Planning Out the Journey

We had an EXTREMELY full day on Friday, October 9th. In our planning meeting, we refined our topics further and looked at the upcoming schedule to determine the best use of time. We have begun completing a Google Doc schedule to organize our time each week. We also reviewed how to post to the blog. All the teachers now have access to post to the blog. Ms. Catania posted an example wordle her students created and each of the teachers will post a brief description and/or picture of what they have accomplished.

In addition, each class has participated in planning the project as follows:

• Kindergarten and 1st Grade: The kindergarten and first grade classes learned how to use the computer to take a picture! We learned to use PhotoBooth, which also meant learning to follow directions and cooperate with our partner.  For next time:
  -- K-14 will write acrostic Name Poems for the next visit. We will put our pictures into a keynote to go with our poem. Ms. Iong will post her ideas for topics students will add to their keynotes.
  --1-104 is researching places and jobs in the community. They will make enhanced podcasts about what they learn and interview people from the community. Ms. Hamlin will post their research topics. 
• 2nd and 3rd Grades: First we discussed the project. Students will make a travel video that either encourages people to visit their country/place or allows viewers to feel like they have visited. Next, we needed  to identify our research topics. Grade 2 is focusing on Bushwick and Ms. Newman will post the research topics for her three groups. Grade 3 is focusing on countries around the world and Ms. Catania will post the countries and links to her portaportal site. Then we relearned iMovie. Second grade students are new to iMovie and third grade needed a quick refresher. For next time, students will have begun to conduct their research. We will begin to organize that research in a way that enables students to script/storyboard their videos.
• Fourth Grade: Students began to brainstorm topic ideas for their wiki/research. They created wordles and we looked at the various ideas to come up with topics. Mr. Amft will post a sample wordle and the final topic ideas. Mr. Amft also started a wiki and created user accounts. By next time, these ideas will be refined and students will be in groups with research topics so we can begin to put our research onto the wiki.
• Fifth Grade: It was great to see the fifth grade students. We decided our topic would be How to Stay Safe and Healthy in Bushwick!  Students will create an interactive web page teaching kids how to stay safe and healthy.Students began to brainstorm topic ideas for their research. They created wordles and we looked at the various ideas to come up with topics. Ms. Schembri will post a sample wordle and the final topic ideas.