BloomBoard: A Great Resource for Teachers

After teaching third grade for the past 14 years, I made the switch to fifth grade this school year.  I am truly enjoying getting to know a new curriculum and feeling rejuvenated.  With that being said, I have also spent a TON of time searching for resources to support my curriculum and build background knowledge. As with most things, when you have a question or need ideas, what do you do?  I bet you Google it, which also means, you are probably on a mini-scavenger hunt to scan and search for quality resources.  I recently found out about a great resource for educators that is a huge timesaver!  BloomBoard is a place for educators to learn, share, and discuss educational topics, resources, and ideas!

Instead of digging around the web for quality sites, games, articles, videos, etc., BloomBoard has collections created by educators that focus on topics relevant to education.  There are content-specific categories with awesome resources, but what drew me in even more, was the focus on broader topics like: Educating the Whole Child, Maintaining Professional Happiness, Building Strong School Culture, etc. What’s even cooler is that you can follow certain topics of interests, save and share resources, and even earn micro-credentials, which some school districts are using for PD credits.

I created a collection on Formative Assessment called “Formative Assessment Can Be Fun” highlighting two of my favorite tools, Plickers and Kahoot, as well as several articles and videos showcasing ways students can have fun while being assessed.  Here are some of the highlighted tools.

• If your students don’t have access to devices, Plickers is the tool for you.  Also, they just launched an amazing new feature with Scoresheet, which makes data collection far more flexible and user-friendly!
• Kahoot has been a student favorite for several years. My students are now creating their own Kahoots to quiz fellow classmates, as well as lead book club discussions.
• C. Ross Flatt and his sixth-grade students were featured in an Edutopia video highlighting game-based assessment.  He not only showcases the fun way assessment can be administered, but he also has links to his game for teachers to print off from the main blog post.
• David Wees, a formative assessment specialist, shared a presentation with 56 ways to assess, complete with visual examples.

Overall, my collection has many great resources featured that will help you in finding the formative assessment tool(s) that are right for you!  Like many of the BloomBoard collections, you can find resources to help you everyday needs in education, connect with like-minded educators, and help improve your practices.

Check out the BloomBoard blog. You can check it out to get links to the blogs that that have already been featured, as well as check out the schedule of featured bloggers for next week that will be posted on Monday. You can also follow along daily on Facebook and Twitter.

Tomorrow's featured blogger is Jennifer Gonzalez. Jennifer Gonzalez is a National Board Certified Teacher, a former middle-school language arts teacher and college-level teacher of teachers, and the creator of Cult of Pedagogy, a website devoted to helping teachers do their work better.

Making Memories at Maker Faire Detroit

This past weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to share Maker Faire Detroit with a handful of my students from last year.  During our Goal Time last year, our own version of Genius Hour, there was a group of students who created the T-Spa and began a sugar scrub business.  With the funds collected from their sales over the year at Glengary Elementary in Walled Lake, we were able to purchase materials for Maker Faire Detroit, and teach other people how to make their own sugar scrub.  In addition, a second business was created towards the end of the year making paracord bracelets.  C and J’s Paracord was also able to attend the Maker Faire.  Together, the businesses merged and became SpaCord. Maker Faire Detroit waived the fee to sell things, as the kids wanted the profits to go to foster kids. There is a resource for foster families in Livingston County called Hope's Closet that helps out foster families with getting clothes, hygiene supplies, and bedding for foster children.

We were lucky enough to be able to join together last week to prep our materials for Maker Faire.  We were not sure how many to prep, but we wanted to be efficient at our booth. We spent about 2 hours getting things ready! I was thankful for the help of supportive parents as we planned for the weekend!

My garage became a staging area for the weekend, complete with small 4 oz. cups of coconut oil, 60 pounds of sugar, marketing materials, and more!  I wanted to have a formal banner for our booth, and I lucked out, as Staples Copy Center was having a sale on banners.  I was able to get a grommeted banner for $25.00.

Here are some photos from Maker Faire Detroit!

My students shared the steps in making your own sugar scrub. 2 parts sugar...1 part coconut oil! 

There were awesome glasses that people could geek out with duck tape. 

Here are some members of my PLN making their own scrubs...Rachelle(@Miss Galang) and Mary (@WeverWorld)! 

We all had fun with our geeked out Maker Faire glasses! 

In addition to showcasing our Goal Time projects, I also promoted Destination Imagination, a creative problem solving competition for K-University students. I was fortunate enough to have promotional materials from the Michigan Creativity Association, as well as instant challenges I put together for the attendees of Maker Faire. People of all ages loved trying out the tasks, as well as learning more about this wonderful after-school program.  I am embarking on my 16th year as a team manger/coordinator, and I loved sharing my passion for the program with others! 

The challenge was to create a device that would balance a cup at least 6 inches about the table using an index card, a straw, 2 paper clips, and 1 label. :)

I have to give a special thanks to my family.  My husband had to make a special trip back to Brighton to pick up the banner that I left behind, and he hung out at the booth doing a great job of marketing our sugar scrub!  He's a salesman by trade...so he worked his magic on the attendees of Maker Faire! 

My own children enjoyed hanging out all over the Maker Faire.  They wandered around each day finding awesome things to do, in addition to helping out at our booth.  My daughter loved Theatre Bizarre, as well as taking apart laptops at the MSU/4H booth! 

One of the highlights was having Dale Doughtery stop at our booth!  We had tweeted back and forth at ISTE last month, and I tweeted him again while we were at our booth. 

 He found us and hung out for a bit!  We even sent him off with his own sugar scrub sample! 

