Robotics Lesson One Results!

Hey everyone!

I have finally started teaching my robotics course on a regular schedule! Yay! The beginning of the year was a scorcher and we had multiple early outs due to heat. Typically, on 1-hour and 2-hour early outs, we have students. Our new superintendent was being very nice and allowing us 3-hour early outs since it was so STINKING HOT! The sad part of this is...we didn't get our students for those days. :( Good news is that we have our kids back now! WOOHOO!! And, even better...they LOVE robotics!

The first lesson in robotics was to create a personal definition of what you thinks robotics means and create an image of what they think a robot looks like and show it doing something a robot does. I got some really cool images that I would like to share with all of you! They came up with some really great ideas! 

I will post some of their enlightening definitions later on, but I don't have them with me! Look forward to that! :)

Pep Talk from Kid President for Teachers and Students!

Hello friends!

I know the year has already started, but some of us may already need a little pep talk from our friend, Kid President! :) He has an awesome new video on telling bullies to not repeat the past and keep moving forward to make the world more AWESOME! 

Check it out! :)

Welcome to My New G.A.T.E. Room! :)

Hello, Friends!

I did some work rearranging and getting everything ready for this year! Thanks to School Girl Style for having the materials I wanted to decorate this year! It really helped to brighten up my space! This year, I was all about rainbow colors. I hung paper Chinese lanterns and colored paper balls from the ceiling.  It really helped to brighten up my room!

I also organized all of my Lego NXT robotics pieces and promised that I would post the organization system once it was done, so here you go! It took many, many hours and sore fingers to make it look like this. Thanks to my mom and my teaching partners for helping to sort all of the tiny pieces! The toolbox, storage box with drawers, and tall standing organizer with flaps all came from Home Depot. It made organizing much easier than putting each piece in an art box. It took less space and put similar parts nearer to each other.

Small Parts Organizers

Small Parts Organizers

Powerstrip to charge NXTs

This summer, I attended a past G.A.T.E. teacher's summer Lego WeDo camp and got a lot of materials to help increase my knowledge in that area. I didn't know before, but you can buy extensions binders for the Lego WeDo sets that extend each build in social studies, literacy, math, and science. You could stretch out 2-3 builds to make an entire semester of work and I found this very helpful! I wasn't sure before how to make it last long enough since the build that I first tried took me around 10 minutes. I am a fairly savvy builder though, so that may have helped me. It might take my 3-4th graders a bit longer (or at least I hope so!).

Over last week, I did not have students, yet I was at school from 8-4 like I would if there were kids. I thought I had everything under control and would be sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I was wrong! I helped make the name tags for our Collaborate section of the classroom, all of my robotics nametags, organized my year long morning activities for 4th and 5th grades, helped plan the first week and develop those materials, had an enjoyable time meeting families at our open house on Tuesday, and much, much more! It was such a busy week, but I am certainly ready to have my first set of G.A.T.E. kiddos today! It will be such fun! I will make another post later about how the day goes (if not today, at the end of the week).

Have a great one!

Mrs. Jevorutsky Introductory Video!

Hello, everyone!

I am posting below the video that I will be using to introduce myself to my new G.A.T.E. students! Take a peek! :)

Interesting Video

Hey friends!

I was given this video during my training in Pittsburgh! It made me think! What do you think about it? Write me a comment!

Robotics Unit!

Hey everyone!

I am having a sale on my robotics unit from now until school starts, which is August 19th. The product will be $5.00 until that date and then it goes back up!

Keepin' Afloat in the Classroom Teachers Pay Teachers Store

Hurry and get it now! :)

NXT-G Instructor Certification

Hey friends, 

I thought I would share that I passed my NXT robotics training course completely today! In order to pass as an instructor, you had to take this 2-hour final exam of 84 questions. I took the test in 30 minutes with a score of 95% on my first try! I am a bit proud and I feel very confident that I can teach robotics to children. I feel like I can program myself, troubleshoot student work, and encourage young students to create their own programming masterpieces! 

Here is a copy of my certification completion!

Yay, me! :)

NXT Training Photos

These are some photos from my NXT robotics training in Pittsburgh. Some of the photos are were given to me from the National Robotics Engineering Center so they are not my actual photos. The photos in the back are all of my photos as evidence by me being in so many of them.

My New Teaching Space!

Hey friends!

I thought I would share a section of my new classroom with you! This is kind of my desk area for all of my "keep them close in case I need them items". That space can never be to big, right? 

These last few weeks, my mom and I have been trying to work out the last few details in getting my room organized and ready for some young minds to learn and explore robotics! (For those of you who don't know, that is sorting thousands of little Lego pieces that all sort of seem to blend together after hours and hours of sorting... THANK YOU, MOM!!!) I have prepared my room, so I am so excited to welcome my new students! It's going to be a fantastic year! 

I'll post more on how I have organized my Lego robotics materials after I get some new pictures on Thursday! Have a great week friends! 

