Name Equations in Keynote

This project collides literacy and math in a way that allows students to express themselves creatively. When you have combinations like that, a lesson is sure to be a success.

This project takes students down a powerful path in understanding a program such as Keynote (traditionally only thought of for presentations). Here are some of the skills they will learn in this fun project:

• Inserting text to create name (change font, size, color, and alignment)
• Learn to organize and space items appropriate for proportion of slide size
• Align text and shapes (spacing and sizing are important for this!)
• Search through the shapes library to find shapes that begin with the letters of their first name (phonics in action)
• Add up how many shapes are in each letter column
• Create an equation based on the number of shapes in each column
• Change the background color of a slide
• Export each slide as an image (Mac) or take a screen shot of slide in full screen (iPad)
• Share!

Ways to share student creations:

• Have each student upload their image to a Padlet wall.
• Each student uses Airdrop to drop their image to one iPad and that one iPad can combine all to create an iMovie or Clips video with all of the class images.
• Each student can create a checkthis.com site where they upload their image and write about what each one of the shapes represents. When students are finished, they can publish their site and share their URL with their friends and families!

Each child’s creation will be different and students will interpret the shapes in different ways. It’s important to note that some shapes have multiple meanings and can start with various lettters. For example, in the creative piece below, Austin uses a fork for the word utencil under the letter U.

 

Writing with Technology

Writing Prompt with Common Core Writing Anchor Standard

I love the Write About This app and the students really enjoy using the iPads in writing. Here’s what I really like about using this app:

1. You can customize the levels (Levels 1-3) for the writing prompt (great for differentiation among students).

2. You can add a custom writing prompt (only one per device for the free version).

3. Students can directly email their finished writing prompt to their teacher.

4. Students can practice their oral reading fluency by recording their voice as they read the story and can make changes as needed.

5. Students can save their writing with audio to the iPad camera roll and export that video to YouTube, website, student blog, etc.

What I LOVE to do is to have my students use this amazing website, which has a TON of awesome writing prompts. Students may choose their own writing prompt that interests them, or I can provide them with the prompt for them to use. Another feature I love about these writing prompts is they have the CCSS listed on most of the writing prompts. These prompts are geared for older elementary students (4th & 5th) and up. Click here to see these amazing writing prompts. Here is a list of 28 tried and true writing prompts from this site.

Below are some other fabulous sites that either has video writing prompts, picture writing prompts, or written writing prompts that you can use in conjunction with the Write About This app, for student typing practice with laptops or in computer lab, or journal writing. You could easily just project one of these prompts onto your Promethean Board and have students write from there. My favorite is using the Write About This app because it is real data with their recorded voice and it would be a great artifact to have when speaking to parents at conferences as well as a wonderful component to digital portfolios.

 Nice Collection of Video Writing Prompts

Pinterest Page on Writing Prompts

Pinterest Page on Picture Writing Prompts

Pictures for Writing Prompts

Here’s a few samples that two of my students created using the writing prompts that they selected.