Today Rachel invited Shelly and I to share a short presentation in her 1st grade class, because this week she was “Pooh’s Special Friend.”
We were asked to share some information with the class about what we do in our jobs, and especially if we use reading and math in our jobs. This was our presentation. The audio recording runs 21 minutes, 20 seconds.
These were the stuffed animals Rachel brought from home this week, as “Pooh’s Special Friend.”
We passed out slips of paper to all the students with the web address of Rachel’s web show (www.thezebraprint.com) with all her classmates, so they’d be able to go home and see more of her shows!
Rachel drew this Orca during Sunday school today. Their theme (according to her) was about the great salt lake. She wanted to draw a whale. I’m not sure what the actual lesson was, but that’s what she reported.
This evening Rachel picked out one of the picture books I purchased this past December when her sister and I had a chance to visit Farmington, Maine. We found this particular book (Moose Power: Muskeg Saves the Day) at Mooseville, which is a great website and store in Farmington started by a young web entrepreneur.
After reading tonight, Rachel and I recorded a short, five minute audio podcast about why we love these three picture books from Maine. Enjoy!
Another Maine picture book which Rachel and I really like, but we remembered after we finished our audio recording this evening, is “Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud” by Lynn Plourde.
Buying picture books that feature stories and themes from places I visit is one of my favorite things to do when traveling. This allows us to learn more about new places together long after the trip is over. If you’re looking for some good books to add to an elementary classroom library, you might consider one or more of these Maine picture books!
Sarah and Rachel recorded this fourteen minute Cinchcast with me today discussing their initial experiences learning how to create with Scratch software from MIT. They discussed learning how to move Sprites, about costumes, loops, coordinate geometry basics, and more. Download Scratch for free from scratch.mit.edu.
This evening Sarah recorded a new episode for “The International Cooking Show,” demonstrating how to cook Peppermint Fudge Brownies for a holiday potluck. The video is 7 minutes, 49 seconds long.
This episode is significant for several reasons. First of all, it’s the first episode we’ve uploaded to a unique YouTube Channel for The International Cooking Show: www.youtube.com/intcooking. Sarah is applying for a public magnet school next year in Oklahoma City, and we realized all her cooking videos have not (previously) been aggregated on a single website. She wants to list her cooking show on her application resume, so this is needed! We’ll be uploading past episodes to this channel soon, along with new shows.
This episode is also significant because it’s the first one we’ve not only entirely shot on an iPhone4, but also edited and published with an iPhone4 using the $4 app ReelDirector. ReelDirector is compatible with other iOS devices in addition to the iPhone4 and the 4th generation iPod Touch. iMovie for iOS costs $5 but will NOT work on older devices. Since both iMovie and ReelDirector provide movie editing and publishing features, I figured our money would be better spent on an app which will run on our older iOS devices as well as the newest.
Learn more about “The International Cooking Show,” which was designed to be a collaborative project but still needs other project collaborators, on internationalcooking.pbworks.com. In 2011 we’re going to list the project on some collaborative project websites to solicit more participation!
Rachel and Sarah: Since you both love the Voices app and the Chipmunk option so much, I’m sure you’ll be interested to learn how you can use the free program Audacity to change voices into “Chipmunk” sounding voices. One of my UNT students created the following screencast explaining how.
I’ve published all the photos from the trip Sarah and I took to New Hampshire and Maine last week to a new Flickr collection.
I still have more videos to publish, but it’s good to have all the photos online. I’ve found if I don’t share photos fairly soon after a trip, lots of other things get my attention and it’s more challenging to do it later. Lots of GREAT memories were made on this trip. 🙂
Alex: If my invitation to Abilene, TX for a conference where Woz will be the keynote comes through, I want to take you. I want you, Sarah & Rachel to have opportunities to tinker with digital stuff like he did growing up.