Lego NXT-G Robotics Training at the National Robotics Engineering Center Trip

Hello friends,

I have been in the lovely city of Pittsburgh this week at the National Robotics Engineering Center learning how to mold student minds with the Lego NXT-G robotics and software. Programming anything was quite new to me, but leaving now with this new information makes me feel much more comfortable teaching it in my classroom. I not only know how to program these tiny technical machines, but also know how to troubleshoot and identify misconceptions in student programming. Now, the only obstacle to overcome is the incoming EV3 models that are being shipped to my classroom on August 1st. I have been working with the model before that and using a wonderfully detailed and easy to understand video trainer that is not yet available for the EV3. I think the EV3s will be used for my students who are already familiar with the NXT-G and are ready to move on to a bit more difficult robot.

The programming of these robots was much easier than I anticipated. I thought that I would be working with a text-based programming, but was quite thankful when it was a visual language (for those of you who don't know, it uses pictures). It made understanding the background of what the robot was being asked to do a lot easier than I originally anticipated. I expected it to be more like ALICE, Python, or Scratch.

As far as what I learned and used with the NXT-G robotics, I learned to use several different sensors when working with the robot (sound, ultrasonic, light, and touch sensors), programmed in duration times, used switches and loops to help the robot make continual decisions until I asked it to stop, worked with reactions to thresholds, etc. I learned more in the four and a half days that I was in Pittsburgh than I think that I would have in doing the software independently for a few courses. By taking this, it caused me to have way less headaches this year and cause me to be able to do more teaching with my students than teaching myself as we go.

Thankfully, while I was in Pittsburgh, I met several great people who I now call good friends. We took several "adventures" as we called them, including getting lost after dinner and having to call for a pick-up, going to a brewery inside an old Catholic church, meeting a therapy rabbit in training (it was on a leash and knew basic commands!), going to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, eating a hot dog at the famous "O" restaurant, going on a ducky tour, having dinner at Bucca de Beppo with great friends, etc. It will definitely be a trip to remember.

I will post pictures in a while, but for now, it is time to board my flight home! Talk soon!

Robotics Training with Carnegie Mellon University

Hi, everyone!

I realized that this post and the last one have been the first ones I have done since April! OOPS! So much for one a week! :) I will try harder!

As I mentioned in the last post, I am now teaching robotics and that I know NOTHING! So, this week I am taking a training course for teachers in Pittsburgh, PA at the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University to learn how to work with and program the Lego Mindstorm NXT-G robotics kit. Today was Day 1 and I have already learned more about these robots than I thought possible. There are sensor attachments, multiple types of turns, etc.  I've programmed robots to navigate multiple mazes using different commands and sensors. My, oh my, am I on a REAL steep learning curve! It has been an adventure. I am also not the only mid-twenties person in the room! (I will admit that this was a fear of mine!) I am so excited that I am not the only "youngin'" in this training! I've paired up with another gal who is also in her second year of teaching so us "young bucks" can stick together!

Tomorrow, we take a tour of the facility. It is a high security facility, so I am not allowed to take any pictures. :( Sorry, guys! I get a disk of photos I'm allowed to show at the end of the week. There are project going for places like John Deere, Cat, the military, Toro, etc. so we have to be given badges to even get in to the facility.

I'll try to keep you updated on my adventure! Have a great week! :)

P.S. Favorite quote of the day "Teachers fix understandings, not robots!" or "Teachers fix understandings, not robots!" It can be read two ways and mean two different things! :)

Introductory Robotics Unit

Hey everyone!

As some of you may know, I have accepted the position in my school district to teach 3rd-6th grade gifted education. With that position, I have been given the task to teach robotics. As many of you know, I know nothing about programming or robotics or anything other than robots are children's toys. I am quickly learning that there is so much more to robotics than meets the eye. We work with Lego Mindstorms NXT-G robots in our program.

Since I am now teaching gifted, I am required to take the necessary courses to receive my gifted education certification. Certification for gifted goes K-12 so it does have a broad range in which to work with. This summer I took an online Gifted Curriculum course through Mizzou and absolutely loved it! As the final project of the course, we were asked to write a unit with five lessons, an overview, assessment, etc. Of course, knowing me, I overdid it, as always. I worked on creating a unit for my students to introduce them to robotics. I created a unit for 3-5th graders based on the Common Core with 8 lessons, parent letters, a schedule, etc. I would like to share that with you. There is a link below to send you to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store to purchase the unit.

Introductory Robotics Unit

It is 21 pages of materials. It has the links to all of the resources of items that were not explicitly written into the unit. I loved putting this together and plan on using it next year with my 3rd-6th students. The standards are written through 5th but many of the standards are similar through 6th. If you do get a chance to look through it, please do and leave me comments or suggestions! I would love to hear from you!

Until next time!

Teachers Pay Teachers

Hey Everyone!

Long time, no chat! I have been busy working up some materials for my own Teachers Pay Teachers Store! I posted materials two days ago and I have already made a sale! Yay! It is amazing! Keep up with my store and see what you can use in your own classrooms!

