Bartholomew's Bats, Service Learning, and Technolgy...What a Combination!

Mrs. Bartholomew's bats have been working with a group of senior citizens from The Court Round Rock Retirement Facility all year long. They have had many adventures with their buddies. Recently, they took their friends into the computer lab to explore learning through technology.  According to Mrs. Bartholomew's students, "We went onto our class website and posted comments on our blog. Then we explored a website on Antarctica because we had been reading about animals and explorers in Antarctica recently.  The most exciting part of our visit was experimenting with the Proscopes.  We had fun seeing the ladybugs up close and even more fun looking at our skin, our hair, our clothing, tissues, one of our pen pal's diamond ring, and another pen pal's floral patterned fingernail!  Our pen pals were amazed at the fourth graders technical skills!  We will be visiting them at The Court in Round Rock Retirement Facility on May 2.  We have enjoyed learning from them this year and sharing new experiences with them.  We love technology and our pen pals!"

Jezisek's Yellow Jackets Observe Ladybugs!

Mrs. Jezisek's Yellow Jackets are currently learning about ladybugs.  They recently used "Proscopes," which are digital microscopes that connect to laptops, to view living ladybugs.  The students were able to use the Proscopes to observe the eyes, antennae, mouthparts, and legs of the ladybugs. They also closely examined the thorax and abdomen. They all saw the silver beating heart of the ladybugs working when they looked at the underside of it.  The Yellow Jackets told me "The ladybug looked like a gigantic monster!"  The students were amazed at their ability to become entomologists for a day.

Thank you to Mrs. Jezisek's Yellow Jackets for helping write and edit this post also! They are becoming great writers and added sparkle to this post.

Heinzen's Honeybees are Letter Writers

Mrs. Heinzen's students are learning to write letters in their class.  They utilized email to write a letter to their parents.  The wonderful Honey Bee parents are sending letters back and the students are responding again.  The children were super excited when they received their first letters.  They were noticing the different kinds of greetings and closings used by their parents.

Shogan's Salamanders are Exploring the World as They Spell

Do you remember spelling assignments from elementary school?  Boring was a good descriptive word for most of them.  Mrs. Shogan's students have a new spelling activity called Geogreeting this year that adds fun, geography, and Web 2.0 skills to her spelling lessons!  Students have the option to go to http://www.geogreeting.com/view.html?yCzovvsxqUzBkmDsmoUmkxUloUpEx3U975Ud and see their spelling words created with buildings from around the world.  Anything you type can be spelled out in the aerial shot of a building and it shows where in the world the building was located.  The students then get to practice their email skills by emailing Mrs. Shogan a link to one word they created.

Visit the site for yourself and see if spelling isn't a lot more fun than it used to be! You might even see a few new places while you are at it.  http://www.geogreeting.com/