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Thursday, December 24, 2015

Winter Break App Share #2

Winter Break App Share #2 is here! Nearpod is probably my favorite app from the teacher perspective. We use Nearpod to review skills we are learning across all subjects. It is a completely interactive experience. The teacher controls the pace of the lesson from the teacher dashboard on the iPad or computer. As students submit their responses, only I can see them on my dashboard. This allows the students to answer without the fear of "being wrong," and it allows me to see who is still struggling with a concept. I have the ability to display answers without student names so we can discuss as a class why it is incorrect or why it is a good response. After the lesson, I can run a report of student responses and activity to refer to later. Students are 100% engaged, and I can use the data to inform my instruction. There are lessons for Pre-K through high school available. There are both free and paid lessons. I was fortunate that my district purchased Gold subscriptions for all of the teachers in the tech pilot. This made most of the lessons free for us which is great! Even better, Nearpod doesn't require student accounts. Students join lessons by entering a code into the Nearpod app. Nice and easy for my first graders! Learn more at www.nearpod.com. Happy Holidays!

Monday, December 21, 2015

Winter Break App Share-Day 1

I am going to kickoff my Winter Break App Share with an app we use everyday in the classroom, Epic! Epic! is an eBook library with over 10, 000 books for readers 12 and under. It covers all genres and interests. It is free for educators, but it does cost $4.99/month for families which includes up to 4 reader profiles per account. Students earn badges and incentives for reading, and their reading log is available for the teacher or parent to see what they've been reading. There are also several audio books that can be read to the students. My students love Epic! Students use this app during our reading intervention time and during Daily 5. They always have the option to read traditional books from my classroom library, but they enjoy Epic! so much I don't see them in my library very much. Learn more at www.getepic.com

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Grandparents Day 2015

Today was our annual Grandparents Day! Grandparents start the day with a breakfast with their grandchildren, and then they are able to join the students in their classrooms. We took this opportunity to show them our Pic Collage skills. Students made a "freestyle" Pic Collage with the help of their grandparents. It was awesome to see the students be the teachers and create a lasting memory. Some of their work is below.





Friday, November 13, 2015

Learning to use Pic Collage

I introduced Pic Collage to my students this week, and they picked it up pretty well! We started with a simple Pic Collage of school supplies. I showed students my example below first.
Then, we worked through the process with their own school supplies. They took the pictures of their school supplies which provided good practice with the camera. Next, we added it to the grid in Pic Collage. The last step was to add the text. They had a lot of fun with this, because they got to choose the font and color. It was also a good opportunity to talk about choosing fonts and colors that are clear and readable with the background :) The last step was to save and Air Drop their collage to me. Below is a student sample.

Now that they had a handle on how to use Pic Collage, it was time to apply it to our learning! We were talking about sequencing this week, so I asked students to work in their groups to put our story cards in the correct order.
Once they had the sequence figured out, each student used their iPad to take a picture of each card. Then, they were instructed to insert their pictures into a Pic Collage in order. They finished up by numbering the pictures and inserting a sentence explaining each part of the story. Below is a student sample.
They finished the lesson by using their collage to summarize the story with a partner. Now that we're experts, we're going to show off our Pic Collage skills to our grandparents next week on Grandparents Day!

Friday, November 6, 2015

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

This week we have been learning about growth versus fixed mindset. We started by reading The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt. You can find it on Amazon here.

It's a great story to get kids thinking about how to look at a problem or task differently. After reading and discussing the story, we really dove into the concept of a fixed and growth mindset and what that looks and sounds like. I used a great bulletin board set I found on TpT from Sarah Gardner. You can find it here. We went through each pair of mindsets and talked about the differences and why one is a growth mindset and the other is fixed. After, I put the bulletin board up in our hallway as a daily reminder to have a growth mindset. I think it turned out great :)

Later in the week, the students worked in groups to sort statements into growth and fixed mindset. It was a great way to check for understanding and to work on working together as a team!


