Useful Tech Tools + Global Read Aloud 2012

The Global Read Aloud kicks off this week.  This year one of the books is Charlotte's Web, which our class will be participating in.  We are connecting with other classes through Skype, Edmodo and voicethread to discuss the book together and do projects with a global audience.  You can still sign up to participate!

Here are a few tech tools I've found very useful lately:

*Trackstar- This website allows you to quickly and easily create a webquest for your class.  Here is my trackstar on Apples, which we used on Johnny Appleseed day.  

*Voicethread-  One this site you can take a picture of student work and then record them explaining it.  My favorite feature is the social aspect- other students can comment.  Also, you make want to check out  Screenchomp App if you are just interested in the voiceover and picture- it does the same thing.

*MasteryConnect- I'm thinking of signing up for the paid version of this and I would love feedback from people who already have it!  There is also Gradecam, but with MasteryConnect, you get the same features for a little less.

*KeepVid- Want to show that amazing educational video, but your school blocks YouTube?  Here's your solution!  Thanks to the Darling Liberian for her always fabulous comic tutorials:

An upcoming great resource that you should watch for:

Claco- This website is currently in Beta testing.
You can upload all your lesson files to share with others.  I'm planning on having all of my content on here week by week so all my digital files will be ready to go- plus my team and global users can share and collaborate together!  If you are teaching a certain topic, there is a search engine that finds lessons for you!  Love it!  Check out my profile here.  Want in?  Leave me a comment with your email!

What tools are you using in your classroom?

Infographic for the Chicago Teacher Strike

Presented By: BestCollegesOnline.com

Tell Me Something Good

My Something Good from School:

Two things:  Tomorrow we are starting our Daily 5 rotations for real!!!!!!!!!  Woohoo!

I've been holding off because I didn't have all the equipment I needed for Listen To Reading (aka Ipads).  I didn't have any headphone splitters.  I was planning on purchasing the Belkin Rockstar.  However, I found out today that our library has headphone splitters!  For free!  Two sets!  Stop. the. world.  {abby moment!}  :)

Belkin Rockstar: $10  Picture Source: Amazon

With this setup you can actually have up to five kiddos listening to one device, but I'm keeping it limited to pairs.  I am very ready to have a normal rotation schedule up and running!  Whole group stuff was driving me crazy!

My Something Good from home:

Well, lots!  My husband has a new job where just works 9-5, which is a real blessing for us.  He was working seasonal part time jobs that usually involved holidays, weekends....  I love having him home on the weekend!

We are constantly planning our future vacations :) and we are thinking about going to L.A. & San Diego this summer.  <3

Take a moment and share some of your good news with Rowdy in First Grade!

Discovery Educator STAR

Do you like: 

• getting free educational resources?
• growing your PLN and connecting with inspiring educators?
• attending useful PD like virtual conferences from your couch (for free)?
• access to lesson plans and common core resources?

Discovery Educator's Network (DEN) is a really great online resource that I recently found out about.  If you use any of their products (like United Streaming) than you are eligible to join.  

I'm really looking forward to their upcoming Fall Virtcon, and their are constantly things going on.  This week they have 7 webinars!  

I recently became a STAR Discovery educator (this is the more active position of the DEN), and look what came for me in the mail today:

Things included in my free welcome pack: Acrylic STAR (this thing looks so cool!), USB Hub, Pin & Sticker, Lanyard, Luggage Tag and trading cards.  The trading cards have the contact info of a few other STARs (like their website & twitter handle).  

I've got a training kit ordered as well, which comes with a bunch of free stuff for my co-workers if they come to a brief meeting about DEN.  

If you are looking for more ways to connect, or you want a leadership role in your school than I would highly recommend checking out Discovery Educator Network!  I know I could use a lot more help in the upcoming months with transitioning to Common Core, and I will be relying on DEN to help me out.  See ya there!

Everything September!

Interactive Math Journals, New Anchor Charts & Bulletin Boards, and a brand new Reading Assessment Notebook are all included in this post!

Anchor charts really show what we are working on in class and we refer to them often.  The Metacognition chart comes from Tammy McGregor, ThinkMarks from Fontas and Pinnell, and Writing from Lucy Calkins and The Sisters.  I love being surrounded by the gurus!  :)

I am absolutely in love with our Math Notebooks this year!  I had a lot of inspiration from Runde's Room and Yvonne Crawford's presentation at the Back To School Expo.  I LOVE the left hand side thinking page for our math journals!!! 

 Notice the big green dot?  That is the student's self assessment based on a traffic light- red: still needs work; yellow: starting to get it; green: understands and could teach it to a friend.

Reflection: It help(ed) me out because when you choose a number do it goes "Whoo" or "Whee" 

hahahaha! We made  number line Roller Coaster for Rounding... complete with sound effects, as evident in this student's reflection!

I love glueing the foldables into the math notebook.  Author Dinah Zike has some amazing resources you should check out if you haven't already!

Here is a peak into our math notebooks.  The money printables come from Tales of a Traveling Teacher.  She has a whole section of Math Notebook printables and Literacy Journals.  Great idea!  Check out all of her TPT notebook resources here.

