Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: November 4, 2011
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: October 28, 2011
If kids would like to use Google Earth at home, it is a free program accessible here: <a href=”http://earth.google.com/intl/en/”>http://earth.google.com/intl/en/</a>
It will have to be downloaded to your computer, and then kids can use it from home the same way as they do at school. “Fly to” should be clicked in the top left corner, not Directions.
Layers should be unchecked if the kids are not using them, and the opposite is true: they should check the layers they are using. The 3D Buildings layer is great for cities, and the kids can use Shift-Drag (the Mouse) to tilt the perspective and see how tall the buildings are.
Under the Gallery layer, there are 360 Cities, GigaPan and GigaPxl photos that the kids can see. When they click those, it is as if they are jumping into a “bubble” and looking around. The photos are real. The little triangle next to Gallery should be pointing downwards.
Email the teacher with any questions: cdonoghue@billerica.k12.ma.us
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: August 28, 2011
If any students are looking for Hurricane information, I have pulled together some cool links here:
For Hurricane pictures, satellite imagery, and maps, try the NOAA site
For hurricane preparedness, try the FEMA website that is especially for kids or the Discovery Channel site
You could look around the National Hurricane Center of the United States
The National Weather Service website is here for current forecasts
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: June 9, 2011
The kids have been very excited in this month of June to try a few new things in class. If they want to continue, on a rainy day at home, they can try the mini-golf game from a Mac but unfortunately not a PC. The link is here.
Kids love to play on Kerpoof.com and that is on the internet and available to Mac or PC users. Click here to get to Kerpoof.
Thanks to the third graders, we now have a great list of Top Things to do this Summer!
Students tried the newest version of Google Earth last month, and they walked around town with Street View. Thanks to Mrs. Reid, the former Hajjar/Parker Computer teacher, Billerica Center looks amazing in 3d. Just go to 460 Boston Road, Billerica, with Google Earth Street View, and then jump into 3d mode! It’s beautiful. Mrs. Reid has been working hard on modeling all the Center buildings.
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: April 27, 2011
We are revisiting an old favorite this week.
In fourth this week, we started using Phun. It is a program that allows you to make models of machinery and use elements like gears, chains, wheels, levers, ramps, water, wind, etc.
It has applications in Science like Simple Machines and beginning Physics. There are different levels that you can set.
It is free to download from http://phunland.com/
It is a free beta version of the program “Algadoo” which you can purchase for $25. There are many tutorial videos on the web that will help you learn it.
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: April 1, 2011
If you remember the computer teacher that was at the Hajjar before me, Mrs. Reid, she was part of a Google Earth prank! She made the Zakim Bridge model in Boston, and for April Fool’s Day there is a lobster climbing up the side of it.
You can get a full list of the models here.
There are 11 on Google Earth, if you start up that program, and turn on the 3D Buildings layer.
Happy April Fool’s Day!
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: March 21, 2011
All grades are working on Word Processing. Second grade and up are writing letters (see the tab at the top marked “Postal Project”). First grade is typing up creative writing that they have done. Kindergarten is typing their alphabet, and they are also working on Math.
When they finish their work, all grades get to play math games. We love Math Missions and Math Blaster! (Mrs. Donoghue loves all the math facts that are being practiced.)
In February we did Journey North–which you can read about by clicking the last tab above.
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: January 11, 2011
Edheads.org is a great website that has science activities on it.
We worked on weather reporting and predicting in third and fourth grade this first two weeks of January. The kids did a great job trying to predict the weather!
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: November 30, 2010
Here is a link to it!
Posted by: Christine Donoghue on: October 18, 2010
If kids would like to use Google Earth at home, it is a free program accessible here: http://earth.google.com/intl/en/
It will have to be downloaded to your computer, and then kids can use it from home the same way as they do at school. “Fly to” should be clicked in the top left corner, not Directions.
Layers should be unchecked if the kids are not using them, and the opposite is true: they should check the layers they are using. The 3D Buildings layer is great for cities, and the kids can use Shift-Drag the Mouse to tilt the perspective and see how tall the buildings are.
Under the Gallery layer, there are 360 Cities, GigaPan and GigaPxl photos that the kids can see. When they click those, it is as if they are jumping into a “bubble” and looking around. The photos are real. The little triangle next to Gallery should be pointing downwards.
Also under Gallery, is National Geographic and after that is checked, Africa Megaflyover should be checked to get red airplane icons over Africa. Each icon has a photo under it, which was taken from the air.
If kids are looking at mountains, they should turn off 3D Buildings and turn on the Terrain layer at the bottom.
As a “Companion” program this week, a couple classes used Grolier’s Amazing Animals. (They wanted to look up animals that they saw in Africa Megaflyover.) So we went to the Parker or Hajjar website, clicked Links, Library. On the Elementary library page, upper middle, there is a link to Grolier’s Amazing Animals. When that page comes up, click Grolier’s Amazing Animals on the left (yellow rectangle). Then the kids can type in an animal name in the Find/Search box at the top. (Hit the enter or return key to make it happen!)
Email the teacher with any questions: cdonoghue@billerica.k12.ma.us
If anyone is still looking for Sketchup, then go to Google.com and click More, Even More and you will see it on that page.