Create lovely Google Site headers using Canva

This term the Grade 6s and 7s have been creating websites to use as digital portfolios. They used Google Sites for their websites and made their Google Site headers using Canva. Canva is a wonderful graphics online application. As a teacher I could apply to get Canva free for myself and all my students - my application was successful, so all the classes use Canva. The students came up with the loveliest of designs.

Learner examples

How did we go about making the website headers? 

Once again I found a relevant Youtube video to use to teach myself the steps. Here is an example of one of the videos that I followed for guidance  - 'How to Create Custom Banner and Buttons for Google Sites' from Vestal's 21st Century Classroom Channel:  https://bit.ly/3x5CkkV.

Create beautiful websites using Google Sites and Canva together

The Grade 6s and 7s have been creating websites to use as digital portfolios throughout the year. They used Google Sites for this. Of course, Canva, my favourite graphics application, helped the students create stunning sites.

How to create website buttons using Canva

They made superb headings for their websites using Canva  (see previous post) and they also created attractive buttons for each page using Canva. They used the following headings (we brainstormed the ideas for these headings based on last years ICT work): 
- About me
- My blog
- My stories
- My other writing
- My projects
- My videos and graphics
- My coding examples

They have started uploading this term's work to their digital portfolios, and so far have uploaded an 'About me video' and an 'I am' poem to their About Me page.

I blurred our learners' faces using https://www2.lunapic.com/editor/?action=blu

Learner examples

How did we go about making the website buttons? 

When I learn to do something, I usually find a relevant YouTube video or two, and then I create a relevant PowerPoint to guide my lessons with the learners. (You can see that I use Google Workplace and Microsoft interchangeably!) I convert this PowerPoint to Google Slides and add it to my Google Classroom lesson so that it is always available for the learners to look at. (I use Google Classroom for every lesson). This procedure works really well for me. 

Here is an example of one of the videos that I followed for guidance in making buttons - 'How to Create Custom Banner and Buttons for Google Sites' from Vestal's 21st Century Classroom Channel:  https://bit.ly/3x5CkkV.

The Grade 2s - 7s participated in World Read Aloud Day 2022

  

Today was World Read Aloud Day and we celebrated this in my Grade 2 – 7 ICT classes at school with Nali’bali. We downloaded Nal'ibali's #WRAD story,  A Party in the Park, on our Chromebooks, and we all read together in unison. Then we discussed the story in the form of an oral book review. The children loved it. 

Nal'ibali aimed to get 1 million families to pledge their family to read aloud the Nal'ibali special story on World Read Aloud Day 2022 - 2 February. If only parents could realise and embrace the importance of regular reading in brain development – if only they could see the big picture about this. They would then definitely make reading aloud to children a daily priority!

The importance of reading aloud to children

Here are some useful quotes from articles and studies about the importance of reading aloud to children: 

“Reading regularly with young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development, which helps build strong pathways in the brain and in turn builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that can have life-long health benefits.”
- from '‘Reading to young children develops their brains.'   https://bit.ly/3KYQnxr 

"A child care provider reads to a toddler. And in a matter of seconds, thousands of cells in these children’s growing brains respond. Some brain cells are ‘turned on,’ triggered by this particular experience. Many existing connections among brain cells are strengthened. At the same time, new brain cells are formed, adding a bit more definition and complexity to the intricate circuitry that will remain largely in place for the rest of these children’s lives.

Therefore, the more adults read aloud to their children, the larger their vocabularies will grow and the more they will know and understand about the world and their place in it, assisting their cognitive development and perception." (An excerpt from a study on toddlers’ cognitive development as a result of being read aloud to) - Quoted from:  https://www.all4kids.org/news/blog/the-importance-of-reading-to-your-children/

As we come out of the Pandemic, let's prioritise reading aloud to children in order to develop their reading skills. The long-term benefits are immeasurable.

The Grade 6s created short videos about famous medical researchers using Animoto

 

The Grade 6s researched famous medical people and created Animoto videos summarising what they found.

What is Animoto?

 Animoto is a cloud-based video creation service that produces video from photos, video clips, and music into video slideshows, and customized web-based presentations. We used the free version. 

