Welcome to Spring and of course, poetry.  April is Poetry month and we start out with Acrostic poems written by the 1st graders.  They used Pages on the iPads to write the words of the poem and Doodle Buddy on the iPads to illustrate them.  They have learned how to successfully put the two together to create wonderful work.
Please enjoy them.

Enjoy the latest Wolf Swamp Review created by our very talented Wolf Swamp 5th graders!  There was a lot going on in February as seen in the WSR video.

iMovie is fun, but it is also a lot of hard work.  Here is the culmination of all the hard work done by the 4th and 5th graders.  The project topic was a current event,  the 2014 Winter Olympics.  These are the steps that have gotten us this far:
1. Research a sport in the Winter Olympics 2014
2. Use the website: http://www.sochi2014.com to collect research
3. Complete an information worksheet (as shown below)

4. Taking that information, log on to Google Accounts
5. Create a "new document"
6. If in a group, share the document
7. Create a "script" of what you will say in a video about your sport using your notes
8. Before videotaping, choose a background picture, copy it onto your desktop, then drag it into iPhoto
9. Have Mrs. Dufraine copy your script from your google drive to a website called www.cueprompter.com
10. Have Mrs. Dufraine videotape you or your group reading your script
11. Have Mrs. Dufraine put your video on your computer into iMovie
12. In iMovie, create a new project
13. Put your picture from iPhoto into your iMovie project
14. Change the time of the picture to be the same amount of time as the video
15. Drag the video up to the picture, and choose "Green Screen"
16. Choose music that is appropriate, if desired
17. Share, and export the movie using Quicktime and save it on your desktop
18. Upload the movie to your Google drive and share it with Mrs. Dufraine and your group members
19. Enjoy the movies!

Here are several that have been completed so far in the 4th grade:

And also starring the 5th graders talking about the 2014 Olympics:

The first and second graders have been hard at work learning how to use a word processor.  They have been learning Pages using the  iPads.  The first graders read Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster and created their own "I see" sentences.  The 2nd graders read Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin and wrote their own "Farmer Brown" letters.  Both groups were able to create illustrations using the iPad app, Doodle Buddy. They saved them to the iPad's photo album then added them to their work.  Here are some examples

 

Here are some first grade examples:

Watch and enjoy our latest WSR (Wolf Swamp Review) on the Wolfy News Network!  Be sure to watch them on Longmeadow Channel 12 on Saturdays at 10:00 and Tuesdays at 6:00.  The students are enjoying seeing themselves on "TV".

The students are all hard at work on projects in January.  Mrs. Dufraine worked on a Prezi to introduce the Scratch environment, a fun way to create animated stories and fun projects to the 4th and 5th graders.  You can even use it with the Makey Makey board!  Mrs. Longanecker and I are currently teaching a class after schoolon this very subject.  In the class the students used Scratch and the Makey Makey board to create a controller out of play-doh.  Click on the following link to see my Prezi or just watch the video below to see Scratch and Makey Makey working together.

Click here to view my Prezi presentation

January, 2014  Happy New Year!

The 5th graders have been working hard on the next Wolf Swamp Review TV show.  Here is the latest WSR from the Wolfy News Network.  Thank you for all the work done by the Wolf Swamp Road School students. It takes a lot of time, practice, learning of new technology, and laughter to film one of these TV shows.

January News - Our very own Wolf Swamp Review TV show will be shown locally on LCTV.  LCTV is run from Longmeadow High School and their station manager is Dave Bartlett.  He has our shows on DVD and will be showing them on Saturday at 10AM and/or Tuesday at 6PM.  Be sure to watch and be amazed at how hard the 5th graders are working to create a monthly news show.  Remember all is not yet perfect and we are working on each broadcast to fix and adjust our studio, sound, lighting,script writing and reading.  The students involved so far have been exceptional and taken everything in stride. Our network name says it all "Wolfy News Network" or WNN (win!) for short.  Wolf Swamp students and staff have been very accommodating while we learn how to manage time and information.  Thank you to all.