Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Powtoons in Second Grade!

Mrs. Smith's second grade TAG students used Powtoons to create videos about famous Americans in their biography study. The activity was a blend of the Texas Performance Standards Project and a Boundary Pushers project created by MaryEllen Frick.

Check out some of the Powtoons created by these creative youngsters! See how much you can learn about these famous Americans just from viewing their videos! Great job, Second Graders! These are awesome.






Leonardo da Vinci by Lucas








Alexander Graham Bell by Jack







Ernest Shackleton by Colton








Walt Disney by Sarah








Helen Keller by Rory









***Want to make your own Powtoon? Click here to learn more about Powtoons.


Monday, December 2, 2013

Google "Hanging Out" with Callison


Mrs. Zirlott's fifth grade class had the opportunity to share what they were thankful for with Mr. Reye's fifth graders from Callison Elementary here in Round Rock ISD. 

Instructional Technology Specialists Linda Nichols and Anita Oliver used their Google Accounts to set up the "Google Hangout" in the Library, and students at Teravista were able to have a video communication with students at Callison Elementary.

Each class took turns sharing and students, and both classes enjoyed seeing and hearing one another. One student who transferred from Callison to Teravista was able to visit her former classmates.

With this experience, the teachers are planning to use this technology for other classroom uses, such as book shares and showing products.

Friday, November 22, 2013

First Grade - Creating Problems Using Kidspiration

Mrs. Maggart's First Grade Class has been creating  math word problems and writing addition and subtraction number sentences. It is how they are creating word problems that makes this special. 

Mrs. Maggart will give the students an answer to the problem, and their job is to CREATE THE PROBLEM that will fit that answer. Using a software called Kidspiration, students are able to use the math tools in the program to create their problems.  Students are able to select the pictures or symbols from the vast library of graphics from the program and lay them out in a "story problem" format. 


Kidspiration has a vast assortment of math tools for them to use, where students can explore properties of number and operations, and develop computation strategies, such as they demonstrated here.

In fact, they could create limitless problems to have one another solve.  Here, students are also demonstrating the habit, "begin with the end in mind" - where they have the answer(result), but need to supply how we go about getting there.

Great job, First Graders! That's some great THINKING!




Monday, November 18, 2013

Grade 4 Composer Leader Reports

All 4th grader students are working on a composer research group project in Music class. They are synergyzing to collect information about the composer and then create a powerpoint presentation about that composer.

 Teravista is a "Leader in Me" school, with students practicing leadership skills and Steven Covey's 7 Habits throughout the day, on a regular basis. In addition to the research, students will explain how each composer was a leader in their field, and which of the 7 habits was demonstrated.
Synergizing during Research
Finishing touches on report-

Students will be presenting their findings to the class so we can all learn about the different composers. Some projects will also be featured and presented on the schoolwide Leadership Day in early February.

Students from Mrs. Brewer's fourth grade class are pictured here.

Checklist of facts-

Monday, November 11, 2013

Grade 2 Biography Research

Links for Biographies using Stichit
Stichit Link

Students in Grade 2 are beginning research on famous Americans. In order to get started, the librarian, Mrs. Uselman and the ITS, Mrs. Oliver, had the students log in to their Google Accounts for the first time. Students in Grade 2 have the Google Apps For Education accounts, allowing them to use Google apps, such as Google Drive for their presentations. This will enable them to work at home or school if they save to their Google Drive.

Mrs. Uselman used the site "Stichit" to supply them with three resources they could use for their reports.
Stichit is a website that provides one site for all the resources, keeping students focused on specific sites. That will help save time from the students to aimlessly searching for resources, and allows them to have only the sources that the teacher/librarian wants them to use.

Sources included Pebble Go, Kids InfoBits, and Britannica. If you click on the Stichit Link, you can follow how the sources are all linked together.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

First Grade Logs In!

The first grade classes are working on mastering logging into the computers all by themselves. The students are working on becoming more proficient at logging in and getting to age appropriate websites.




The goal for the students is to become more independent at this task. We have played games to practice getting our username and passwords memorized. The students are beginning to work on Learning.com.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Time in Second Grade

In second grade,  students in Mrs. Misplay's class are learning to tell time on analog clocks. 
The teacher displays a clock and the student is handed the mouse,  to select the correct hour and minute hand. 

Time flies when you're telling time - in this fun way!

Broadast News Leaders

Our morning broadcast is a collaborative project between the librarian (Mrs. Uselman) and ITS (Anita Oliver) for the entire school year.  The broadcast Leadership Team is an advanced leadership position on our campus. We have 2 different groups - A and B, and they rotate all the jobs that are needed for our news production.
Since this is an ongoing program, we created a website just for it. Please visit our Broadcast Site for more information about the duties. 

Broadcast Leadership Website

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Kindergarten Students Get Excited About Learning.com!

The students in Ms. Stewart's kindergarten class love getting to try new things. On Friday, they were introduced to Easy Tech, or learning.com. These spectacular students were able to log on to their netbooks using their unique user name and supply their password. That in itself was a major accomplishment! This involves both patience and perseverance.

