Carolyn

=I am a preK teacher at Prairie Elementary in Haysville. Our prek works in teams of an at risk and special education teacher. I am interested in using technology, creating hands on engaging activities for my students. I previously worked with Roamer and felt the Bee-Bot would facilitate language and math skills with my preschoolers.= =Activity 1//:// Little Red Hen= =Activity 2: My Five Senses= = = =August 5, 2007: I have an idea for a 3 part intro to my students of the Bee-Bot. August 14th is our Open House and I thought I would display this and put a picture of it in my powerpoint. Then we do home visits and I am going to make a grid of some activities we do in centers and people in our building that will be my room frequently. My paras can demonstrate the Bee-Bot to the student and talk about our class/school; as I go over the handbook with the parents and answer questions for them. The second day of class we can introduce rules and learn names with the bee-bot. I have 7 white shells, 6 green and 2 red shells.= = = =August 14, 2007, I introduced Bee-Bot to students at Open House Today. The students loved it and wanted to keep playing with it. I just let them explore and they were starting to pick the turns and keep it going. I will take it out to home visits with a grid made of center activity pictures to discuss what we do in the classroom with students. August 23, 2007 Introduced Bee-Bot to AM and PM sessions as we did name recall. Students found it easy to remember the steps for programming. They loved it. We established rules about carrying it with 2 hands when given permission to carry it. We have talked about keeping it on the floor or at the center in which we are using them. They would like to name it, so we will work out a procedure for this next week. I will also be doing my "Little Red Hen" story sequence retell next Wednesday.= = = =Carolyn= =August 29, 2007 I presented the Little Red Hen Retell yesterday. We initially started it in the AM class with a large group. I originally used 10 pictures. As it was taking too long, we broke for recess and returned doing it in small groups. This worked better. I used pictures attached to 4 of the bee bots of the hen, dog, cat and duck. In the morning one of my lowest functioning students ( about 2 year level) was wanting more turns and imitating sentences. This was probably the most engaged he has been in an activity that involved more than 3 children. He was also able to count the spaces to 3 and do the buttons with only a visual prompt. My down's syndrome child actually crawled over to see the robot, but did not attempt to program it. My severely autistic child was eager to come in for recess (usually a very difficult transition) because I told him it was time for him to come in and have his turn retelling part of the story with the robot. In the afternoon class my physically impaired student that functions at an 18 to 24 month level wanted her turn and allowed us to help her hand over hand. I was amazed at how many of my speech impaired students were eager for their turn and willing to talk. I will try to get pictures posted next week. My team teacher had to use her camera as mine is broken, so I will need to download them. We had our school dedication ceremony on Tuesday night and retired teachers; parents and school board members were very impressed with the robots. The visually impaired teacher noted how many concepts I could teach my low vision students with these.= =Carolyn= =September 8, 2007 I was unable to utilize the beebot robot this week. We have had baseline testing and special ed testing and staffings going on. I am attempting to work on my Five Senses Lesson Plan and it is going slowly, I hope to use the robots at the end of next week in the language rhyming center.= = = =Carolyn= =September 25, 2007 Time has been a big issue with my getting lessons for this accomplished, baseline testing and dealing with many one to one needs in my AM class. I put the Bee Bots out in the Construction center last week. We had a neighborhood foam block mat, and the students were able to explore the neighborhood using the Bee Bots. They loved this.and discovered they were forgetting to clear directions. They loved using traffic signs and making the Bee Bot obey them. Unfortunately my own camera is not working and the school camera has very blurry pictures. I will borrow my daughter's camera next week and post pictures. I have updated my lesson plan for the Five Senses. This will probably be used mid October.= = = =Carolyn= =October 3, 2007 I used the Bee Bots today doing community helper riddles. I set out helper puppets under a grid; read a riddle and student decided which place to program the bee_bot to go. Time was short so we promised the students this would be a center (language center) the next 2 days, so more people can have turns for using the robots. My students have been using puppets to role play with various puppets, but they are not sure whar to say. I hope after todays lesson they will come up with ideas on what to say about helpers. Tomorrow we are talking about who uses this tool and will make that into a grid for the bee bots on Friday at the language center. I can't get my pictures to upload___ help!!!!!= Find the correct community helper given a riddle

Experimenting with forward, back, right and left

Pictures are from community helpers riddles lesson; here they are suppose to be giving clues to others. They just loved making it go to different places.

October 6, 2007 I have a question. Is there a way to make this run on a switch even if only forward? I have a physically disabled student interested in the Bee Bot but only she can only do hand over hand. Carolyn

October 15, 2007 I did not get a chance to use bee bot last week as I was gone for 2 days. I also introed a new technology of mimeo board to the students last week. I am planning on doing my lesson on senses this week and will give you all feed back on how it works. We may also use them in drqamatic play for story retell of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". Carolyn

October 17, 2007 We used the bee bots today in our small (12) group time doing my Five Senses lesson (activity 2). The student loved it but got very antsy because I used only 1 bee bot and grid. I took out more bee bots and that improved, but ultimately having more grids would have been better. We made an extra grid for PM class and this worked much better. My team teacher will repeat the lesson tomorrow or Friday in her small group time. I will get pictures then of grids and post them. The actual game is available from [|www.wclm.com]. I did not use the spinner and game boards. Carolyn

November 28, 2007 November is always a short but hectic month with conferences and Thanksgiving. The students continue to use Bee Bots in retelling stories, estimating how many times to push button to get places etc. They loved the road and have finally gotten down how to turn and go forward and backward. We will use them nexr week on rhyming activities. I also hope to have my afternoon class draw pictures of the Bee Bots and dictate a sentence on why they like the Bee Bot. We are beginning //Polar Express// unit and will be busy transforming the hall into a scene from the book, but hope to work the Bee Bots into this. Carolyn

December 14, 2007 Final journal entry:

This has been great fun. I used them to test the hard to test on rhyming words. It engaged the students and I found they did better on the task because of this. We also had the Bee Bots tour through various parts of our North Pole. The students have had great fun and I am anxious to see the book and present to our board sometime next semester. Carolyn