What Will You Contribute to Character Day, 2018?

Character Day began in 2014 as a global effort to get people all over the world talking about character. Two years ago, 125 countries and all 50 states participated. This year, Character Day is scheduled for September 26th, and Cosumnes River Elementary is joining the effort for the second year in a row.

Beginning September 24th, students in grades 5-6 will watch one of several videos designed to get them thinking about the kind of person they are and want to be in the world. Then they’ll post their answers onto a digital canvas.

What will you contribute? Watch the video shown below to gather inspiration and reflect.

Watch 1min Character Day Trailer from The Moxie Institute on Vimeo.

Made with Padlet

After watching both videos, ask yourself:

  • What kind of person am I?
  • Who do I want to be in the world?

Now consider joining our class for Character Day, 2018, and post your response to the Padlet shown below, which is organized into columns that reflect the main topics shown in the Periodic Table of Character Strengths. Simply click a PLUS sign under the column you would like to write a reflection. Each column heading shows a variety of subtopics. I’ve written comments under several columns and added photos/links to get things started. Note: all responses are held for moderation before publication so posts won’t appear immediately.

Click the white arrow in the Padlet’s upper right-hand corner to expand the screen to view the digital canvas and participate. 

Made with Padlet

International Dot Day, September 15th-ish

international dot day digital badgeSeptember 15th is International Dot Day. You probably didn’t know that? I discovered this last year and am ready to embark on another dot day celebration in the CRES computer lab. So, what’s it all about? Well, activities center around the book, The Dot. A humble title, yes, but the message is big: don’t be afraid to try. The subject of The Dot is a young student named Vashti, who becomes artistically confident after her teacher frames the simple dot Vashti had drawn on paper. When Vashti sees her work framed the next day, it emboldens her. With her new found confidence, she completes numerous “masterpieces” and has a gallery showing. Vashti soon becomes an inspiration to others.

During the month of September, many CRES students, grades 2-6, will create dot art using Google Slides. The project will be delivered through Google Classroom. Each student will open their assignment in Google Slides and use a number of drawing tools to create their unique piece of circular art. When completed, students will upload their art to our Padlet canvas and share their masterpieces in celebration.

The digital canvas shown below is currently awaiting the addition of student art. Stay tuned! At the very bottom of this post, you can view a video sampling of student art from 2017.

Made with Padlet


#InternationalDotDay #TheDot #Padlet

Mondrian Style Art With Google Drawings

Piet Mondrian, a Dutch painter, is best know for a form of art he called neoplasticism. The art is prepared on a white background, with a grid of black lines and the primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. Young students can easily recreate their own Mondrian style art.

When students originally began this project, they used the Kerpoof website. It was loved by kids and fairly simple to use. Kerpoof, owned by the Walt Disney Company, closed April 2014. Instead, Disney moved toward creating mobile apps.

The art for this project is quickly created with Google Drawings. Just a few tools are needed: line tool, line weight, shape tool, and arrange. Ctrl + D is also used to quickly duplicate lines. Once completed, I have the students save their art as a png file and have them upload to a collaborative canvas at Padlet.

Mondrian style art image


#Mondrian #GoogleDrawings #ElementaryArtProjects

Creating Online Projects with Padlet

Padlet is a wonderful resource for classroom projects. Shown below is an example I made to illustrate my Four Seasons Project.

After showing students my example, I’ll send them to their project Padlet and ask them to upload a pic for each season under the appropriate column, including a sentence or two. Students will click a plus sign below each season to add text and images.  When students return from summer vacation, I’ll unlock the Padlet, making it public and editable. Padlets can be private, password protected, secret, or public. They can also be set to read, write, or moderate.

Made with Padlet

When unlocked by the student, the canvas will appear as shown below.

view of unlocked Padlet


#Padlet #Padlet_Projects #Digital_Projects

Distorted Art with Google Drawings

Kids often place a high value on images over text. In fact, kids will start searching Goggle images for pictures to add to their essays when no visual content is required. ;-( When images are requested, students frequently distort them, either horizontally or vertically. Well, here’s a simple project that takes advantage of that skill. The results can be stunning and Padlet.com is a great way to organize and display completed student projects onto a collaborative canvas.

Made with Padlet

#Google_Drawings #distorted_art #Padlet

Padlet.com for Digital Presentations

a display of media on a padlet

A display of collected media on a Padlet.

This year I began using Padlet.com. It’s a great resource for students, teachers, and parents. I simply write the access code for a particular padlet on my whiteboard, and students enter the code to gain access to the digital canvas, uploading their writing, art, slideshows or videos. I’ve also used it as a repository for digital presentations I’ve great to showcase school activities or classroom art projects. Check out my collection for 2016-17.

https://padlet.com/mtgal48/digitalpresentations


#padlet #digital_canvas