Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Study Island High Score

5th Grader Lane Timmons made the Illinois state high score table on the Basketball Game for place value and decimals. His score of 32 put him 7th out of all 5th graders in the state that have completed the game so far. Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their websiteto learn more.

 

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Let's Say Thanks

Here is a great way to say "Thank You" to our troops.

Let's Say Thanks

Simply choose a design, add a message, and send the card!

Goods and Services

Here are some great websites to teach the concept of goods and services!
People provide different things to their community.  These are called goods and services. These activities will help you know the difference between each one.

What do they do?
Match each worker with the good or service that they provide.


Now describe what they do with words.


Decide if each worker provides a good or a service.


See how well you have learned!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Study Island High Scores

Three GCMS students made the Study Island state high score table today!  5th graders Mitchell Meenen and Jacey Goin each scored of 2 in the Sodoku game for number properties, placing them 2nd on the high score table.  5th grader Ben Retherford scored 120 in the Football game for compute solutions, placing him 1st on the state high score table.  Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their website to learn more.

 

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Study Island High Score

5th Grader Wyatt Alan Johnson made the Illinois state high score table on the Archery Game for fractions, decimals and percents. His score of 3150 put him 6th out of all 5th graders in the state that have completed the game so far. Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their websiteto learn more.

 

Study Island High Scores

Two GCMS students made the Study Island state high score table today!  5th grader John Gregory's score of 501 put him 4th in the Chase game for number lines.  4th grader Susan Harmet scored 5010 in the Banana Toss game for compare and order numbers, placing her 6th on the state high score tables.  Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their websiteto learn more.

 

Monday, November 22, 2010

Study Island High Score

5th Grader Tyler Walker made the Illinois state high score table on the Maze Game for Place Value of Decimals. His score of 941 put him 7th out of all 5th graders in the state that have completed the game so far. Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their websiteto learn more.

Study Island Top Scores!

Two GCMS students put up #1 scores on Study Island today!  5th Grader Benjamin Rutherford topped the Illinois state high score table for two categories, Multiplication as Addition and Factors, Multiples, and Squares in the Football game.  Lane Timmons also topped the high score list for Football in the categor of Place Value and Decimals.  Both achieved a score of 120 making them 1st out of all 5th graders in the state that have played the game in their respective categories thus far.  Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their website to learn more.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Study Island #1 High Scores

Two 5th graders topped the Study Island state high score table today!  Lane Timmon's score of 120 put him 1st in the Football game for fractions, decimals and percents.  Ben Rutherford scored 120 in the Football game for comparing and ordering fractions, placing him 1st on the state high score table for that category.  Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their website to learn more.

 

Study Island High Scores!

Two 5th graders made the Study Island state high score table today!  Jeremy Steidinger’s score of 1258 put him 4th in the Bouncing game for place value of decimals.  Addison Nugent scored 9452 in the Sling Shot game for place value of decimals, placing him 6th on the state high score tables.  Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their websiteto learn more.

 

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Study Island High Scores!

Two 5th graders made the Study Island state high score table today!  Jeremy Steidinger's score of 1991 put him 4th in the Bouncing game for multiplication as repeated addition.  John Gregory scored 583 in the Chase game for multiplication as repeated addition, placing him 2nd on the state high score tables.  Great job gentlemen!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their websiteto learn more.

 

Friday, October 22, 2010

Study Island High Score!

5th Grader John Gregory made the Illinois state high score table for algebraic expressions. His score of 132put him 7th out of all 5th graders in the state that have completed the game so far. Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their websiteto learn more.

 

Monday, October 4, 2010

How Big is it Really?

Have I mentioned before how much I love what people are doing with Google Maps?

The BBC site Dimensions is a great use of Google Map technology.  It allows you to superimpose the outlines of different cities, structures, and locations of major events in history over a present day Google map.  In the example above I put the walls of Constantinople circa 340 c.e. next to Gibson City!

One thing to be aware of when using this site is that you will need to adjust the location you enter based on which outline you are wanting to view.  Something smaller like the city of Constantinople can be attached to Gibson City's zip code.  If you want to do something larger like the moon (yes you can do the moon) you may want to type in something like "North America"

As always let me know of any specific uses you find for this tool in the classroom!

Study Island High Score!

5th Grader Bailey Long made the Illinois state high score table for place value of decimals. His score of put her 7th out of all 5th graders in the state that have completed the game so far. Great job!

Study Island is an ISAT prep website used by students all over Illinois. Visit their website to learn more.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Study Island High Score!

5th Grader Jeremy Steidinger made the Illinois state high score table for place value of whole numbers. His score of 5,880 put him 5th out of all 5th graders in the state that have completed the game so far. Great job!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Blabberize



Friday seems like a good day to share this tool. It's called Blabberize, and at first glance, I know it looks silly. The site is incredibly easy to use. Upload a picture, place a mouth on the picture (or multiple mouths if you want), record a sound and you're done! Click my pal to the left to see what I'm talking about.

I challenge you to think about what can actually be done with this tool. Students can create reports in the first person and then "blabberize" them into a relevant picture. Teachers can create "special guests" to introduce a new topic. I'm sure that there are many more possibilities. What can you do with it?

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Taxgedo

Here's a Web 2.0 tool that I highly recommend.  Perhaps you have heard of Wordle, which allows you to create word clouds from a body of text.  Taxgedo takes this concept a step farther by allowing you to apply these word clouds into specific shapes.  I made the one you see in this post using the text of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

An important thing to remember about both Taxgedo and Wordle is that words most used in the text appear largest in the word cloud.  Therefore these word clouds are not only a creative display, but can help students analyse the content of a text.  I foresee a number of great uses for this tool, if you have some good examples leave a comment!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Search for Themes

I am finding that one of the keys for using Wordpress is to find a good theme to work with.  As I do not have the time to create my own from scratch, I have been looking through a lot of different themes to find something that works.  I settled with Suffusion.

I really like the level of customization with this theme.  There are several color schemes, the ability to make custom headers, as well as the ability to change the size, color, and placement for almost any object on screen.  If you are reading this and think you have found something better I am still open for suggestions.  For now, this one is working great!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Wordpress in Education

I have just started using Wordpress as a potential replacement for our old school website that was created with Frontpage a number of years ago.  We're one of the first school districts in our area to do this so I hope to keep a decent record of my experiences as I create our website, stay tuned for more!