Update 5/10/2022: For more End-Of-Year Activities, visit this post. One of the things I wanted to try this year was to ask my students to do hexagonal thinking as they reflected over what they had learned. Since my 4th graders had already done some hexagonal thinking this year, I thought they might like to experiment … Read more
Critical Squares: Games of Critical Thinking and Understanding, is a book written by Shari Tishman and Albert Andrade for Harvard’s Project Zero. One of the games I like to use in my classroom is “Whatzit Tic-Tac-Toe.” We generally play it to think deeper about novels that we have read, but I decided to try it as … Read more
As I left the dressing room of a retail clothing store a couple of days ago, a sales associate stopped me. “I keep looking at you, and thinking I know you,” she said. “Really? From where?” “I don’t know.” She thought for a moment. “What do you do?” “I’m a teacher.” She started to look … Read more
I think we’ve already established that I have very little imagination. I admire creativity, but I am much better at borrowing other people’s ideas than I am at generating my own. When I first learned about Word Clouds, for example, I thought they were fun but really couldn’t think of too many applications for their … Read more
My students went on a great field trip two weeks ago, and lots of photos were taken. We have a class blog but I thought it would be nice to use the pictures for more than that. I decided to try out Canva for a reflection tool. I have exactly 18 students in my 5th grade … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, Adobe released a new iPad app called, “Adobe Voice.” It reminds me a bit of Microsoft’s Photo Story – a free piece of software that allows you to create a video out of images. Like Photo Story, Adobe Voice allows you to add photos, text, narration, and music. However, it … Read more