Spying Shapes

 One thing I've noticed as a teacher is that geometry is an area of weakness for elementary students, and part of that is we don't often move beyond the knowledge and comprehension levels to application and creation. Students learn the basic shapes in preschool and kindergarten and then suddenly they're expected to differentiate between types of triangles and quadrilaterals when many still don't know what pentagons and hexagons are. Adding in types of angles often leads to kids being overwhelmed with a lot of information at once.

As an upper elementary school teacher, I've decided on a plan of teaching my son the standards earlier than expected as well as pointing them out in real life and thinking about their use in engineering and design. We created this Spying Shapes Google Slides presentation that we call our shape book.

We have had a lot of fun taking pictures of shapes we see at home and in public. This is a great project for homework, home school, and collaboration at school. You can assign this project for individuals or groups, or even across grade levels. Students can add audio clips of them explaining what the objects are and why they think the shapes were chosen. 

If you want to differentiate, remove some slides or add others, such as the different types of triangles or  hexagons (regular / irregular), etc. Download it here.

If you plan on using this resource with younger kids, here are two books that can help introduce the concept of shapes around us. 

Round is a Tortilla: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Greenfield Thong

This book is great for teaching a small amount of Spanish words, too! Some kids may notice 3D shapes, like a sphere, but call them round, however.

City Shapes by Diana Murray

Beautiful pictures in this book and descriptive prose don't help point out the actual shapes themselves in print, but lead to a discussion of what is seen in each scene.

Interested in more math posts? Click here! 

Want to incorporate more technology into your lessons?

As always, I'd love your feedback! Please leave a comment below and share how you used this resource on Facebook or Twitter.

Virtual Google Classrooms

 

Have you struggled to keep your child or students on track when they're watching an educational program or playing a learning game, and then suddenly they've gone into an abyss of material you'd rather them not access?

Welcome to our virtual PreK classroom! 

This one has been tailored to my son's interests, but all are educational. 

Clicking on the books, stuffed animals, toys, and objects will take you to read aloud stories, songs, videos, and even virtual models to do things like:

• listen to read aloud stories 
• watch videos
• listen to songs
• play games
• learn to write numbers and letters
• learn to draw
• watch some science experiments
• build virtual models

Interested in something a bit more mature for older children and students? This is my fourth grade modern virtual Google classroom, which can easily be used for middle or high schoolers. It will keep students' attention as they explore and view gifs, such as moving plasma, bubbles, and a welcoming skeleton in the STEAM room.

Students can:

• explore geography
• chill out in the relaxation room
• read books in the library
• use virtual math manipulatives
• learn about geology
• examine bones and animal skeletons
• conduct chemistry experiments
• study plants
• access textbooks in their locker

Clicking on the water feature, breathe hand, and sunrise will take you to other sites with resources for a peaceful classroom. Let's see if you can find two other links embedded elsewhere in this room!

Head over to the cozy reading room, where you can listen to books on video and read books, magazines, articles, and newspapers!

The math classroom has all sorts of virtual manipulatives and opportunities for practice. 

My son's favorite part of my virtual "big kid" classroom is the S.T.E.A.M. lab. Can you find the 6 hidden interactive links?

Our school's mascot makes an appearance in the locker room hallway area. Fun fact: our real school doesn't have lockers! It's a fun place to store books and find links to them online, though! You can replace these images with ones that apply to your students.

These are customizable. All you need to do is click an image (such as the clock to add your daily schedule), insert a link, and share with students!

Click the images above or this link to view our classroom.

Interested in something similar for your child or class? Leave a comment below and I'll see what I can do! 

Remote Learning Organizer

Are you looking for a way to help keep yourself and your students or kids organized while learning online? I have created this hyperlinked Google Doc that allows you to input assignments across multiple sites / platforms, or even just paper work. You can embed links into the organizer that will take students straight to their assignments - on Google Drive or Classroom, PDFs, websites, videos, songs, etc. Students click on the table of contents to view their work for that day. 

Click here to download this 6 page Google Doc on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Check out my other products here.

 

Earthquake Resistant Resort Building STEM Project

This collaborative Google Slides project includes 55 slides hyperlinked to a table of contents for easy navigation. 

It includes slides for: task / video explanation, research resources, procedure / design process, materials list, a suggested timeline, presentation explanation, rubric, student planning guides and reflection, and awards. 

Depending on age, this project can take from several periods to up to two weeks. The recommended time frame is 4-5 periods.

The task: Can you design a resort building that will resist an earthquake? Students will work through the engineering design process while communicating effectively. There are 6 different award slides to emphasize the important parts of the project.

Click here to download.

Country Research Project

Are you and your students working from home and suffering from wanderlust? Do you want to get your students researching other countries and cultures as well as improving their geography knowledge? This Google Slide presentation research project will help students work on their technology skills as well.

This 10 slide project can be completed independently or collaboratively via Google Slides and Google Classroom.

Download it here.

Looking for other digital projects and lessons? Check these out: 

-Bitmoji Bookmark Projects

-Digital Memory Book

-Digital Escape Rooms

-Concrete Poems

-Meet an Author Opinion Writing

-Digital ABC Research Book

Hands-on Reading Projects

Looking for some hands-on reading projects for intermediate, middle, and high school grades? These engaging ideas include templates, examples, and explanations for students to show what they know. They can all be done on paper or digitally!

Projects include:

-Diorama

-Triorama

-Character Interview

-Scrapbook page

-Movie poster

-Newspaper

-Yearbook page

-Timeline / Plot diagram

-Diary entry

-Travel map

-Song Scenes

-Foldable book

-Pop-up book

-Cell phone dialogue

-Play

-Comic

Students can be given the ability to choose between 16 projects or all students can complete the same project with different books. This Google Slide presentation includes links to Google Docs templates that students can use to complete projects as well as links to other websites where projects can be completed digitally. Rubrics are also included for some projects.

Download these projects here.

#projectbasedlearning #PBL #remotelearning #distancelearning

Looking for other digital projects and lessons? Check these out: 

-Bitmoji Bookmark Projects

-Digital Memory Book

-Digital Escape Rooms

-Concrete Poems

-Meet an Author Opinion Writing

-Digital Escape Rooms

-ABC Research Book

-Country Research Report

New Jersey and Federal Legislature

Is your class learning about the New Jersey or federal legislative branches? Check out these free Google Docs! The legislators are accurate for NJ as of April 2020.

Click here to download. Just click "File" ---> "Make a Copy" and then edit the document as needed. 

If you're doing remote learning like my class, consider removing the answer key before sharing! I have given differentiated options in the directions for you to print and have students write the answers in the chart, print and have the kids cut and paste their answers into the chart, or for students to copy and paste the words from the word box into the chart.

Click here to download. Just click "File" ---> "Make a Copy" 

Click here to download. Just click "File" ---> "Make a Copy" 

Here is a fun video field trip to the NJ State House. It's very similar to the tour given on field trips.