Soft Technology

Here are some Seesaw activities to go along with some of Mo Willems' Pigeon books! Click each image for a link to the activity. Remember, you can customize directions to fit the needs of your objectives and students!

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Who doesn't love this book? An absolute classic!  With Year 1 doing their Minibeast topic, I had to make a link and explore the book. We had read it through and used some of the brilliant Talk4Writing techniques to help us retell the story. To engage the children further, we decided to create our own version of the story starring Year 1. To do this we used the masking tool with the brilliant Doink Greenscreen app. This short video demonstrates the process: Once all the children had created their video on Doink Greenscreen. We put it all together in Apple Clips where pupils could also add emojis for all the food. This was their finished video: I can't wait to use this idea with other areas of the curriculum!

You may remember a project I did with Year One last term: I decided to do a similar project with Year Three for their science topic about the Human Body.  We started with the Curiscope Virtuali-tee. This amazing augmented reality t-shirt never fails to create a lesson of awe and wonder! If you've not ordered one of their t-shirts, I would highly recommend it. Buy a t-shirt here. As a class, we explored all the different parts of the body and used the guide to learn facts about how our body works and what each organ does. The children were then given a part of the body and given some more time to find other facts about it. Using the app Chatterkids Pix, the children had to create animated videos sharing their learning. The students also used Greenscreen to create images giving the illusion we could see inside their body. Using Seesaw, they labelled all the different parts of the body: To link everything together, we used the app Thinglink. This allowed all the pupils to embed their

I've just returned from the best holiday with my amazing family in Florida. We had such an amazing time. While having a chat at night with my brother we got onto the topic of making a Podcast. My younger brother works as a HLTA in a primary school and from sharing stories about life in the classroom, we decided to give it a go. And so I am proud to introduce: Two Mr Ps in a Pod(Cast) The idea of the podcast is to share funny stories from the classroom. What makes teaching one of the best jobs in the world is that no day is ever the same, and some of the things that happen and what children say keep us laughing through the current stress and pressure of our profession. We want to use this podcast to bring humour back into schools and show its not all doom and gloom.  We want to hear from you too! What stories do you have from the classroom? Please share them here: Loading... So we have just released our first episode. If you have an Apple device, you can listen to it here: It is als

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Ever since John Murray ( @ReadingExplorer ) visited our school around 5 years ago, our school's approach to reading has changed massively. One aspect of the training which has really engaged our teachers and students was the use of picture books as a stimulus in English. It is something we have embraced right from EYFS to Year 6 and every class do at least one unit of English based on a picture book. Since then, there's been a wealth of resources and support for using picture books to inspire English. One of my favourite people to follow on twitter is Simon Smith ( @SmithSmm ) who, for me, is like the guru of children's fiction. I was truly inspired by his session at Reading Rocks around the brilliant Arthur and The Golden Rope picture book. Click the picture to read Simon's blog post on this: Year 4 have started looking at the beautiful book 'Flotsam.' Having explored the first few pages, we decided to create short videos telling the story in our own words. To

Recently, I was asked to write an article for Teach Primary magazine alongside John Murray ( @ReadingExplorer. ) The topic was to explain the pedagogy behind the Read Write Perform approach. You can read the article here: A big focus with Read Write Perform is to get teachers to value oral speaking skills and demonstrate how much speaking and listening benefits other areas of the English curriculum. I see with many schools the constant accountability of work in books through Book Scrutinies is forcing many teachers to neglect this part of the English Curriculum. This was something I discussed in Episode 1 of Taking Teaching Back: The obsession with work in books can create barriers for certain children if writing is something they struggle with. I have seen this in maths and reading especially. If the only way a student can show their understanding and reasoning is by writing it as a full sentence in their book, it may look like they are struggling if writing is challengeing.  Through

Check out these impressive Seesaw numbers! Way to go, BPS teachers & students!

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Deana Elder just purchased many licenses for these awesome math apps gone free. If any Billings Schools teachers would like these apps installed on their iPads, they just need to complete a Help Ticket! SmartCards+ Flashcards System Math Rescue Games For Rounding Animal Math First Grade Games Also, don't forget the growing collection of Math Apps in my Participate Collection!

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Check out this fun option for a summer kids' camp! Breakout Edu based, facilitated by the amazing Mark Kane! Click above for more info.

Using Classkick for Instant Feedback June 18th 8:30-11:30 Lincoln Center, room 308 REGISTER HERE Let's TACO 'Bout PicCollage June 18th 12:30-3:30 Lincoln Center, room 308 REGISTER HERE Seesaw Basics  (for beginners to Seesaw) June 19th 8:30-11:30 Lincoln Center, room 308 *NOTE: NEW TIME REGISTER HERE Seesaw Activities, Folders & Skills  (for intermediate to advanced users) June 19th 12:30-3:30 Lincoln Center, room 308 *NOTE: NEW TIME REGISTER HERE All of these courses are worth 3 OPI renewal units. Don't forget, if you are planning to use any of these courses for step up, you'll need to complete the step up request form online at  bit.ly/BillingsPD . Nikki Vradenburg, Teacher Liaison for PBS Montana, also put together a great list of summer PD opportunities in Montana and surrounding areas.  CLICK HERE  to view her list! Also, be sure to check the BPSTIS site frequently, as new courses will be posted there as they are scheduled.

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If you're looking for a great online learning option this summer, check out my FREE facilitated course on the OPI Learning Hub. In the course Student Created Digital Portfolios , teachers will utilize the free digital learning portfolio tool Seesaw to research, analyze and create digital portfolios. Teachers will have the opportunity to collaborate, learn and share ideas in this hands-on learning environment. Participants will research types of learning portfolios, discuss why portfolios are essential in today's classrooms, and compare student portfolios with professional learning portfolios.  The course is facilitated and will run May 14th-June 10th. Teachers will earn 15 OPI renewal units. Billings teachers, step-up approval has been submitted to the PDAAC committee. To register, visit bit.ly/OPILearningHub . Registration should be open very soon!