Have you seen these tiny little robots that have been all over Facebook and Instagram?  I have shared about them a few times and I have had a ton of questions about them.  Well...these tiny robots are called ozobots and they are a great way to get your kids excited about coding.

I've been asked ... "How do you incorporate ozobots into your classroom schedule?"  I have found that ozobots are a great way to incorporate STEM challenges during my lessons.  I decided to start a blog series to show you a few different ways that you can integrate ozobots into your classroom.

Here is how I used ozobots in my math lesson to help my students learn and review different angles and measurement.

Ozobots can be programmed using markers and also by using ozoblockly, which is a block based coding language that is similar to that used in Scratch.

Since my students had never used ozobots before, I decided to start by giving them time to explore with them.  I shared how to calibrate them using the black dot and I also shared how to use the markers to draw a track for them.  I partnered the kids up and gave them a piece of white poster board (cut in 1/2) for them to draw a track on.  Then I let them go explore!

Some of my kids drew a track and some decided to create an ozobot race.  It was so much fun to see all of the different things that they created for the ozobots.  During the exploring time, I walked around and talked to the students to see what they were able to create.  It was very helpful to have time for them to explore on their own too.

After the exploration time and my math lesson on angles, I gave my students the rules for our STEM challenge.  I wrote down the rules on an anchor chart for them to refer back to.

I gave each table a big piece of white paper, markers, a protractor, and an ozobot to program. I encouraged my students to plan out their track first by using pencil and then to trace it with the markers. It worked really well. The students were able to create their angles and then they were able to connect the angles to make their track. Their favorite part was adding the color codes to make their track a little more interesting. Turbo and backwalk were their favorites!

This was a great lesson to help my kids review angles and also to program those angles for their ozobot to follow.  It also helped build teamwork, problem solving, and persistence.  My kids had a blast too.

I hope that you were able to find some useful tips and tricks on how to integrate ozobots into your math classroom. Make sure you check out the next blog post in this series. Feel free to leave any questions that you have in the comments below.

Also, I would love for you to join my all new Learning Chambers Code Club. I will be sending out emails about how I integrate both unplugged coding challenges and both block and written code in my classroom. I'll also be sharing tips, tricks, freebies, and much more! No worries, I promise to not spam your inbox :). I'm so super excited to have you join the new LC Code Club. You can join below.

Come Be a Part of the LC Code Club!

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Stephanie

Hi y'all!  Are you staying warm today?  It's not super cold here in Houston, but it's in the low 30s and that is pretty cold to me!

Today I'm super excited because I'm sharing some technology tips on The Elementary Entourage blog.  Here is a quick sneak peek of what tips I'm sharing.

Make sure you click on the blog button below to go read the rest of the post.

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Stephanie

Today I'm linking up with Great Minds Teach Alike for her monthly Tech Talk blog hop.

Yesterday I shared how I used Edmodo in my classroom during guided reading.  If you would like to read that post first, you can click on the blog button below.

First..."What is Edmodo?"  Well....Edmodo is an online social community where teachers and their students can safely communicate, complete assignments, quizzes, and share links or files.  It's super safe because you are in your own little protected garden.  Only people with your group code or people that you connect with can see and respond to the content that you share.  I do have to teach my kids not to give out their username and password.  We also talk about internet safety and procedures on how to communicate appropriately.

Today I thought I would share more about how I use Edmodo in my classroom for word work practice.

My kids can get super bored with our word work station from time to time, so I wanted to try incorporating technology with word work.

The easiest activity that I love to do using Edmodo and word work, is to post a phonics video from You Tube.  The kids get their netbook or iPad and log into Edmodo.  In their group, I'll have posted a link to the video and a short question for them to answer after the video. 

For this one, the kids watched a silent e video a few times and practiced by writing down the words in their journal.  Then I asked them to share a few of the words that end with a silent e in the comments.  Super easy and engaging!

Another activity that I wanted to share, can be done as a check for understanding after your students complete their word work lesson in guided reading.

For this one, I taught my students about compound words during guided reading and we found them inside the book that we were reading.  Before I finished with this group, I instructed them to log into Edmodo to take a short compound word quiz.

The quiz was just 4 short questions....

This helped me see which students had mastered compound words and which needed more help.  You can also grade quizzes and they are a great way to keep track of data.  The students complete their quiz after guided reading during our workstation time.  I do give them a few days to finish though, but it really depends on the length of the quiz.

Those are a few of the ways that I incorporate technology and Edmodo into my word work station.

I would love to continue this Edmodo series on my blog.  What are some other things about Edmodo that I should blog about?  Let me know in the comments!

Make sure you head back over to Great Minds Teach Alike to read the other Tech Talk blog posts in the blog hop.  Click on her blog button below.

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Stephanie

I know that I've been promising to post about how I incorporate technology into my guided reading groups for a while now....so I thought that Buzzing With Mrs. McClain's You Oughta Know blog hop was the perfect time to share one trick that I use.

I think that you oughta know how to use edmodo during your small group reading time.

First..."What is edmodo?"  Well....edmodo is an online social community where teachers and their students can safely communicate, complete assignments, quizzes, and share links or files.  It's super safe because you are in your own little protected garden.  Only people with your group code or people that you connect with can see and respond to the content that you share.  I do have to teach my kids not to give out their username and password.  We also talk about internet safety and procedures on how to communicate appropriately.

I teach second grade and one thing that I love to do with my kiddos is to start book clubs as we begin to read more chapter books.  They get so excited to share and I love hearing them discuss and respond to the chapter book.

One thing that I struggle with is keeping a schedule of each date that they need to finish certain chapters.  It's even harder when you have multiple book clubs going at the same time.  I end up forgetting to remind them to finish their chapters and then it's already time to meet with them in small group again.

I use edmodo to help me keep track of their book clubs and I can even send messages to certain kids to remind them to finish reading.

When I create a group in edmodo, I will name the group after the title of the chapter book that we will be reading.  I like to do that because sometimes I will have another guided reading group read the same book later in the year.  I just add the new kids to the group, and it's easier for me to send them the assignments.

Since my students have been using edmodo all year, I just send them a message on edmodo with the code and they join the group on their own.  I still have a few students that I have to help join the group.  If you are just starting to use edmodo, you will probably need to guide your students to show they how to join a group.

Once the book club group starts, I will hold guided reading group as normal and then I'll release the students to respond to an assignment on edmodo.  I will give them 2 to 3 days to complete the assignment and normally they are very short responses for them to complete.  The students have during our station time to complete the assignment and some like to do it at home for reading homework.  Either way, I always give them time during workstations to complete their book club assignments.

Here is an example of one of the assignments that I recently gave one of my book clubs.

I use the students' responses to help me see what my students understood and also to see what I need to teach next in our guided reading group.  I noticed with this assignment that I needed to reteach how to put the question in my answer when I'm responding.  I also give feedback to each individual student and it's super fast and easy to grade if needed.

I would love to share more about how I use edmodo in both reading and math class.  What are some things that you would like me to share with you guys?  Leave me a comment or question below and I would love to share more in another post.

An InLinkz Link-up

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Stephanie