Our Maker Faire Detroit experience was cut short due to Mother Nature.  We knew the rain was coming in, and actually it held off longer than I was expecting.  Luckily I had a wonderful family that helped me with our booth materials...even though we all got soaked in the process!  Thank-you Zube family! I left Maker Faire looking like a drowned rat and chilled to the bone, but inside I was thankful for the experience and glad that I participated as a maker! I received wonderful comments from the families that participated, and I am so glad that I was able to continue my impact on their lives...even in the middle of summer! 

My daughter and I were soaked from the rain but still smiling!

The Joys of Scrap Paper

A few years back, I had a Destination Imagination team that was made up of all Kindergartners.  At competition, their instant challenge consisted of cutting out pieces of dinosaur body parts from tagboard and making new dinosaurs. After their creation time, they had to create a play about their new dinosaurs.  When time was called and the play needed to begin, one of the partnerships did not have a new dinosaur created. The other kids began the play and used their new dino puppets.  One of the girls who was unable to complete her new dino grabbed a scrap piece of paper from the floor and started using it as a puppet to engage in the play.  It was a oval that was cut out and she used the edges as a mouth chomping up and down as she spoke. Then another boy grabbed a scrap and joined in.  It was so great to see the lack of barriers to their creativity.  Though they were not successful with the ideal outcome of having a new dinosaur created, they were successful in joining in on the performance.  A scrap of paper became a character to brought to life with a splash of imagination and the ability to take a risk! This has stuck with me for many years, as it was an example of raw creativity.

Today, my class was cutting out circles for our math lesson on mixed numbers.  They had a strip of paper with 4 circles that had to be cut out.  When I saw the pile of scraps in my recycling bin, I was reminded of the DI experience. Since it was also Earth Day, I decided it was the perfect day to have fun with the scraps. After lunch, I told the kids the story about the dino play, and I told them that they were going to have 15 minutes to play with a piece of scrap paper.  We discussed the many ways play could be addressed, from puppets to art work to origami and more! I was curious if anything would be different with 8-9 year olds.  Would they be able to see the opportunities in a small scrap of paper?

I ended up extending the time a bit, as my room became full of imagination, joy, and innocence.  The play I witnessed reminded me of the days observing preschool rooms, yet with a hint of sophistication, as many of the students were using their devices to create videos.  I was reminded of the hearts and minds in all of our students and the spirit of childhood within each of them.  They had a blast either playing with their 1 scrap of paper or collaborating with others. We had videos, live performances, and art work shared. One boy even created a soccer game with his scrap.  We will be doing this again, as it was a hit.  Not only did they have a bit of time to discover the possibilities of a simple object, but they also discovered that expensive material objects are not always the ultimate in entertainment.  I videoed some of the activity, and I encourage you to see the joys that a scrap of paper can bring to children!

(If you are curious to hear the reflections from the students, they begin at 3:35.)

Creativity is part of my soul, and I am always striving for ways to integrate it into my classroom.  To get a peek into the other things Team Bond and I are doing, please check out my website: Cheers to Creativity and Innovation! 

The Governor's Education Summit

   

Gov. Snyder was present and active throughout the entire conference.  

    

         I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Governor’s Education Summit, a conference held in East Lansing yesterday. I was unaware that this conference even existed, until a month ago when I was attending the MACUL Conference.  The documentary, Look I’m Learning, was a part of the conference, and my classroom was a part of the film, focusing on BYOD in elementary classrooms.  Bruce Umpstead, the Director of Educational Technology, is the Executive Producer for the film, and he invited me to join the Summit. 

            I have to be honest, I had my doubts prior to attending the conference.  The agenda was sent out a few days before, however we did get an email to review the Economic Summit’s Report from the March conference a couple of weeks before.  I was a bit surprised to see that a panel on the importance of Early Childhood Education lacked an Early Childhood teacher or even a preschool director.  It did include many prominent people, but I was a bit offended that they wouldn't have invited someone that worked on the front lines.

            The conference ended up being a motivating and inspiring event.  It blended business, non-profit, University, and K-12 Educational leaders together, and we had fabulous discussions on the strengths and challenges we have in our education systems around the state.  It was wonderful to be in groups that were so diverse.  From a Deputy Superintendent from Wayne-Westland to the Chief Learning Officer for the Henry Ford, we were able to be on the same page.  Throughout the conference, it was nice to hear different perspectives on education, whether it be from a teacher in another district or the President of a bank.   

The conference was set up to allow for collaboration.  After the morning keynote we broke up into regional groups.  We discussed the strengths, challenges, and opportunities in our region.  It was difficult to be on the same page, as our region included Oakland, Wayne, and Macomb.  The challenges that I have in Walled Lake are vastly different than the challenges I learned about in Detroit and Southgate.  Even though, it was great to get different viewpoints. In the end, we shared our ideas and created a regional chart.  Our conversations were eventually shared at the closing keynote panel, with representatives from all of the regions.

The Strengths and Challenges of Region 10

We enjoyed a sit down lunch, and again, I enjoyed hearing different perspectives.  I sat with 2 men that represented Christian School Leadership, a Director of Membership in the Detroit Area Health Council, and  2 men from the city of Grand Rapids, one of which I found out graduated from Oxford High School…9 years after I did.  I enjoyed catching up with him on some of the teachers we shared and how his experiences compared. 

With so much to share, I decided to break up this entry into two parts!  I hope you will look forward to reading Part 2, where I discuss my thoughts of Governor Snyder, Early Childhood Education, and 2 other Oxford High School connections that also attended the conference!