FableVision Learning Spotlight Blog
Categories
- Animation-ish 42
- Books 21
- Civics! 2
- Classroom Spotlight 17
- Conferences and Events 20
- Creative Educator 3
- Creativity 25
- Distance Learning 13
- Dot Day 22
- FabClassroom 28
- FabFriday 19
- FabMaker Studio 66
- FabMaker Studio Classroom 13
- FableFive 7
- FableVision Games 3
- Free Educator Resources 36
- HUTCH 1
- Home Activities 5
- In the Classroom 34
- In the News 11
- International Dot Day 23
- Ish 1
- Library 1
- Mapping the World by Heart 7
- Paul Reynolds 10
- Peter H. Reynolds 54
- Professional Development 9
- STEM/STEAM 20
- Storybook Academy 2
- Teacher Spotlight 14
- The Dot 17
- The North Star 2
- Words and Their Stories 1
- Zoombinis 3
Creative Ways to Celebrate Earth Day
A spinning globe, a 3D Turtle, and a story of your world - there are many ways you and your students can celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day with FableVision Learning’s Creativity Maker Suite of online tools.
When Earth Day was started on April 22, 1970, the impact of the movement saw 20 million participants. This day is important to help raise awareness to show how much of an impact we really do have on the environment by every little move we make.
This year, as many of us are marking the day from in our homes, we compiled a few activities to get your little ones thinking about the environment around them.
Animation-ish
Animation-ish, is an easy-to-use online animation tool - that helps students show what they know! Weave Animation-ish into your distance learning activities with a few ideas:
Animate Different Cycles:
Encourage your students to animate as a way to explore different cycles. Using the tracing feature, students can easily animate the slow transitions that lead into new phases in any of these cycles. Whether it’s showing night shift to day or animating the parts of the water cycle, check out these examples below
What are some other natural earth cycles that your class has studied? We want to hear from you about YOUR favorite Earth Day animations.
FabMaker Studio
FabMaker Studio, is our digital design and fabrication tool created to get students prototyping with paper. For more tips and tricks on how to use a printer and a pair of scissors, click here.
Go Green with Greenie the Turtle!
This FabMaker Studio activity is inspired by the book “Go Green!” from the Sydney & Simon series (Paul Reynolds and Peter H. Reynolds, Charlesbridge Publishing) and is a great way to explore ocean wildlife.
In the book, Sydney and Simon learn about a turtle named Greenie who got sick from too much plastic in the ocean. This discovery leads them to find ways to reduce their waste and be more eco-conscious.
In FabMaker Studio, encourage your students to weld together shapes to create a turtle. For an added challenge - limit the creation to two shapes. Want to do deeper? In the FabMaker Studio Ready-Made projects, students can print a 3D turtle project to design and modify. This project provides an opportunity for you to talk to your students about turtles and other wildlife while also exploring the STEM skills of fabrication.
BONUS IDEAS:
Using the scraps of paper leftover from the project, create lily pads, or leaves for your paper turtle.
Explore the shapes in FabMaker Studio to create fish friends for your turtles (or print them out using our 2D ready-mades)
Do your students learn about recycling? What other oceanic creatures has your class studied? Greenie would love to have more fabricated friends, let us know if your students create any other animals in FabMaker Studio, we’d love to check them out.
How will you be celebrating Earth Day? Share it with the FableVision Learning team via Twitter @FableLearn, or via email: info@fablevisionlearning.com
Creative Activities for Halloween
It is fall in New England. The leaves are turning shades of orange, yellow, and red and Jack-O’-Lanterns are popping up on doorsteps. This means Halloween is around the corner and at FableVision Learning we are getting creative with project ideas in made with our creativity tools. Here’s a few to get started.
Boo! Animated Pumpkins and Ghosts
Encourage your students to use Animation-ish to explore motion and story by creating a dancing ghost, or have your students animate their dream costume, or tell a joke on a pumpkin. What’s new: Animation-ish creations made in Flipbook-ish can be exported as a GIF.
About Animation-ish: Animation-ish is an easy-to-use online animation tool that helps students show what they know! Whether you are doing distance learning, hybrid teaching or on site classes, you can weave Animation-ish activities into your lessons.
Mystery Monsters Made With FabMaker Studio
If your students can imagine it, they can create with with FabMaker Studio. In the Mystery Monster Blog Post, Dr. Peggy Healy Stearns, Lead Designer for FabMaker Studio, shares her tricks and tips for using the web-based design and fabrication program to combine, weld and morph shapes into exciting creatures. What will your students create?
Create a 3D “Mystery Monster”
But Wait. there’s more!
Jack-O-Lantern
The 5th graders in Palm Beach County, FL combined their FabMaker paper prototyping with circuitry to light up their paper Jack-O-Lanterns. Want a quicker fix? If needed, Peggy recommends substituting circuitry with LED votives.
Masks
Halloween is a great time to explore some FabMaker Studio Ready-Mades. There is a library of masks available to choose from.
Or you and your students can create your very own from scratch.
BONUS: for a more advanced mask, add 3D elements.
Looking to make a socially distanced Halloween a little more fun? Use FabMaker to create candygrams to give to friends- or even a candy corn garland!
About FabMaker Studio: FabMaker Studio is our digital design and fabrication tool created to get students prototyping with paper. For more tips and tricks on how to use a printer and a pair of scissors, click here.
How will you be celebrating Halloween? Share it with the FableVision Learning team via Twitter or Instagram @FableLearn, or via email: info@fablevisionlearning.com
Sydney & Simon Blast Off in Their Latest Adventure: To The Moon!
They’ve used STEAM-thinking to save Greenie, revive flowers for the art show, and now Sydney & Simon are embarking on their next adventure that is truly out of this world.
In To The Moon, the twin mice flex their creative and collaborative muscles to create a STEAM-inspired project about the Earth’s Moon, all for a chance to meet astronaut Kris Kornfield!
To The Moon is the third installment in the STEAM-powered Sydney & Simon series, which includes Full Steam Ahead and Go Green, written by real-life twins Peter H. and Paul Reynolds. To The Moon is available now from Peter H. Reynolds’ own book store, The Blue Bunny Books & Toys.
To celebrate the book’s release, we put on our own STEAM-powered hats to develop a few activities for our paper prototyping and fabrication tool, Fab@School Maker Studio:
Inspired by Simon’s moon-matching game, you can test your skills with the Fab@School Maker Studio 2D Moon Phase Puzzle. Try adding an extra challenge by filling in each Moon phase name yourself!
Join Kris Kornfeild on her mission and blast off with an animated Rocket Launch pop-up that slides up and down!
Or cruise through space with the Rocket Flight Path pop-up. Try making new tracks for the rocket to trace for an extra creative challenge!
Finally, test your FAB skills with the 3D Rocket Ship. Can you change the shape or size of the design? Can you put yourself and Commander Kris Kornfield inside the rocket?
The FableVision Learning team is excited to see what your students are fabricating, animating, and writing! Share your Moon-inspired Fab@School Maker Studio creations by emailing Patrick@FableVisionLearning.com. You may even get the chance to be featured in a future blog post!
But wait! Did you know that our Moon is going to pass directly between the Earth and the Sun on Monday, Aug. 21, 2017? This solar eclipse is a very rare event, and a great opportunity to use STEAM to learn and teach others about our position in the solar system. Check out NASA’s Solar Eclipse resource here.