Structure of the lesson

1. First of all we went over the process of creating a video using Animoto. 

2. After that each student chose a famous medical person to research. 

3. The students had to find and download free-to-use images of their famous person to use in their videos 

4. For content the students needed to think about the following questions: 

•  Who was this person – when was he/she born and in which country do/did they live? 
• What made this person famous? 
• Something about his/her early life
•  Interesting facts about this person’s reason for fame. 

Structure of the video 

• It should use about 7 frames with images text that summarises key points about the famous person. 
• It should include music. 

Here are three examples. 

The students used their online names on their videos. 

1. Dustin: Edward Jenner
https://animoto.com/play/PPBUzI3QJFo6NBat4cdTNw

 

2. Blake: Louis Pasteur
https://animoto.com/play/nccdBoPE1AShXlStqQWFAQ

   

3. Grace: Alexander Fleming
https://animoto.com/play/j0NDvA8CRgx1gR2jgvqMUw

  

Create stories from selected images and publish them in Book Creator (Grade 6)

One of the things I love doing at school is getting my students to write stories in different ways. I want them to see themselves as writers, able to tell and write amazing stories that hold the attention of whoever is listening.

I used the following process with Grade 6.

The elements of a good story

Our story lesson concentrated on the elements of a good story – characters, setting, a plot, a conflict, and a resolution to the project. We practised this in different ways orally in the lesson.

Find the story in a selection of art

Some time ago I downloaded some wonderful Creative Commons stories from the African Storybook website. I removed the words, but kept the art and details of the original stories as a Creative Commons requirement. I put the art on to PowerPoints and I numbered the stories. Each student chose a number. Their task would be to turn the pictures into their own story and make sure they included the elements of a story. Here is an example. The following art was from a story from the African storybook website called ‘Bongsa and her landlord – best friends’ by Roth Odondi. The illustrator is Rob Owen. Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0. https://bit.ly/3EkaRgr 

                

Using Book Creator as a publishing tool

How would they present their stories? I felt that they should get to know the wonderful program Book Creator which is a free program.  I created a PowerPoint of instructions that they could follow and off we went into our storytelling adventure. The final step would be for them to narrate their stories in Book Creator. 

The result was very pleasing. Book Creator set the stories out neatly in a bookshelf. 

You can visit our Grade 6 library on this link, https://bit.ly/3gLYU8k , and read (and listen to) some of the stories. 

A collaborative Google Drawings lesson with Grade 6

I have been wanting to get my Grade 6s to work on a collaborative Google document successfully for some time now! The first time I tried out the idea of a collaborative document with Grade 6, to my dismay, they starting deleting one another's work on purpose! It was rather a nightmare! So, after a few admonitions and discussions, I attempted the task again! This time it worked out very successfully.  I used Google Drawings for the lesson..

The origin of the lesson idea
The lesson idea was adapted from a lesson found on Chris Clementi's wonderful Google site. She created a  great Google Drawing lesson called Animal.

Lesson goals

• Work collaboratively on a Google Drawing template
• Add images and resize them
• Link the images to information about the animals
• Present a 1-2 minute oral report back on one of the animals researched

Giving the assignment
I used Google Classroom to assign this lesson. It is just so easy and seamless doing it this way.

The task
The class had already had a lesson on how to research using Google Drive. In this assignment they had to:

• Use a shared template in Google Drive
• Work on one animal at a time and negotiate the next animal they tavked with the rest of the class (it is a small class so this wasn't too chaotic).
• Find a suitable image, add it and resize it.
• Find a site containing simple factual information about the animal and link that to the image.
• Decide on one of the animals chosen and present five facts about that animal orally to the class namely description, habitat, breeding habits, food, and one other interesting fact. 

From Chris Clemeti's public animal template

The results
The students completed the task collaboratively with no hiccups, and they negotiated the division of animals amicably. This was a great lesson. There are a few errors on the final document that need to be corrected as you can see below:

Improvements for next time

• Next time I will use the filtered image search function in Google Drive so that students use only images with the Creative Commons license
• I would recreate the template so that the name can be linked to the facts while the image itself gives the right accreditation.

Further reading
8 Creative Uses of Google Drawings You Shouldn’t Ignore
10 Ways to Use Google Drawings in the Classroom