same hand prints and shape them into Christmas trees with the fingers pointing down, and then let them decorate with beads, sequins, popcorn, whatever to make a cool tree.

Christmas Craft Ideas for Kids -Craft Spoon Christmas Tree

You'll Need

1. Wooden craft spoons;the spoons that come with ice cream cups.
2. Acrylic paint
3. Fabric paint tubes
4. Paint brushes
5. Yellow fun foam or felt
6. Craft glue
7. Scissors
8. Pin backs or ribbon

Step 1. Paint five wooden spoons with green acrylic paint.

It will take just a few minutes of drying time before
handling. Children can do the next step while waiting.
Step 2. Cut the star from the fun foam or felt.
I prefer fun foam. It's easier for kids to cut & glue.
Step 3. Glue the craft sticks in a fan shape to make the tree.
Step 4. Make dots with the paint tubes, for the decorations.
Step 5. For an ornament or gift tag; glue a ribbon loop
to the back.

To make a pin, attach a pin back. Pin backs can be found plain or with self adhesive strips
already attached.

Pine Cone Tree

Supplies needed:

• Pinecones (purchase green or spray paint)
• Green paint
• Mini-pots
• Stars
• Sequins
• Glue

Christmas Wreath Game

Suspend a large Christmas wreath in a doorway at a convenient height from the floor. Prepare in advance "snowballs," made of cotton batting covered with white tissue paper.

The players stand about eight feet from the wreath, and take turns, one at a time. Each is given three "snowballs," and the one who succeeds in throwing all three, one at a time, through the wreath, is given the prize.

To make it more exciting, sides may be chosen, and each one of the three snowballs numbered, one being 5, the other, 10, and the third, 20. If the ball numbered 5 goes through, it counts 5 for that player's side. If it does not go through, it is a loss, and so on. The side scoring the most points is victorious.

Get free holiday clip art here

Free Teacher Stuff

How many times have we fallen for this trap?
It usually includes a few shareware programs, horrible trial programs, or an endless clicking of links that lead to the first page that you came from.
Leave a comment listing all of your good ed-tech or teaching stuff.

Edubuntu

Hear what the creators of Edubuntu have to say:

"Edubuntu is a flavour of the Ubuntu operating system, which is optimised for classroom use. It has been developed in collaboration with teachers and technologists around the world. The aim of Edubuntu is that an educator with limited technical knowledge and skill should be able to set up a computer lab, or establish an on-line learning environment, in an hour or less, and then administer that environment without having to become a fully-fledged Linux geek. This is our first step towards that goal.

Principal design goals of Edubuntu are centralized management of configuration, users, and processes, together with facilities for working collaboratively in a classroom setting. Equally important is the gathering together of the best available free software and digital materials for education.

Edubuntu is built on top of the solid and stable Ubuntu base, and incorporates the LTSP thin client architecture, as well as Education-specific applications, aimed at the 6-18 age group. It also aims to allow resource poor environments to maximise their available (older) equipment.

Based on Ubuntu, the new Edubuntu features a fast and easy install, regular releases, a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default, any other package you can imagine available from the network, and a commitment to security updates for 18 months after each release. We will also be pursuing establishing a network of professional technical support from many companies around the world as this distro grows."

TO DOWNLOAD Click Here

Open Source Software

Open Source software can be the teacher's best source of free technology.
The OpenCd is one of the greatest compilation of tested open source software.
Here is a link that shows the different types of programs that are offered.
OpenCd

My Thoughts on Tech Integration

#1. What are steps teachers can take to ensure that technology integration is successful in the classroom?

The teacher has to make sure that the technology being used is appropriate for the lesson. For example; If the students are creating a presentation based upon what they learned this week, then the student should be using presentation software, not a spreadsheet program. The students also need to know the technology before they are "plopped" in front of a computer and told to work.
This aspect of the lesson should be modeled for the student, that way the student will not only know how to perform the task, but also what is expected of them.
One way to seamlessly incorporate technology into the lesson, is to focus on the objective and not the tool used to reach it. We don't go into great detail about using text books, yet the students gain knowledge from that particular medium. If we model
our lessons by using the same tools that we require of our students, then they will learn the general technology without needing miniscule details. Once the students become familar with this technological medium they will figure out how to incorporate the little details that imporve their work.

#2. A lesson is curriculum driven, not technology driven. Think of a lesson you can "reshape" using technology. Provide an example in your discussion.

We can use technology as a tool to reach our objectives. We do not begin with technology and then create an "activity" for the student to complete.
Some examples can be shown through the following objectives:
TLW create a timeline noting the rise and fall of Egypt as a world super-power.
TLW compare and contrast the Egyptian and Chinese religions.
TLW analyze and describe the social structure of Ancient Egypt.

