March 25, 2009

This week we have been working on diagrams in Inspiration. I did my diagram on the five senses for a kindergarten class. I enjoyed working with Inspiration to make these diagrams. I think that these could be very useful in my classroom in the future. I think that it is good that we are learning many different ways to present information. I like having options on how to teach things to students, and the more fun the better. There are a lot of neat features to Inspiration that I liked using. Being able to add notes to some of the topics was nice, because you would be able to pull them out if necessary. I think that this would be a way to present information to students that would be very interesting to them. This can also serve as a way to introduce diagrams to them. After I showed this five senses diagram, I could have the students make their own diagrams about things that would fit into the five senses category. There are many other possibilities that could be done with the students after this diagram has been created.

March 9th, 2009

For the last three class periods, we have been working on iMovies. I did my movie on colors and shapes. I think that it would be a fun way to introduce colors and shapes to kindergarteners. I did shapes that were different colors, and if I was teaching this activity, the students would guess the color and the shape before the words actually came up. Near the end of the movie, I did shapes that they would see in their environment, such as a stop sign, dice, and buildings. One of the kindergarten math standards is for them to recognize 2-D shapes as the faces of 3-D objects in the environment. These pictures in the movie would help them to begin to notice and look for these things. I think that having the words on the movie after the shape is good too, because it shows the students what that word looks like and starts with. This can help them in their emerging literacy. I really enjoyed making this movie and adding in all of the transitions and sound. I think that this is something that I would use in my classroom. I think that this is a fun way to introduce a new subject area, or a great way to review for a test. Although it is time consuming, I think that it can be useful and fun in the classroom.