Ramblings from First Grade

I have been so busy with some personal things with my fiance (a house for us after we marry), and my teenage daughter (a boyfriend that hangs around the house all the time) and tutoring (administration brought in a new assessment/curriculum package midstream), that when my brain tries to concentrate on the culminating activity for this class, I cannot focus. Tiny little snippets of an idea are swirling around in my head. If I could get enough quiet time, I think I could put all the little pieces together. Let me bounce a few around here.

What I am thinking about is something that would relate to what I do now: teach first grade to mostly low-income, ESOL, and ESE kids. One third of my class that is below grade level in reading due to learning disabilities or language problems. We are using technology in computer assisted instruction. I use Earobics and SuccessMaker Enterprise software for phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension practice. I also have my kids visit Earobic's Game Goo site for more phonemic awareness games. We sometimes visit the Starfall.com site for games, videos, and stories the child can choose at his/her independent reading level. What I want to know is how are other teachers using the Internet in their K-2 classes. The kids are limited to what they can read. Very little that I find is on their level. I find that most Internet projects are too reading intensive unless done in a whole group with a projector or smart board.

That's where one of the ideas comes in. I want to have the students use a digital camera to take pictures of signs they know how to read. This will go along with the story line of the reading selection this week. Then what? We can post them to our class website. I have read recently about Flickr. I need to look into this. It sounds like you can have the class post photos there. But the thing is, I would have to do the posting. Unless I were to use posting the photos as an enrichment project for those kids who are super readers...

As I was saying about the culminating activity, I want to find out more about what other primary teachers are doing with the Internet. I would like to do an annotated bibliography exploring articles on this subject from journals and professional magazines. I welcome your comments. I am sure that when I submit it to our instructor, she will give me some good feedback. In the meantime, I trust that the comments of my colleagues will be invaluable!