Creative Classroom Time-Savers with HelloKids.com

[00:00:00] Shanna Martin: Thanks for listening to the Technical for Teachers Podcast. For each week, we talk about a free. He's the two of technology that you can use in your classroom. I'm your host, Shannon Merton. I'm a middle school teacher, technology and instructional coach for my district.

[00:00:30] Fuzz Martin: Hello fellow kids. I'm Fuzz Martin.

[00:00:33] Fuzz Martin: I'm a producer and husband. I hope you're having a great day. You know the, the meme, the hello fellow kids meme with Steve Buscemi, where he is like, he's like obviously old, but dressed with a backpack and uh oh. Come on. You've all seen. How do you do fellow kids? Uh, here. This one right here. See?

[00:00:55] Shanna Martin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's from 30 Rock. Yeah. Okay.

[00:00:57] Fuzz Martin: So

[00:00:58] Shanna Martin: I do, yeah. Anyway, that's pretty fun. It's December, we are here and it's cold outside.

[00:01:08] Fuzz Martin: It is, uh, here. Yes it is. Uh, it's very cold here. Hi, tomorrow as we're recording this. 18 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah. Which is not enough degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:01:19] Fuzz Martin: No,

[00:01:19] Shanna Martin: it's cold. And we get to do some outside stuff, so that'll be super fun.

[00:01:24] Fuzz Martin: Yeah. Here that's the picture.

[00:01:26] Shanna Martin: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I remember now we're good. Okay, cool.

[00:01:29] Shanna Martin: So today we're doing a fun one because let's all be real. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is challenging. It's fun. There's lots of fun things going on.

[00:01:42] Shanna Martin: Sure. But also like there's a lot going on and there's downtime between different things. And so I was looking at some art type sites this week because our child at home is cranking out Christmas cards for everybody. And my students have been crafting more lately and they wanna like decorate classroom doors, so they wanna do all kinds of fun.

[00:02:08] Shanna Martin: Holiday type stuff. So while the site is not holiday related, it does have lots of cool, creative opportunities. Mm-hmm. Which you can build into your classroom for students of all ages. So, the site is called. You ready for it? Yes. It is called Hello Kids. Hello kids. So H-E-L-L-O-K-I-D s.com. So Hello Kids is the site and there is all kinds of things like highlights.

[00:02:35] Shanna Martin: There's, art for drawing, there's crafting projects, there's like reading. We'll kind of go through it. There's just fun activities to do. It would be great to throw into a choice board. Like you can pick and choose sections of it to drop into a choice board or if you wanna do, a craft or an activity as a whole class or if you want students to take something home and kind of create with the video, they can do that.

[00:02:58] Fuzz Martin: Sure.

[00:02:58] Shanna Martin: There's all kinds of just opportunities for creativity, which is pretty cool. And, a lot of fun stuff. So hello kids.com. If you go, like, I was most excited about the drawing and the, the crafting part. Yep. So if you click on the cross, the top, they have drawing for kids. There's different ways that it will teach you to draw.

[00:03:19] Shanna Martin: So if you want your students just to kind of work quietly or independently at their desks, you can click like the first one's a minion and you can draw a little minion, which is super cute, and it goes through instead of a video. It's just step by step process. Sure. So this is something which I think this skillset for students to have independently mm-hmm.

[00:03:40] Shanna Martin: Is actually really helpful. Back in the day, you know, a hundred years ago. When we were using drawing books, I dunno if you've ever used drawing books as a kid. Oh yeah. But it was like a book, like I had how to draw cats. Mm-hmm. And it would do like the circle and then you draw the line through. It teaches you step by step, but it's not with a video.

[00:03:56] Shanna Martin: Right. This walks you through drawing a minion. Yep. Step by step without a video where you have to pause and stop every time. It just walk you through each step.

[00:04:04] Fuzz Martin: Sure.

[00:04:05] Shanna Martin: Which is a great skill for kill kids to have. So if you're looking at the drawing part, there are several different ways you can draw. So some of them you can click on and it walks you through step by step.

[00:04:16] Shanna Martin: They have like Lego Ninjago, they have all kinds of things that kids like to do. They also then have, if you just scroll down the drawing section, drawing lessons for kids. So if you click on those again, it's gonna walk you through the steps. But not, not all of them have words with them. Sure. Some of them are just.

[00:04:37] Shanna Martin: Visual. Yeah. Just like a hand

[00:04:39] Fuzz Martin: on top of the paper drawing. Right?

[00:04:41] Shanna Martin: Yeah. Like walking through. Well, some of 'em are just pictures. Oh,

[00:04:44] Fuzz Martin: sure. Okay.

[00:04:45] Shanna Martin: Without any words. So then you have to like use your own brain. Yeah. Which might be cool to have kids write their own directions for it. Oh yeah. Like and explain it.

[00:04:52] Shanna Martin: Mm-hmm. And then they also have drawing video tutorials, which are gonna be videos. They gonna walk you through how to draw something, and then they have full drawing lessons so they can walk you through not just the picture, but like the whole lesson that goes with it. And again, the tutorial step by step.

