Since January, students have been feverishly working to explore and create in SCRATCH. Animations, interactive art, and games are just a few of the project categories students have focused on.  As soon as they are completed, I’ll be posting links to the galleries highlighting the projects directly on the SCRATCH website. Learn more by visiting http://scratch.mit.edu/

Students will be learning about the Presidential Election and posting their thoughts here!

For my first lesson with the 5th graders, I’m having the students create a wordsplash about themselves using WORDLE. It’s a fun online application where you can paste or type in text and then work with fonts and color to personalize the wordsplash. Students are not allowed to save their splash or browse through the gallery while at school. We’re simply creating and printing in the lab. Here’s a sample of a wordsplash I created using WORDLE with the RSS feed from this blog:

You can’t save any of the wordles by clicking “FILE” and “SAVE” but you can do a print screen and then copy into a picture editing program and save that way. This is a really fun tool that I can imagine being used with spelling or vocabulary words, famous historical figure names and so much more! Thanks to J. Colby for suggesting this great resource!

It’s wonderful to be back to school after summer break. I’ve begun to meet with my classes and we’re excited to start working to integrate technology within their curriculum. I hope to build upon the lessons I developed last year and, if the students’ reactions are any indication, anything using the iPods and voice recorders will be a big hit!! I’m also eager to try to incorporate web 2.0 tools into my lessons. So, stay tuned!

Fifth graders have been busily finishing up their podcasts to post before the end of the year! On the Mrs. E’s page, you can now listen to podcasts about Historic Boston and landmarks in New York City. On Mrs. O’s page, a new podcast entitled Fantastic Flyers was recently uploaded. We hope you’ve enjoyed our first attempts at podcasting!

Students in all of the fifth grades at WES have been working to write and record their own podcasts. You can now listen to creations by students in Mrs. D’s class and Mrs. E’s class by clicking on the tabs above. Enjoy!

Welcome to the grade 5 blog for WES students! As we explore podcasting, you’ll be able to share your projects online here!