Students explored the Teravista website and discovered the Student Resources. With much practice in scrolling and clicking, the students were able to navigate their way to learning.com.

Please watch the Kindergarten Photostory!

The first lesson was an interactive lesson on the mouse. Students learned how to click, double click, and click and drag an object. This was all done with the touch pad on the computer. It not only involved concentration, but great skill and coordination. In addition, they practiced locating letters on the keyboard. They were a huge success!


Thursday, September 12, 2013

It's iStation TIme!





In Mrs. Timson's third grade classroom we are using Istation, a computer-based learning system for reading. The state of Texas has purchased this program for all students in grades 3-8, for use at school or home. The program uses animation and game-like instruction, providing instruction and fun at the same time. 





Exploring Place Value


It's math time...learning about place value...used to be that students came to the board and worked math problems. but now, we are using computers and websites to practice math lessons. 

Second grade is showing what they know about place value with learningbox.com.  It is a free online resource that has engaging, interactive lessons on all sorts of subjects. 


Students use a wireless mouse to manipulate virtual base ten blocks to represent  hundreds, tens, and ones.  The mouse can be handed from one student to the next, giving each one a chance to complete a problem.


Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Welcome Back! It's Time for Acceptable Use!

We are excited about our new laptop computers at Teravista, and intend on making some great projects with them! We've been going through our Acceptable Use and Cyberbullying Lessons in class this week, and our students are ready to work.


Pictured here is Mrs. King's third grade class as they prepare to use computers. They watched a short video on Cybersafety and then completed some interactive activities. If you would like to view the video, Learn with Professor Garfield - Internet Safety



Friday, May 10, 2013

Miss Allen's First Grade class is exploring Power Point for the first time today. The students have been instructed on how to make a five page story on Power Point. They are creating a title page, a beginning, middle and end. Today they learned some important basic technology skills such as capitalizing and punctuating. This helped the students that are reluctant writers to be more enthusiastic about writing stories.

Some of the students learned important technology skills today as they wrote their stories, here are some of the comments that they said:

Isabella- I didn't know you could write a cool story and make new pages. I got better at typing today.
Evan- I didn't know you could right click on a misspelled word and find the correct spelling.
Alyssa-  I learned that when you write the time, you have to push shift to get the colon symbol.
Dendrid- I learned how to spell ocean, by right clicking over the word and seeing my choices.
Ella-I learned how to save my power point onto my school account.
Kaiana- I learned how to take a bullet off when I didn't want it on my page and I learned that you have to push tab to indent.
Serenity and Avery- I learned to push new slide to get a new page.


Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Digital Geometry

5th Graders are using our digital cameras to take pictures of geometry all around them.  They are creating a Geometry Picture Dictionary, with photos of real world examples and definitions.  They are learning how to download the pictures from the camera to the computer and then print them out, using the camera and printing wizards. 

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Kinder Researching on Pebblego

Mrs. Gunn's Kinder Kids are using their laptops for research in our library resource Pebblego! They have gotten to explore the Pebblego resources and are now doing full on research for their animal projects. They are researching independently and documenting their findings. Student's that are still struggling readers can listen to the information and still get their information and facts. Now research has become something they look forward to! Thanks Mrs. Gunn!

Friday, February 1, 2013

Microsoft Publisher

5th Graders are using Microsoft Publisher to create travel brochures.  They are researching any city/country that they wish, and are responsible for finding out the climate of that place and then creating a packing list based on the climate. They also have to find airfare, hotel accomodations, and things to do.  They are importing pictures as well.  We may have some future travel agents on our hands!

Thursday, January 31, 2013

5th Graders and Edmodo

Teravista 5th Graders are using the educational networking site, Edmodo, to communicate with their teacher and their peers.  They are using Edmodo to track Science Fair progress and submit assignments, as well as conduct webquests.  You should check out this awesome tool!

Edmodo

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

2nd Grade Book Trailers

Mrs. McGhee's class has been working on their 30 second book trailers for a book they read together. The students were expected to understand the main idea, character traits and setting in order to create their book trailers. Here is an example of one student's trailer.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

5th Grade Animations

Mrs. Zirlott's 5th graders are creating animations about the concepts of fractions. Students are demonstrating that they understand fractions by creating these cool animations that teach fractions.
Check out this video!

Rocio by natasha_zirlott on GoAnimate

Animated Presentations - Powered by GoAnimate. plane crash - fraction facts by bakercj on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate. Jack H by natasha_zirlott on GoAnimate

Video Maker - Powered by GoAnimate. TIMOTHY by natasha_zirlott on GoAnimate

Animated Presentations - Powered by GoAnimate. laz teagan by natasha_zirlott on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.

Edmodo for Student's Poetry Sharing

Mrs. Timson's 3rd grade class is using Edmodo for lessons on poetry and for the sharing of their own poetry. She has also been using Edmodo to enhance reading and math learning. They are taking advantage of the many apps that are available within Edmodo. The students are motivated by earning badges and paw prints by finding hidden assignments to complete. Very Motivating!!!