There are several different ways to reach these objectives.
The first objective can be reached by the students researching the information in their text book, and then drawing a timeline. However, it can also be reached by the students working in pairs researching the information on the internet, and publishing their work through a timelining program.

The second objective can be met by the student creating a Venn Diagram, T-chart, or other graphic organizer which illustrates the information found in their research. Why not have the student create their organizer using a presentation software? By doing this the student can also write a brief description of their findings, and show it to the class.

The third objective can also be met through a variety of different means. The student could create a foldable based upon the social structure of Egypt. The student could use colors to draw a picture of Egypt's social pyramid with a brief description. Finally the student could use a teacher made Word template to create the social pyramid using clip art, pictures, and text to achieve the same objective, plus the student can print them out for a grade.

The integration of technology is "do able", we just need to push ourselves to do it.

The New Era of Tech

As my generation comes of age, the world is truely seeing things through techno-goggles. We carry cellphones in our pocket that should be referred to by their true names, personal media centers. Our phones can make calls, send text messages, play games, download software, play games, make blog posts, and surf the net. Computers are becoming more powerful, smaller and cheaper than ever. DVD players are now under forty dollars.

As an educator, my main course of thought is driven back to, "How can this help my kids learn the information better". Teachers are beginning to included technology in their lessons at a brisk pace. One needs to ask are teachers including technology in order to engage their students, to make the lesson better, to bring home a point, or is our motivation merely to satisfy mandates setup by our school boards. Many teachers have a passion for technology. They see the way their students' eyes light up when they discover something new on the computer. Other teachers dispise learning new things. I know it sounds pretty ironic. However, these people feel that if the students are understanding the information in the way that it is presented, then why should I have to waste valuable time to organizing a computer related activity.

The truth is that as students learn the material, we should seek every oppurtunity to retouch upon the newly learned lesson. This enrichment could possibly come from the classroom computer, classroom game, or it can be as simple as having the students draw a picture of what was learned. These types of activities keep the student motivated. That motivation to learn is what all teachers strive to achieve. If the students are excited about the material, then our jobs magically become easier.

The most important aspect of our job is the relay of information to our youth. Since many of our children know more about technology than we do;
why not choose to reach our children through the media in which they feel most comfortable?

Foldables

I recently attended a workshop on foldables. I thought, "My kids are not going to like folding paper, that's below their level". I could not have been more wrong. I have integrated foldables into my some of my lessons; and to my surprise, the students really enjoyed them.
There are types of foldables that you can do are practically limitless. They can make flip-books for vocabulary words, diaramas for comparing and contrasting, folding graphic organizers which can be used for multiple objectives.
I will soon be posting more on the uses of foldables, and shows some diagrams on how they are made. I'm currently working on the graphics that I plan to post.

Tell me some of your ideas, and how you have used foldables in your classrooms.

Festival of Cultures

The FieldTrip was awesome. Though there were only four booths, the children seemed to have a really fun time. The kids really enjoyed the African presentation. The Africans did the sleeping on nails bit, acrobatics, and jumped rope in unusual ways. However, the act that my kids enjoyed the most was when the Africans jumped through the rings of fire.

The other acts were also interesting. The Festival included people from Russia, who did several balancing acts, and played with hoops. The older Russian man balanced on a board and cylinder, then two cylinders, three, and finally he topped it off by balancing on four cylinders with his son standing on his shoulders. It was such a windy day my kids thought for sure they would come tumbling down.

We finished our trip with some spear throwing and lunch. Then we boarded the bus for the drive back to school.

Educational Blogging

I think that blogging could be very beneficial for both students and teachers. Teachers could post assignments, and students could respond using the comment function of blogging. This would allow the teacher to check all of the work online, and respond to the students comments.

One bad thing about this ideal medium; however, is the harsh reality that not every student has a computer. Those with a computer may not have internet access. Maybe the students can post at school. Unfortunately, ome school districts have blog sites blocked, for both studnts and teachers.

Current Projects

I have been hard at work both in the classroom and on the web. I am currently trying to develop 5 different webpages. Since I am a novice this seems like a daunting task. However, I'm prepared to help my fellow teachers, and that is why I'm doing all of this.

Teachers have it rough, there is no way around it. We have to be many things in the classroom, and by the end of the day it takes a lot out of a person. So, I have made it my life's goal to make our lives better. Not through pay raises or accountablity but through simple free stuff.

I am currently offering free lesson plans, clipart, classroom management stuff, and a plethera of other free stuff, but the problem lies in getting the word out. So please, if you are a teacher check out my links on the sidebar, and let me know how I can help to make your life easier.