So far, here is what I have posted:

• Planet Research Project with iPads
• Graphing Math Battleship (FREE!)
• Reading Counts Points Slips and Points Schedule
• OPTIC - Graph Reading Strategy

Here is the link: Ashley Jevorutsky TPT Store!

Let me know what you think! :)

Delectably, Delicious Writing

Hello friends!

This week's post is about some descriptive writing that I did with my fifth graders. They wrote some awesome pieces after brainstorming on Popplet, writing their rough drafts in Notabilty, having their writing edited within Notability, making corrections, and then submitting them to our Posterous page for final grading.

Here are the apps we used:

                          

Once the kids had finished their work, I used this writing to make a new hallway display. I made the Hershey Kisses for their writing from poster board wrapped in tin foil. The Kisses tags are made from tissue paper and blue markers. It made for such a cute display! 

 

I am also including my grading rubric that I used for this assignment, in case you were to "borrow" it. Keep on sharing!

Hope you have enjoyed this new addition to my blog!  I will be posting soon!

Body Organs App

We have been doing a body systems unit in Science and I was very limited in my classroom resources. I was extremely grateful for the Body Organs App for the iPad. I had the students play around on this app for about 30 minutes to explore the different systems and organs. It reads the information to them and has detailed descriptions and fun facts of all of the organs and systems. They used their headphones to listen to the app, so the room was very quiet. Overall, they really enjoyed it and were very engaged by the different cool facts. I would recommend this to someone working with fifth grade for sure! ;)

The icon looks like this.             Here is a screenshot of one of the pages.

Polygon Alphabet Follow Up

Hey everyone!

I realize I am posting a ton right now, but that is because I haven't done it in two weeks. I am playing crazy amounts of catch up. Remember how I mentioned our Polygon Alphabet project? I said that I would post pictures of some completed work when they were done, too, right? Well, they are complete! They have done a great job! Look for yourself! :)

Teaching About Public vs. Private Posting

My students all received One-to-One iPads this week and are getting to do so many cool things. I wanted to share some of these iPad ideas with all of you.

You can see some of their work on our class Posterous site, Mrs J's Class. I'm trying to teach my students about private vs. public domain spaces and show them that the things they post can be viewed by people all over the world. They would really appreciate if some of my followers left comments on their pages to prove that people do see their work. We are using Posterous as a place to put our completed work, so check back often to see what we are doing.

They are also using Edmodo.com as a classroom social learning site. I love this resource! I can post homework assignments for the kids to do on their iPads and they can complete and turn in the work online. I could not be happier with this site. Since this one is strictly for our class, I have made this one private, so unfortunately, you can't see it... Sorry, folks!

That's it for now! :)

Pep Talk from Kid President!

This is the cutest motivational video I have seen in a very long time! Take a peek!

 

Aren't we all on the same team? I want to be on the road that leads to Awesome! What will be your Space Jam? We all need a little encouragement! Let's get out there and dance! :)

Grammar Check-Ups

Hello,

I know it hasn't been a week, but a fellow fifth grade blogger posted this and I think this will be great to show my students! They are getting iPads in a few weeks and it would be a good poster to have around! Check it out!

It will be such a great reminder as to how important grammar is. It will also make me more accountable for my writing seeing as I wouldn't expect them to do anything that I wouldn't do myself! 

Starting Fresh in 2013!

Well, Hello Again!

It has been such a long time since I have posted and I apologize for that. Since 2013 is starting, I thought it might be a good idea to make my blog one of my new resolutions. I will be posting once a week for the new year to keep everyone posted on my first year of teaching.

So far, this class has been terrific! They are a joy to have in class and I feel blessed to have each and every one of them! We have done some very interesting projects throughout the year, but I wanted to touch on two recent ones that could be implemented in any fifth grade class for all of my fifth grade blogger friends!

First and foremost, we are working on polygons in math right now. We did a quick review of polygons and charted the different sided shapes. Then, I had them put their thinking caps on and figure out a way to make their name with each of the polygons. They had to use at least one triangle, one quadrilateral, one pentagon, one hexagon, and one octagon. The students could repeat shapes but they had to use each of the polygons once. I had them each do their first name, make it neat, and color it! I am grading them this week and then I will post pictures of their work. For right now, I will post my scoring rubric.

My second creative project that my students are working on is called a Civil War WebQuest. I worked on this during my Masters classes at Truman State University with a few friends. The link to this site is Civil War WebQuest. On the site, it includes the introduction to get the students focused on the time period. Then, it lists the tasks the students will complete. The details for those tasks and resources are included on the process page. The website we created also included the evaluation procedures and how students are to be graded. We have been doing this activity in class and the kids are really in to it. I let them choose which type of person they wanted to be from the Civil War and do their research for about a week. After they had found fifteen relevant facts, they started to work on their journals. In these journals, they had to use those facts to create five journals from the perspective of their person. It was so interesting to see how they linked their facts. This week they will be working on the Dinner Party script, in which students from four different perpectives will have a conversation about what and how they think the Civil War is going and how they think the war will end from each of their sides. I can't wait to see how this goes! :) 

Next week, look for some organization tips that I have created! Until next time, farewell!