Sorting & creating charts

Word Problems

Sorting by addition property

I've been trying to get my reading system down for a while now.  We FINALLY got the ok from our new curriculum instructor that we didn't have to follow the basal so strictly!  My county was big on that for a while- remember when I had to get rid of the Daily 5?

Well, I'm bringing it back!  (WOOHOO!) Plus, I'm really teaching flexible strategy groups this year!  I'm so excited about it!

One of my FAVORITE teaching bloggers, Beth Newingham, inspired this binder.  She has lots of great freebies for you to create your own assessment binder!

This little chart is how I plan to keep up with my strategy groups.  Strips of velcro allow me to easily move the groups.  It's on a laminated piece of scrapbook paper, so I can write on it with dry erase markers!

What are YOU doing in your class that is new this year?

Open House Night: A Step By Step Guide With Free Resources

Today we had open house.  Here's a step-by-step guide to everything that I do:

I stand at the door and greet parents.  I have a podium outside the door with a framed 8 x 10 class picture, a sign in sheet/volunteer sheet, and a plant.

I have a powerpoint rolling when the parents walk in the room.  It's class pictures on a loop.  I used this Powerpoint background:

This background came somewhere from the site Brainy Betty, but I can't find the exact link.  If someone has it, send it to me!

How to Loop a Powerpoint slide show:

1. On the Slide Show menu, click Set Up Show.
2. Select the Loop continuously until 'Esc' check box.

The parents would enter the room, look around, and find their child's desk with their letter on it.  This year I had the parents reply, but I only had 11/18 parents show... so next year I'm ditching the parent's reply portion.  Third grade is a little different... less parent participation than 1st.

When everyone arrives, I start a formal presentation with Prezi.  Prezi is a free, beautiful and easy to use site!  I highly recommend it if you haven't tried it yet.  They have a really cute owl design too!  The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes- don't ramble on and on!  Short, sweet and to the point.

Back to School Prezi

You can click here to get your own editable version.

Open House 2012 on Prezi

I had folders on the students' desks.  Inside, I added:

• Class Handbook 

• Scholastic Parent Letter stapled to an order form
• TCAP Skills 
• Parent Questionnaire (From Beth Newingham)
• AR login information

In the past I have also done a raffle drawing for a free scholastic book or give a homework pass for the students.  

Here are some shots of my classroom from tonight (it's darker than normal!):

What do you do for your open house?

Back To School Expo FREE TICKET!

Have you entered the giveaway for your FREE ticket to the Back To School Expo presented by Teacher's Notebook?

I snagged one, and I received INSTANT access to the presentations and all the goodies!   I downloaded TWENTY NINE freebies today!  They were all really great things that I needed like: math journal prompts, a sub folder, inspirational print, reading connection posters, back to school organizational forms, newsletter/lesson plan templates, center activities and much more!

The presentations are also great!  I learned more about Math Journals (my big goal for the year is to really get these going!), Reading Success with Annie Moffatt (love her!) and I'm currently viewing Schoolgirl Style's presentation.

Join me by getting your free ticket now!

First day of school classroom layout

  

The "Classroom Promise" posters are $5 on TPT.  The Vinyl Clip Chart is $20 from New Management (Rick Morris).  You can order one here.

Yea, that's me and Rick Morris!  :)  Gotta love conferences.

I LOVE my "Don't forget the table washers" sign!  To the right of that is the reminder board for crazy last minute dismissal changes. 

 These are Jenny's Blooms Taxonomy Posters for $1.00 on TPT! (Please ignore the fact that my last two are out of order.... lol it's on my to do list)

The classroom clock labels are free here.  The bulletin board is from Mountain Math... I will probably change it soon.  The Aquarium came from a grant from Pets In The Classroom.

The genre posters come from Beth Newingham.  You can print them for free!

The Hand Signals are $4 from TPT.  The white shelves are only $19 from Walmart; I purchased the 2 of the three tier shelves and spread them out across the room.  The book bins are from Really Good Stuff.

This is my Money & Notes collection bin.  It's a plain black stackable bin, but I added scrapbook paper to make it stand out.

I'm linking up with Beg Borrow Steal to see other classroom layouts!  

Ohmiword we are starting school day after tomorrow!

So, our school was delayed since August 6th because they couldn't pass our budget.  They JUST announced that they are starting Thursday.  As in, THIS THURSDAY!  Also as in.... day after tomorrow!!!!!!!!!  Ahhhhhhhhh!

This is why I'm freaking out: today I took apart my library.  Wanna hear the good news?  Today I scanned 381 books into my new database of amazingness... still many more left to go!  Richard Allington suggests having a classroom library with 750-1,500 books in the classroom.  

I got an app called BookCrawler ($1.99) .  I LOVE this app!  You can scan the barcodes on books and it pulls up the ISBN, title, genre and picture.  I put them into categories based on which book tub they go in and I also added the reading level.  The really great part is that you can easily look and see how many of each group you have, search based on reading level, or search by topic.  You can also lend them to students and keep a record of it.  You will always know exactly which books you own and how many.  You can export your database to any mobile device or computer.  Love!  My inspiration comes from Anglea Bunyi's library and Beth Newingham's library.

Photo source


Any last minute back to school tips?  Does anyone else use a library database?