You were a part of what?! Normoff?! What IS that?

In a previous post I mentioned that I have blogged before as 1/2 of Normoff and TheTechieTeachers. I thought I'd explain who & what that means.

Normoff originated when I co-taught summer school with my good friend, mentor and colleague Angie Kalthoff.  We had a group of both Kindergarten and 1st grade students, so we had difficulty calling them something as a group (not Kinderfriends, not Norman's class, not Kalthoff's students...) so we decided to merge our last names, NORMan and KalthOFF, and came up with Normoff.  Our students that summer then became known as Normoff's class. It was a fun summer that really helped me develop a love for technology in teaching my Kinderkiddos. Angie was our EL teacher at the time and was a forerunner for incorporating technology in her teaching. I learned so much from her (& still do!) as now she is our district's Technology Integrationist and she shares her expertise with others in the district.  She is fantastic at her position and I know myself and all of our students & teachers are better for having her with us! You can check out her blog here and follow her on twitter @mrskalthoff.

Normoff  working together!

Angie and I worked together that summer to develop TheTechieTeachers. We worked on creating work for students that correlated with apps to increase accountability and take teaching with technology a step further. We have had the privilege of presenting at various school districts and conferences across the state. Helping other teachers grow in their use of technology in the classroom has truly become a passion of mine! I learn as much as I share when we do our presentations, it truly is a blessing for me! You can check out our TheTechieTeachers blog here and our website here. We are still presenting and would love to come to share our knowledge with you! We also have products at Teachers Pay Teachers and are continuously completing reviews for educational apps. Be sure to follow us individually and together to get the latest and greatest info!

Day 3 Pebble Go and Needs vs Wants

Last weekend at TIES I had the pleasure of meeting with a Capstone Library vendor and they were showcasing Pebble Go. I fell in love with the product immediately! Pebble Go is described on their website as an emergent reader research solution. It is a website with science and social studies databases including Animals, Biographies, Social Studies and Earth & Space. Basically it is a one stop shop for information about a wide range of science and social studies topics, perfect for your research projects and information gathering needs. Here is why I'm a fan:

-the featured topics.  The variety of topics included in each database is extensive. The topics address many of the Kindergarten science and social studies standards, including needs vs wants and living vs non-living.  I'm also a sort of dinosaur geek so I LOVE that that's there as well!

-the appropriateness for my Kinderkiddos. At Pebble Go I don't need to worry about external ads or my students learning things that they shouldn't be (ummm hello not everyone needs to know the mating rituals of a praying mantis!) Each topic highlights basic information with easy to understand text and clear images.  There are videos that go along with many of the topics as well, providing my students with an extra layer of learning and engagement.

-the ease of use.  I love that there is a read aloud button for everything. In order to maximize their learning about non-fiction topics my students must have access to speakable text.  While we are working hard on our decoding and sight word acquisition, reading this type of material is difficult for even my highest of readers. Pebble Go allows my beginning readers to access meaty informational text by providing easy to use read to me features. And if students don't know a word they can click on it to have a kid friendly definition pop up (that has the read to me function as well) Another great feature is the automatic text highlighting,which is reinforcing their reading and tracking skills while providing quality materials.

-the motivation it provides.  By allowing my students free access to high quality informational text I'm encouraging a variety of literacy and science skills.  They are active researchers, engaging themselves in a world that can take them to so many places, and encourage them to go even further! Most of my students have never heard about ocean animals other than what is in Nemo. Now they can develop their sense of exploration and curiosity with many features of an ocean habitat. They are spending time researching and building their knowledge base about a part of his world that I wouldn't normally be able to take them to. They feel like experts and that does wonders for setting them up with academic confidence and success.

-the multi device capability.  Pebble Go works on desktops, Chromebooks and iOS devices. As far as I can tell all components of the website will work well, including the videos.  I like this as my students can log in with whatever device they have at home to keep on learning!

-the ease of adaptation into multiple standards. Using Pebble Go as a starting point for many classroom projects allows me to incorporate a variety of writing, speaking and listening standards along with the social studies & science standards that are naturally apart of the website.  For example, we are discussing our social studies standard of needs vs wants right now.  I created a writing page for my students to use as they accessed the Pebble Go databases. Students are applying what they are hearing and seeing by making text to world and text to self connections. After students completed their projects, we worked on our speaking standards when we shared our findings with the group. We made great connections to each other and the scientific process when we discovered that most of us located the same ideas for needs. Then we utilized our comparing and contrasting strategies to study what everyone recorded for their wants.  It was easy for me to see what level my students are at in the Blooms Taxonomy scale, as some recalled information from the website while others applied what they heard to their own lives.  By adding this simple writing prompt my students were engaged researchers gaining knowledge about not only social studies, but about the many similarities and differences that make up our classroom. I've posted some of their finished work in the pics (notice the reoccurring Frozen image in the wants section) and just click on the writing page below for your free copy!  Feel free to just print and log in to Pebble Go (they offer a free trial) to try it for yourselves! I don't think you'll be disappointed!

I'm in the process of creating a writing sheet for Holidays Around the World and adapting my Arctic Animal research project as well.   I'll be sure to post what we will be doing with that as I plan on incorporating some different apps as well to take our presentations to the next level! Be sure to follow my blog or on Twitter @teachernorman to make sure you don't miss anything!

PS I am in no way, shape or form affiliated with Pebble Go. They didn't compensate or pay me to write this.  This is just the ramblings of a Kindergarten teacher who likes to shout from the rooftops when I find something that I think can benefit my students. That said, if you or someone you know works for Capstone feel free to pass along my info and hook a teacher up!

 

Day 2- Who Is Teacher Norman?

Well so far I'm 2/2 on my 100 day blog challenge! Just thought I'd shed some light on who I am and why I'm here. My name is Sara and I am a Kindergarten teacher. I LOVE teaching my Kinderkiddos and I truly think each day is a blessing....and a challenge too! I have been teaching K for 5 years now & previously taught Pre-K for about 6 years. Early childhood education is my calling in life and incorporating technology and teaching is my passion! 

I've been lucky enough to be able to share my passion with other educators through conferences and school presentations and it is has been such a positive experience. It was at one of those conferences when one of the breakout sessions challenged the participants to blog for 100 days. They said it would be a positive and rewarding experience on many levels.  I've blogged before as I am a part of Normoff (my friend & amazing tech leader Angie Kalthoff joined forces to share our ideas with the world). I found great joy in it but had a hard time keeping it up when my son was born. I'm hoping for this to be a fresh start for me in the blogging world! But what I hope for the most though it will provide others with some Kinderbrightness & inspiration and give myself a bit of all important reflection and professional growth. 

Oh, I should also mention the blog name Teacher Norman. It comes from the fact that for the majority of the year I get called 'teacher, TEACHER!' plus the occasional mom and yes even grandma. So I'm often saying, 'My name is Norman' (I often drop the Mrs portion of my name due to the high frequency in which I speak in the third person. Norman's class follow me, Norman's friends nice work, Norman's turn to talk so please wait patiently...) When I was reminding one of my Kinderkiddos that my name isn't teacher teacher, he looked right at me and said-Oh right, teacher NOH-MAN! After I thought about reminding him he can drop the teacher part I took pause and smiled in the sweetness of how he said teacher Norman, and that's what matters the most. Not formalities, not correctiveness, just respect. It doesn't matter the words that are said, just the feeling behind them.