V is for Vocaroo!!

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE Vocaroo! It's an online voice recording service and it couldn't be any easier! Click to record and you are set! You can email your voice recording or even post it to your blog or classroom website. SO SIMPLE! I really need to use this more on my class blog...parents and students just love audio.

My idea next year is to use this for reading fluency. Having students record themselves and play it back...tracking progress, etc. I think it would also be great to have them email a message to mom or dad when they've done something really cool in class, met a goal, or just wanted to say hi. You can also record instructions for the class or sub if you are absent and send it via email. It literally take seconds to do.

The cool thing about vocaroo is that there isn't a limit on message length. It's worth it to create an account, because it will save your voice recordings for 5-6 months. If you don't create an account, your messages will be erased after a month or so.

So...here's my tiny little vocaroo just for you....so you can see what it looks like when you embed the audio.

Q&A and a Tutorial -- How to do a Green Screen in 7 Easy Steps

Thanks for the positive response on my 3 Rs video I did with my kiddos! I did have a few questions that I thought I'd answer. Hope they help!

What did you use for the green screen?


I just used a twin size blue sheet. Any green or blue sheet will work. Or fleece fabric. Or even bulletin board paper! Just make sure it's free of wrinkles and hanging nice a flat.

How did you get the scenes behind the kids in the video?

I went to Google images and searched for the scenes that I wanted (ex: disco floor, grocery store). Possibilities are endless!  

What program did you use?

I used iMovie09. There is a green screen feature on there that is super easy to use.


Helpful tips:

• It's best if the kids wear brightly colored shirts. White does not work. 
• Make sure your 'green screen' is ironed!
• It's best to shoot the kids from knee up -- it will look funny if you do a full body shot because your green screen won't be on the floor. 

 How to do the Green Screen Feature in iMovie (for Macs)

1. Upload your video into iMovie -- one that you have filmed in front of your green screen.

2. Find a background image that you like. I wanted to be on a beach. :) Go to Google Images and find the picture you want and drag to your desktop.

3. Drag the image from your desktop onto your iMovie Project Library. Now you want to highlight your video clip and see how long it is. Mine is 4.1 seconds. I want to make my pictures 4.1 seconds as well. Both your video and the image have to have the same time. So click on the gear on your image and click on clip adjustments. 

to 

4. Change the clip to how long your video is. Again, mine was 4.1 seconds, so I'm changing the duration of the image to 4.1 seconds.

5. Now select your entire video clip and drag onto your image. Here you can see I'm dragging my video onto my picture of the beach in the project library.

6. A box will immediately pop up. Scroll down and select Green Screen.

7. *Voila!* I'm on the beach!

I hope this helps! It really is easy once you figure out how to do it!

50 Followers! A "thank you" for you all!

Thank you so much for following along. Blogging has been a lot of fun!

We are getting ready to start our butterfly unit very soon! We get caterpillars from a local 4-H office -- lucky us! We get to observe the changes it makes to turn into a butterfly.

I've created an investigation booklet for our butterfly unit. Here are a couple of examples:

You guys, I tried to upload to google docs....but my fonts kept messing up! Any suggestions on how to keep the fonts in the original document?

If you would like this FREE resource for your unit, please comment with your email address and I'll get it to you.

Thanks again!!

Producing A Music Video -- Earth Day activity!

One of my favorite musicians of all time is Jack Johnson.

I have all of his songs on my iPod....and when I listen to them, I feel like I'm here:

They are easy, breezy, fun, laid back....perfect for spring and summer listening. Jack has a kid's CD called Jack Johnson and Friends: Sing a-longs from the movie Curious George. This album has a track called "The 3 Rs". A perfect selection for the upcoming Earth Day celebration!

So after we've talked about ways to "go green", and how to reduce, reuse and recycle....I play this song for them and we brainstorm how we are going to make our music video. Working in groups, students came up with actions, dance moves (they are pretty sweet!), and what things we wanted to teach the audience about going green. I filmed the students in front of a "green screen", did the magic on iMovie and *voila*!  We produced our very own music video! We played this for the whole school during lunch on Earth Day and all of the grades LOVED it!

You can view the video at my old website HERE. This site is no longer updated, I'm using my blog instead. My dog makes a special appearance at the end. :)

I will post details and step by step instructions of how I did the green screen effects another time.

What's a Voki??

Voki is one of my Top Ten Web tools for teachers.  With Voki, students can create personalized avatars that speak. They can type in text or they can actually record their own voice to their voki. It's super cool!

Here is a voki I made for fun. It took all of 10 minutes. Just click the play button!




I plan to use Voki with my first graders when we do our Poetry unit in April. Students will use voki to publish one poem. So their avatar will read their poem and we can publish it on our class blog. Cool, huh??

Other ways you can use voki with your kiddos: Retelling stories, character traits, fluency practice, publishing writing...lots of fun ways!

Blogger Tutorial 2: Want More Comments On Your Posts??

We all LOVE comments. They are like a virtual high five. How can you make it easier for your readers to leave comments??

Just say no to "word verification".  It will save your readers time and make commenting easier.

And as I was going through the steps this mornings, I *thought* I had this setting disabled, but I didn't. Oops!

So from your dashboard, click Settings. Then right underneath that, click Comments.

 

Scroll down and you'll see  "Show word verification for comments?" This is where you want to select "no".

 Some of you might still want the word verification, but from my experience, I don't get any spam anyway. I just want to make commenting easier for my readers. 

Happy Saturday!

Blogger Tutorial: How To Create Pages

There are certain things that you want your readers to find quickly without searching through pages and pages of blog entries. Creating pages can help with this. It's very simple, but can be an overlooked feature of blogger.  Most common pages are "About this blog" or "About me" and contact information.

Start by clicking "New Post". This will bring you to the posting section. Click on Edit Pages.

Then click on New Page.

This brings you to a screen that looks a lot like a regular new post. Type it just like you would a new post, but it will create a new tab at the top of your blog. This is nice because your readers will see it right away.

You can add up to 10 pages. This is what it will look like with the tabs.

Go ahead.....give it a try!