Not the End of My Tale

 The second stop on our Around the World Virtual Tour was Hawaii. My students read and watched information from a native Hawaiian. They were especially fascinated to read about her favorite snack- dried plums and her favorite food-poi. Besides picking coconuts and using them, the students liked hearing about pineapple plantations. Food seemed to be the biggest interest in Hawaii, although some students wanted to swim or hike, too. The students were able to make a short video about their visit using adobe spark. This was done while online with me. I shared the page with the film and asked what picture they chose. Then they typed their text in the chat box, an I pasted it into the film. The students I still get to meet in person will make the audio recording for the whole film.  This week we are continuing our trip to New Zealand with a new host who shares quite a bit about the Maori people.

 Since most of my classes will be online for the next 6 weeks, I registered for an educator account at getepic.com . It is free and full of thousands of digital books (most in English, but there are a few other languages there). Students just use the classcode (no personal info needed) and can choose books to read online. Some books even include audio. As a teacher, I can keep track of how many books each student has read (if they click on their initials when they start) and how they did on the end-of-book quiz. I even tried one of the short quizzes with one of my students, and she liked it. The quiz was short enough to not be bothersome while providing just enough positive feedback to let her feel like her accomplishment was seen. The only drawback is that the students can only read for free during school hours local time, Monday- Friday 7 am - 4 pm. You can even make reading lists for your students. I made one with books about Hawaii or based in Hawaii since that is where we curr...

The same story of the week, but this time it is in English. Not our problem It was a beautiful, sunny day throughout the kingdom. The king and his advisor sat together and each ate bread with honey. The view from the window showed the square below the castle and all the people gathered there. While they talked about this and that,, the king leaned out the window to better look around. Just then a drop of honey dropped from the king's bread, but the king did not notice that it fell down and landed on the windowsill. And then ... Plopp, plopp, plopp (can use your hand to show the drop as it drops) The honey landed on the ground below the window. The advisor immediately noticed when the honey droplet landed on the street and immediately asked the king. "Your Majesty, a drop of honey fell to the ground. Should I have someone clean it up?" "No no. It's not our problem", the king replied. Soon a little fly came by. Swish, Swish, Swis...