Happy Memorial Day to all. When attending picnics, parties and parades this weekend, please take a moment of silence to thank the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

Tests!! These do not bring back fond memories for me at all!! I was a nervous wreck every time I ever had to take one, from the time I was in first grade right up until college. I am very grateful that there are none in grad school so far, only papers and projects. Come to find out, papers and projects are assessment tools as well, and I am studying them this week too. 
Now, as a teacher, I am on the opposite side of the fence and I am the one designing the tests and all the other assessment tools to use with my students. Since I had such an awful time with them, I want to do everything in my power to make them fair and to be a true measure to what a student has learned in a course. I am working on an assignment right now that is designed to help me do that. I hope to post the highlights from it later on.

Mind Jar Connect Activity

This is my Mind Jar Connect Activity.  Connect activities are actvities that help students apply learning to their daily lives. They do not generally teach new knowledge and skills but they do make knowledge and skills more useful (Horton, 2012). The Mind Jar is an example of what William Horton refers to as a Meditation activity. It will help my preschool and kindergarten children learn to quiet down their rushing thoughts and  help them to get along better, work as a team, and better focus on their studies.
Reference: Horton, W. (2012). E-Learning by Design. San Francisco, CA: Wiley.

Age of Empires Do Activity

This is the You Tube video of the Age of Empires Do Activity, I created for Thomas yesterday.
He didn't realize it but he worked on not one, but two sixth grade CT Core Social Studies objectives.
He's just a month shy of finishing fourth grade and often considers himself "dumb" because of his severe dyslexia. That is not the case at all. He just needs to learn in a different manner from other kids.
However, all kids, learning disabled or not, all kids can benefit from the opportunity to play "serious games" such as Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and Age of Empires in the classroom.

Do Learning Activity with Thomas

This week's assignment: Do Activites.
Do Activities transform information into knowledge and skills. They can include anything from drill and practice activities to games and simulations. For this week's project, I have decided to have my son Thomas, who is dyslexic and a visual learner, play the simulation game Age of Empires. He is starting from the very first level of the game, the stone age, and has to build a civilization from the ground up.

My Absorb Activity

This is the video for my absorb activity. It turned out that the only place I could get the kids who volunteered to do the video with me together was at the Bavarian Spring Fest so we found a relatively quiet table and went for it. I must say they were a very attentive group of students and I must find a way to reward them for their efforts at the next rehearsal.