Thing 6

These image generators were fun to play and create with! I apparently happened upon BigHugeLabs one "thing" too soon! For this thing, I played around with some different features than I mentioned in Thing 5. Most of my teachers are self-contained. I thought using the MapMaker would be a useful cross-curricular activity. A few years ago I observed a teacher who let her students put a pushpin in a classroom map for every location that appeared in their independent reading books. I thought it would be neat for students to keep track of locations in their own reading journals. Then each quarter/grading period the teacher could pull up the Map Maker and the students could help her check off all the locations they have traveled to through their books.

I also thought that the Movie Poster would be useful for our 5th grade students. While this idea isn't necessarily extending learning of a particular objective, I thought it would be nice to share. Each spring we put on a musical in which the 5th graders are the leads/stars of the show. I thought they could each make a Movie Poster of themselves to print and put up on our "Star Wall".

I also had a great time playing with Wordle. It did require a Java Update, but other than that was easy to use and did not require me to login. I used it to create a Wordle of words with a short "a" sound (yes, I had my 1st grader helping me again). :-) This would be a great whole group activity where the teacher asks students to popcorn out words for her to put in the Wordle. Alternatively, the teacher could create a Wordle with both long and short "a" words, make copies, and ask students to find and circle the short "a" words.