[00:05:07] Shanna Martin: So you can see like there's all different types of drawing lessons that you can let students kind of explore on their own. Or if you wanna do something as a whole group, you can do that. Like you can pick a theme that you're working on or they could be working on. A direction, skillset. Mm-hmm. Or they could pick a character and then write a story about it later on.

[00:05:27] Shanna Martin: Oh yeah. So there's a lot of different ways you could use the drawing section and some creativity and also have some guidance so you don't have to explain everything to your students.

[00:05:35] Fuzz Martin: Sure.

[00:05:36] Shanna Martin: If you keep on scrolling down, it'll give you other categories, which also links to other stuff on the site. So each page kind of has that where you can shift in and if you want holiday stuff, 'cause you wanna dig into it, like you can click.

[00:05:51] Shanna Martin: Different holidays. They have like Halloween and they have Christmas and they have St. Patrick's Day, but they also have like Pikachu and Monsters and Bears and Disney. Um, so they have all different types of things to choose from. So you could pick categories as well if you want to. Sure. Not everything in the Has a drawing opportunity.

[00:06:12] Shanna Martin: Yeah. In a category. Just those cover other things on the site. Sure, sure. So lots of drawing things. If you go under the crafts and activities, you can, it walks you through like DIY sock bunny steps. I've made many of these in my lifetime. Gives you the video, kind of walks you through the different pieces of how to build sock bunnies.

[00:06:34] Shanna Martin: Again, some of them have videos, they have Play-Doh workshops, so I don't know if you have Play-Doh in your classroom. I mean, all the way through. Our high school bio teacher has Play-Doh in their classroom and kids use it to make cells and stuff. But you can go through and it gives you step by step or kids step by step on how to make specific things with Play-Doh, which is cool.

[00:06:55] Shanna Martin: Like you can make a Disney frozen Play-Doh sled adventure, and what a cool thing if you're gonna do stop motion with your students. It will give you like step by step with your Play-Doh. Mm-hmm. Like what to make. We've been using for Google School, we have a lot of. Students now using Google Vids. Yep.

[00:07:14] Shanna Martin: So you can drop everything into slides and it will make you a video. And it does a nice job with doing a SAT motion. So

[00:07:21] Fuzz Martin: Sure.

[00:07:22] Shanna Martin: Play-Doh, they have a whole section on that. They have a cool thing for face painting. That's something that my middle schoolers really get into is face paint, like makeup, but also face painting and doing cool things.

[00:07:33] Shanna Martin: Yeah. Explanation on that.

[00:07:35] Fuzz Martin: I like the, uh, the craft with toilet paper rolls and milk cartons. Cereal boxes. They've got that, that amphibious jet.

[00:07:44] Shanna Martin: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:45] Fuzz Martin: I would make that all day long.

[00:07:46] Shanna Martin: That is pretty cool. And what a great way to recycle.

[00:07:49] Fuzz Martin: Yes, exactly.

[00:07:50] Shanna Martin: And then they could gift it to somebody in the holiday.

[00:07:52] Shanna Martin: There you go. That would be great. They also have a whole section on origami, how to videos. I know our daughter just finished an art class, but origami is fun and keeps you busy. Mm-hmm. And once they learn how to fold one thing,

[00:08:06] Fuzz Martin: they'll

[00:08:07] Shanna Martin: fold them all. They will fold it a thousand times over. And if it's on Tic-Tac, they're gonna do it.

[00:08:11] Shanna Martin: So why don't we teach them some cool things to fold? Yes. Like dogs and flowers. Yes. So lots of origami videos. They also have mass crafts that you can print. They have birthday ideas, they have crafting with food. Mm-hmm. So like making like, cake pops. Mm-hmm. And churros. There's just so many different things that like kids can dig into.

[00:08:33] Shanna Martin: But again, as a teacher you can skew like I. Don't always, I don't give kids always free reign on these sites. Like, okay, we're gonna link it to this specific page, or I will push out just the certain URL to my students, so they're focused on one section. Sure. And at choice board, they have a collection of coloring pages, which we appreciate, you can color online.

[00:08:53] Shanna Martin: I realized that while I was playing around with it, that I was coloring the squirrel mandala and not only can you color online, but also it will let you color it. It will let you recolor it, it will let you delete and start over. It will save your piece of beautiful art to your computer. And you can download it.

[00:09:15] Shanna Martin: So there's lots of options with coloring with their fun little coloring online things. Again, sometimes we need a mental break. They do have free online games. I would definitely check those out before you just allow students to jump on them. Some are different, grade appropriate. Yeah. So just be aware of that.

[00:09:30] Shanna Martin: The other one I highlight is the reading and learning section, which is kind of cool. So they have stories on there, so you can pick and choose, like you can read a story, students can read a story, and it will kind of go through, like there's seven pages, the pages, you can read it out loud, they can read it to themselves.

[00:09:50] Shanna Martin: It's a nice little online. There's different online stories, but also. There are opportunities to learn other languages. Oh, cool. So if you are in different sections, depending on what you're in. So in like the new section, you click on time, you will notice the time like worksheet or sheet to read is in French.

