Canvas in the Primary Grades

In fall of 2014, my classroom went 1:1 with iPads and was funded by the PTO. Grades 5-12 in my district were already using Canvas by Instructure, so they asked me to use it in my classroom.  The video they sent me is the one below.  While it showed me how 1st graders can use Canvas, it didn't show me how they set it up for students to use. 

After watching this video and being the only person in the primary grades in my district to use Canvas, I didn't have a lot of guidance.  

What was I going to do? How was I going to make this effective for my students? Can I make navigation easy for everyone?

Home Screen

I decided to make my main screen the same schedule circles that I used on the board.  This allowed my students to easily make connections to what were were doing since they had seen these icons daily throughout the whole semester. 

Reader's Workshop

Below is how I set up my Reader's Workshop page.  My classroom incorporated some of the Daily 5 aspects. I created a ThingLink so you can view what my students see when they log into Canvas. 

• Teacher Table has all of their colored reading groups and then I use digital PDFs, such as from Reading A-Z.  
• Read to Self and Someone stations, I created a Google Form for students to fill out.  This helps me to make sure that there is some accountability at each of the stations.  
• Word Work has our Words Their Way sorts for each week (I'll write another post about this). 
  
• Write About Reading has different PDFs to choose from based off the book they select.  There are options for fiction and non-fiction.  They export the PDF to Notability, complete the sheet, then import it back into Canvas.  (I'll probably be changing this next year)
• Research-This changes throughout the semester based off the PBL.  Below you can see some of the search engines I used with my students for when they could choose their research topics.

Writer's Workshop

Moving to Writer's Workshop, I divided this page into four parts.  Student knows that their task is to move left to right as they are writing.  I change the group lesson daily, but the anchor charts, spelling, and editing checklist stays the same throughout the whole unit.

Math Workshop

Math Workshop doesn't look as glamorous as the other pages, but includes all the activities that students will be doing for the day.  My district uses Everyday Math.  The Canvas page below is a unit review page.  I was absent that day, but was able to create a lesson using tutorials from Explain Everything to still teach my students the lesson the way I would want to teach them.