Arduino

February 9th, 2017



On February 9th,  I was invited to a teacher's workshop at Bitspace on Lawrence Avenue in Chicago. The topic of the workshop was on Arduinos. I have been to workshops before on coding. I am now imparting my knowledge of coding to my students. Last year, I ordered finch robots from the Chicago Public Library and my students loved those. In addition, I also used dash and dot to make learning programming more exciting. Students loved dash and dot and I only wish I had more. I have heard of arduino  but did not know much about them. This workshop I went to at Bitspace was awesome. According to Arduino website it is: "is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online." Basically, I learned how to use wires using Arduino to make an LED light light up and how to create buzzers. The presenter at this workshop gave a wonderful presentation and refresher course on understanding voltage, wattage, power, resistors , circuits and so much more. It was great networking with other teachers and hear how they would use arduinos in the classroom. I hope to incorporate it into the coding curriculum as there is a bit of coding involved in Arduino! I am looking into seeing how I can acquire Arduinos for my classroom. 

The Smoking Mirror Garza Twins book One

January 30, 2017

I really enjoyed reading the book, The Smoking Mirror Garza Twins Book One by David Bowles. I read it because it was on this year's Chicago Public Schools Battle of the Books List. The cover has a wolf like creature coming out of a tunnel and that just drew me to read the book right away. I read it over winter break. It was a very easy, enjoyable read. Even though you really had to use your imagination to visualize what this world was like, it was easy to go on this adventure with twin brother and  sister , Carol and Johnny. Carol and Johnny are on a fantastical, magical adventure to save their mother! Furthermore, the author tries to weave in a bit of mythology and that makse the story more interesting. READ THIS BOOK TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS. I am going to find out if there is a BOOK TWO! I sure hope so.

Learning Keynote

Keynote

 Tuesday November 1st, 2016

     On Tuesday, I had an invitation for educators to go to the Apple Store in Oakbrook to learn about keynote for iPads. I just received an email that Apple is providing free education lessons for educators on certain days and times as well as various Apple locations. I am not sure how long they have been having educator workshops but I am glad to know about them now. There is no cost to join. LaSalle II Library has a set of classroom iPads and I am in charge of managing them. I admit that I knew about keynote but never really gave it second thought because I am use powerpoint and now google slides. However, I thought just go because you will never know. Keynote is very interesting. It is similar to powerpoint but built for iPads. I am still playing around with it. I like how you can use the pictures from your camera roll and easily insert those pictures into your slide. I also love how you can make pictures transparent. You can manipulate your objects on the slide. You can also use your finger to circle important things on the slide that you want your viewer to focus on. The presenter said that there is so much more to keynote than what he taught us. I would like to play around with it more and see if this is something students would like to use as a presentation option.

BoxCar Children in Graphic Novel Form!

June 1st, 2016

I used to read the first book of The BoxCar Children to my second and third graders.  I only had The BoxCar Children in chapter book format. The students loved it! I used to love it when I was a kid but I was not sure if The BoxCar Children was still popular with students today. I was happy to find out they still are. So much so that i had to pull them out and put them in a section of the library so students in primary grades can find them more easily. However, I wished the book had more pictures! To my surprise, I found The BoxCar Children in graphic novel format! I was so excited! It has wonderful pictures and it allows me to finish reading the book at a much faster pace! I can ask my students to compare the two formats-the chapter novel format and graphic novel format. I have not read this to my students yet via the document camera but I will keep you posted. 

Gum Girl!

May 31st, 2016

     The Gumazing Gum Girl by Rhode Montijo

             

I just started reading this book as a read aloud to my kindergartners, first graders. and third graders. I saw this book on another librarian's blog and thought I should add this book to the LaSalle II library collection. I thought it would pair up nicely with my invention book, called POP that I previously discussed in my blog. I thought they might pair up nicely as a nonfiction/fiction book. Many students loved the book, Pop , so much so that I cannot keep it on the shelf! So I decided to stick with the gum theme as students can relate to gum chewing. I thought I would teach about graphic novels/comic books and this book was a basic introduction to the design of graphic novels. I was nervous reading this out loud to my students because I never usually read a graphic novel out loud but this book was part story and part comic. Also, I never read chapter books (this one has eight chapters) because I do not have my students every day and it would take a long time to finish reading the whole book! However, I was pleasantly surprised as I read Chapter one to my students and when I  said I was going to leave Chapter two for next week, they were all like NOOOOOOOOO! I even had one student try to sneak a peak to see what would happen next in the book! I am so glad I purchased it!

Pop!

Did you ever wonder how Bubble Gum was invented? Well, this delightful story tells you how!

Why did I order this book for the LaSalle II Library? I had ordered invention books for the library and I am always looking for books about inventions. I perused through other CPS librarian blogs and I saw this book on the blog! This book tells a great story about the man who invented bubble gum. It is a nonfiction book but it is told like a story which makes for a very good read aloud.

I also liked how the back of the book provides more facts about the man who invented bubble gum. It shows students that anyone can invent something. The book also provides interesting facts about bubble gum like how much bubble gum is sold daily.

The front of the book is so delightful and I hope it is sure to grab a student's attention! I now know who invented bubble gum! Do you?

CAREER BOOKS

CAREERS IN STEM

I just ordered these CALLING ALL INNOVATOR books for the LaSalle II library. I used to have a set of career books but no longer use them because they are very outdated. These are so exciting because there is a big push for students to consider careers in STEM. I ordered 18 of these books in various careers of course. I am having students partner up with a partner since I do not have enough books. Some of the students can also utilize the kids info bits database offered through CPS and research careers and jobs. Students will use the books to research salary, education, license/certification and projected numbers of careers in that field. 

          The books give a lot of information so they would be great to use for middle school students. Every book is designed the same way. There is an interview with a top person in that field who gives advice to young people who are considering a career in the field. There are wonderful pictures and labels depicting how far we have come. 

      The books also have a glossary, timeline, and suggested resources for learning more about this field. Not only does it talk about the careers in general and famous people who have risen to prominence in their fields but how STEM skills were use to solve the problems in the past and how they are being used to solve today's problems!

     I am starting to use these books tomorrow with seventh and eighth graders and will keep you posted. I am most curious to see what kind of careers they pick!