[00:10:13] Shanna Martin: Oh. So then if you click French. It will then take you to every page in the site that is in French. Oh, wow. So like, there's different languages and there's, there's just different things to pay attention to, which is really cool. And it gives students the opportunity to learn other things. They have stories like Tales for Children, stories for children.

[00:10:33] Shanna Martin: Some of them are classics like fairytales, like Rapunzel. Some of them are short stories. There's Rumpelstiltskin. There's just different things. There's different learning content, and activities and crosswords. They also have famous people like biographies. They have jokes and riddles. So, and then again, there's all these different categories.

[00:10:50] Shanna Martin: You can find poems and you can find. Fairytales, you can sort through the different reading opportunities, Beatrix, Potter. So there's just all kinds of cool, like learning things that you may not see or again, it's just a quick way. If you are engaging students in something new or different and you want them to explore a little bit, you can do so.

[00:11:07] Shanna Martin: And then they also have a movie and tutorial section, which they have some science experiments and they have, some of the videos go with the readings and things like that. So there's just a lot of different things. So I was really excited to see the art. With the drawing and the crafting just 'cause this time of year kids wanna be making for other people.

[00:11:24] Shanna Martin: I think that's cool and if I can give them the opportunity to make things for others on their own terms. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

[00:11:30] Fuzz Martin: That's cool. Hello

[00:11:32] Shanna Martin: kids? Hello kids. What are you crafting? I'm,

[00:11:36] Fuzz Martin: are you coloring

[00:11:37] Shanna Martin: a swirl?

[00:11:37] Fuzz Martin: No, I'm, I'm flying a paper airplane. Oh,

[00:11:41] Shanna Martin: fantastic. Yeah.

[00:11:43] Fuzz Martin: Um,

[00:11:44] Shanna Martin: nice.

[00:11:45] Fuzz Martin: It looks like this one would be better with a, with a tablet because you can Oh.

[00:11:48] Fuzz Martin: 'cause you can swipe Yeah. Touch screen. Yeah. But I, it is got a lot of, just a lot of things that you can, A lot

[00:11:53] Shanna Martin: of just engaging things. Yeah. And you can easily build bits and pieces into lessons or hands-on activities or following directions. There's a lot of different ways you can build them in. I would definitely say upper elementary.

[00:12:03] Shanna Martin: Mm-hmm. Middle would probably be your age category that would. Work well with this. Just a lot of fun, different things. The other thing I wanted to shout out today, which is, 'cause you're talking about drawing for kids and crafts and activities, there's a YouTube channel that is used often in our house.

[00:12:20] Shanna Martin: A lot in our house, but also a lot of students around here use it and it's called Art Hub for Kids. Mm-hmm. So if anybody is unfamiliar with Art Huffer Kids, it's a really cool YouTube channel that offers. Video tutorials of how to draw things step by step and teaches some basic drawing skills to kids.

[00:12:39] Shanna Martin: And it's family friendly and it's cool. So Hard Hope for Kids is a cool YouTube thing to check out if you haven't heard of it before.

[00:12:47] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, it is, it is a lot of fun. And our child now draws. Like all

[00:12:52] Shanna Martin: the time.

[00:12:52] Fuzz Martin: All the time on her own.

[00:12:54] Shanna Martin: Yep.

[00:12:54] Fuzz Martin: She's got a style that she picked up from them, but yeah, it's cute.

[00:12:57] Shanna Martin: Yeah. So just a fun way to engage kids in drawing that may not just pick it up on their own. Yeah. She watched a couple videos. Exactly. So there you go. So, hello kids. some art, some crafting, some giving back, some sharing, following directions. All great skills and. Engaging in these two and a half weeks of general chaos for everybody.

[00:13:21] Shanna Martin: We love December. Yes. It's so much fun. Yes. So there you go. Episode 2 23.

[00:13:30] Fuzz Martin: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:31] Shanna Martin: It's been a long time.

[00:13:32] Fuzz Martin: It has been a long time. We're getting old. We are

[00:13:36] Shanna Martin: so old. Agree. Thanks for tuning in. This has been the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast. If you ever have any questions, you can find me on Blue Sky Threads, Facebook, Instagram at smartinwi, and if you wanna get more information on the links to the technology discusses episode.

[00:13:52] Shanna Martin: You can visit Smartinwi.com. If you like to support the show, please consider buying me a coffee or two. Visit. Buy me a coffee.com/ smartinwi or visit spart wi.com and click on that cute little purple coffee cup. Your donations help keep the show going. New episodes almost each week. Thanks for listening.

[00:14:09] Shanna Martin: Go educate and innovate.

[00:14:11] Fuzz Martin: The ideas and opinions expressed on this podcast and the SMART NWI website are those of the authors, Shanna Martin, and not of her employer. Prior to using any of the technologies discussed on this podcast, please consult with your employer regulations. This podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you as described, but we sure hope they do.

[00:14:30] Fuzz Martin: And we'll talk to you next time right here on the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast.