#HourofCode2018

Dance Party- WOOT WOOT!  We started the Hour of Code week off with an Unplugged Dance Party activity from code.org for our circle time.  Middle school students have the MOVES!

Throughout the week students were having fun with the robot stations:
1).  Bowling with the robot Sphero

2).  Bocce ball with Sphero
3).  Ozobot doodling

4).  Cue robot drawing

Science classrooms also participated in the Hour of Code with choosing a website or app activity to engage with learning or challenging themselves with coding using the presentation below. 

Holiday Paper Circuit Cards

Holiday Paper Circuit Cards

What a great activity to light up someone's day during the holiday season!  Some advisory classrooms have been creating holiday cards using simple circuits following the presentation below.  The iEngineers are leading this activity with other classrooms to show them how a paper circuit works.  Learning circuits + a fun activity = WIN WIN for teachers and students!  

Organizing Google Drive LIKE a BOSS

Google Drive is an essential tool for teaching!  I've been using Google Drive extensively for 5 years, and would label myself as a definite POWER user!  It has been a challenge to keep up with the organizing aspect of Google Drive.  This is a presentation below that I shared with my staff at one of the POP-UP Professional Development Workshops after school this year.  Teachers felt this was a need for their professional learning and being organized with their teaching resoures.

Circle Activity- HOT 100

iEngineer students enjoyed playing this game below during Advisory.  It was LOUD and chaotic but the students were all engaged and wanted to keep playing!  A great way to get them off and running for the day!  I found this activity and other fun activities through the Origins Online Games Website.  With this website, you can search by different categories based on the comfort level of your students.  Starting off the year, I explore the acquainted activities and then throughout the year move to the more comfortable games.

Green Screen About Me Blog Post

Students in iEngineer explored how to set-up their own blogs on KidBlog.  My goal for these students this school year is to have a space where they can freely blog about their passions, ambitions, ideas, strengths, etc.  The first blog post they created was an about me post based on their green screen picture they created with iMovie.  iEngineer students have so many skills and expertise to offer to the school and blogging is one way they can share this information out. 

I created a KidBlog presentation to introduce the students to kidblog.  Check it out below and feel free to use in your classroom this year!  It's a great way for students to have some choice and voice in their learning!

BMS Tech Week

For the rest of September, students will be participating in Tech Week where they learn the skills of taking notes, being organized, and creating with their iPads.  Tech Week resources are located on our BMS website and below by clicking on the image/caption. 
iEngineer students will be taking on the Tech Week Challenge and creating videos to share with the school on how to use different apps on the iPad.  We can't wait to share our ideas with the school!  Do you have any ideas of cool tips & tricks?  Send videos to bmssteam@apps.district279.org to be eligible for a prize!

BMS Tech Week Resources

360 School Tour withThingLink

Yesterday was a FUN learning day!  I LOVE my job and discovering new ideas to try out with my iEngineer Adivsory students!
Thinglink has a paid feature where you can post 360 images, videos and create an interactive digital story.  We are planning to use it here at BMS to take 360 images and record audio of classrooms to create a digital school tour for families to view online of our AMAZING school!  Families will get to see what some of our classrooms look like and the fun projects students are engaged in. I'm SO excited to work with teachers and students on this project!  More information to come.  Check out what we've started!