Bringing NASA to Janesville, WI

Coming Live from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, students were involved virtually on an interactive lesson called "Our Solar Neighborhood".

Our solar system is a vast area with planets, asteroids, comets, and other objects orbiting one star, our Sun. What are the distinguishing characteristics of the planets in our solar system, the distances between them, and the paths they travel? 

During this event, students exchanged information about our distinctive planets orbiting one massive star, our Sun. They learned about current NASA missions and how they use the information gathered to further our exploration of space.

The information and visuals shared with the students were amazing.  Our speaker was very knowledgable and was able to answer questions and bring up visuals for the students almost immediately.  She was able to break down the distance from the earth to the sun in ways the students could understand.  She also shared about the New Horizon satellite on its way to Pluto and the new telescope being built that is over double the size of the Hubble Telescope and will see farther into space than ever before.

Some other information the students learned was the distances of each planet from the sun, the inner and outer planets of the solar system, physical characteristics of the planets, the difference between our planet and the gas planets, and what constitutes a dwarf planet.

It was truly an amazing lesson and experience for these third graders as they finished their unit on "Objects in the Sky".

Learning about Ocean Animals Virtually

Today, my Kindergarten classes learned about the amazing animals in the ocean from marine biologist Abbie Hines.  Abbie resides in the United Kingdom but does most of her work in the Seychelles, islands located in the Indian Ocean.  Abbie is also a Marine Educator, Diver, Conservationist, Founder of WiseOceans (www.wiseoceans.com), and a Project Leader for Save our Seas Foundation (www.saveourseas.com) running a school's marine education project in Seychelles.

The lesson today was called "Let's See Who Lives in the Sea" and was a visual look at the variety of creatures who live in our oceans.

Students got to see a selection of photos highlighting some of the incredible diversity we have in our oceans. The children were able to hear a short explanation of the different creatures from a real life Marine Biologist!

Abbie's goal with these virtual lessons is to give the students knowledge about the life in the oceans so that we are much more likely to preserve it. By instilling this at a young age we really start to develop budding young marine biologists!

The students were able to ask a variety of questions, ranging from her life as a marine biologist to wonderings about the variety animals like "how do turtles eat jellyfish"?

It was an informative and once in a lifetime experience for these kids.

Kindergarten Project - ABC Digital Stories

I think this may have been one of my more favorite projects this year.  I worked with the three Kindergarten classrooms on creating digital stories.  We focused our story on the ABCs and further tied it to our school.
I took students in groups of three and we went around the building trying to find things that started with their letter in the alphabet.  After all letters were found and had a picture, we put all the pictures into iMovie.  The kids typed the word on to their picture and then recorded their information, such as A is for Apple.
The result was such a cute digital story that they can then share with the incoming Kindergarten to know a little more about our school.  Some of them got pretty creative when finding something that began with their letter.
The kindergarteners had a great time creating these stories and they learned some valuable skills along the way such as some phonics skills, creativity, keyboarding, fluency practice, and importing pictures.

"Just Jake" Visits Virtually

Today, fifth grade students at Jefferson got to speak virtually with Jake Marcionette. Jake is the author of the book Just Jake. The most amazing thing, is that he had this book published at the age of 13.

Just Jake is a book loosely based on Jake's actual life. The book "introduces readers to sixth-grader Jake, whose life is turned upside down when his family moves from Florida to Maryland, where Jake must adapt to a new school. Jake has always ranked the kids at school in his hand-made, humorous “Kid Cards,” and when he arrives at his new school, Jake starts building a new collection, befriending as many people as he can while staying under the radar from the school bully.  But what happens when the school bully decides Jake's next in line for annihilation and his Kid Cards get into the wrong hands?!! JUST JAKE is a genuine—and as Jake himself would say, AWESOME!—world of school, family, friends, and teachers; it’s the product of a writer talented well beyond his years."  Jake's book also made the New York Times Best Seller List! 

In this virtual experience, Jake spoke to the kids about the themes of his book like dealing with bullies and remembering to be yourself, everyone is unique and that's okay.  Most of the kids could relate to Jake's life of moving around and dealing with bullies.  Jake also spoke about his journey to becoming a published author, and how he began with not being a fan of reading and writing.  He decided to write a book that an elementary or middle school boy would enjoy reading.

The best advice Jake gave the kids was to find what you love, whatever your passion is, and work at it.  Never think you're too young to do it.  Jake was so animated and interactive with the kids making the overall experience priceless for our students.  What a great lesson!

CBS News Story on Jake

Jake's Website - justjake.com
Jake's Twitter - @jakemarcionette
Jake's Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/JustJakeBooks