Focus on Teaching

All Kindergarten students finished up their astronomy unit with a walk through space and a family celebration to view videos, slideshows and/or a padlet Awesome Astronauts (click me)

Other grade level/building wide initiatives:

• Implemented an across grade level, Hour of Code competition during the Code.org Hour of Code initiative
• Provided a school wide coding and robotics week at Heim Elementary. Collaborating with the librarian and BOCES, we were able to provide every student with the opportunity to demonstrate their coding and robotics learning throughout the curriculum
  • grades K beebots tied into the space unit in science class, identifying planets in the solar system and sequencing in reading
  • grades 1-2 lego wedo robots learning block programming
  • grade 3-4 fractions and decimals using Edison Robots
• Google Expeditions. Students experienced a variety of virtual reality field trips at the K-8 level to enhance learning. Lessons included
  • Trench warfare (7, 8)
  • Astronomy (1, 2, 6)
  • Volcanoes, plate tectonics and hazardous weather(6)
  • The Moon (K, 1, 2)
  • America Spans West (5)
  • Geographic Landforms (5)
  • Exploring Asian and African Culture culminating with virtual field trips to Japan and Kenya (3)
• Creating content to demonstrate learning and understanding using Google Slides, Docs, Forms, and Classroom, Adobe Spark, iMovie, DoINK, ChatterKids, Pic Collage, WeVideo, Book Creator, Screencastify and a number of online websites for publishing student work including Vyond (previously goAnimate), Wordle, Storyboard, Canva, Nearpod, Padlet, Flipgrid, Kahoot, Quizizz, Quizlet, Seesaw, Explain Everything, QR codes, Twitter (k-8)
• Digital footprint and digital citizenship discussions and learning using Common Sense Media and BrainPOP (K-8)