Favorite YouTube Channel (K-2 Teachers)

One of my favorite YouTube channels is Kidtastic TV. The channel has a ton of Disney (and other) storybooks read out loud with the words highlighted on the screen as it is being read.

If you have a "Listen to Reading" center this would be a great resource for you. You should pay attention to the length of each video when considering using them.

Our district does not block YouTube videos for students (they are filtered through a clean video search filter) so they can be easily incorporated into a listening center with a QR code (we use this extension in Chrome to generate quick QR Codes).

If students don't have access to YouTube you can use a YouTube Downloader (click here for instructions on a quick and easy way to download videos from YouTube). Downloaded videos can then be uploaded to a Google Drive account where you can create a QR code or get a link for students. This is definitely more time consuming, downloading and uploading speeds can vary depending on the length of the video, but if you want students to watch a particular video independently (and YouTube is blocked) this is viable option. NOTE: Up until recently (April 2018) our district has been using the Google URL shortener extension in Chrome but unfortunately Google announced that they will be closing their goo.gl services effect mid-April 2018). We liked this extension because we got a shortened URL and a QR code. We have been unable to find a replacement that will do both so we have been using the bit.ly chrome extension to make shortened URL's and The QR Code Extension to make QR codes.

If you just want to show the video whole group I HIGHLY recommend the View Pure site. It allows you to add a button to your bookmarks bar to filter YouTube videos. How does it work? As soon as you have pulled up the video you want to show the class on YouTube you click the "purify" button you add to your bookmarks bar (see all screen shots below). The video is moved to the viewpure site where ads are removed (starting ads and popup ads). You also don't see distracting side bar video recommendations and there is no automatic playing of the next recommended video. It is really the best way to show a YouTube video whole group.

I am always on the search for good YouTube channels, and tips and tricks, so if you have any suggestions please feel free to leave a comment!

Comments

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock&

Bill Nye Songs with Lyrics

At the end of the Bill Nye videos he always has a fun song that goes with the episode. You can find many of the songs as stand alone videos on YouTube. This came in handy because today I am teaching a lesson on layers of the atmosphere and found a song from his Atmosphere video on YouTube titled "Fresh Aire." I really wanted to remix it and put the lyrics on the video (so the kids could sing along and see how the lyrics matched the lesson). The first thing I did was found a site that has all the Bill Nye lyrics posted used my YouTube downloader ( see instructions here ) and downloaded the song. I then imported the video into Movie Maker Live and used the caption feature to put the lyrics on the different frames (cutting and pasting from the lyrics site into Movie Maker Live). I saved the video and reposted to YouTube so other teachers could use the video with lyrics (the finished video is posted above). The process was pretty easy and I am thinking about doing it for more

Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Search This Blog