Thursday, October 29, 2015

Our First Virtual Field Trip

Now that we are through parent-teacher conferences, I was looking for an activity that might help the students understand that technology can help us be a part of something hundreds or thousands of miles away. I stumbled upon a virtual field trip for Red Ribbon Week sponsored by Discovery Education. The Santa Ana Police Department was participating at a live event showcasing their K9 police dogs. They would be sharing how the dogs are selected, trained, and used on the job. The event was held during our lunch/recess, so I let the students choose to voluntarily stay in for the field trip. All but five of them chose to participate! Yay! I explained that all of the activity was happening live, and that it was like we were in California watching it with those students in person. We found California on the map and talked about how far away it is and how long it would take to get there by plane or car. I think they understood the concept! We wrote and submitted questions ahead of time hoping for a shout out question live on the air, but that didn't happen. It was still fun! They were very engaged and attentive during the field trip.



Tuesday, October 6, 2015

iPad Cases

Now that we are using the iPads every day at various times throughout the day, I've noticed the students using various items to prop up their iPads at a more comfortable angle. That got me thinking that maybe we could get stands for them. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the district already had another case with built-in stands for all of the iPads. I requested to have them delivered, and the students are very happy with them! The only downside to them is that in order to use the camera, the students have to remove them from the case. We can live with that though :)

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

iPad Storage Dilemma

I am struggling to figure out what to do with the storage situation for our iPads. When we got our cabinets, I was relieved that they weren't enormous. However, when we opened them we discovered the iPads were in dish racks with power strips attached (see picture below). Functional, but I'm discovering that it makes putting the iPads away everyday difficult. Ideally, I would like to teach the students the correct way to put the iPads away themselves, but that won't work with the current setup. The racks are very heavy when full, and trying to put them away with the racks inside the cabinet is cumbersome. Ultimately, I decided to ditch the racks and detach the power strips and use paper sorters to keep them upright. I think this system might work better for me. I still have to add velcro to the bottom of the paper sorters, so they don't move around. I would also like to attach the power strips to the walls of the cabinet. Do you have ideas for easy iPad storage in the classroom? I'd love to hear what works for you!



Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Firsties Taking Selfies!

Big day with the iPads today! Our lesson today revolved around the camera and what it could do. They were hooked when they saw what flipping the camera could do. The lesson culminated with taking a selfie and making it the background on their iPad. The goal was two-fold. First, they learned some new camera skills. Second, the backgrounds will help me pass out iPads much faster instead of having to match a number to each student :)


Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Using Our iPads!

The students were so excited to actually use the iPads! We started by talking about the parts of the iPad. I found a great little diagram on TpT that guided us through our exploration of their devices. The picture below says it all. They were so quiet and attentive!


You can use the link here to find the iPad diagram on TpT.


Tuesday, August 25, 2015

iPad Intro

Well, our school year is up and running! It's been a crazy couple of days, but I am anxious to get my students ready to use the iPads. So, we started with iPad rules. I found this adorable set for FREE on TpT! You can find them here. I printed and laminated them and displayed them in my classroom. Now they are there prominently displayed, so I can refer to them as needed.

After going over all of the rules, we took out our iPads and practiced carrying them. We talked about how they should be used at our desks (never too close to the edge) and around the classroom (never left on the floor or unattended). The students were disappointed that we didn't get to actually use them, but I promised them that we will later this week :)

Thursday, August 20, 2015

First Day of School 2015

Today was our first day of school, and just like every year it was exhausting! We did not have any "specials" (PE, Music, Art) today, so that makes for a long day for both the students and me :) We were able to get a lot done though which is always a good thing! Best part of my day though was coming home to this.

My oldest daughter put this together for me, and it has all of my favorite things in it. Of course, she made sure to throw in things that match my classroom too! Love that kid!

Monday, August 17, 2015

Classroom Reveal

This is it! I've been frantically preparing for my first graders. It didn't feel like I even had a summer this year. It was very busy with our daughters' AAU Volleyball Nationals in Florida and our oldest daughter's high school graduation and party.

Normally, I like to start coming back into my classroom mid-July to start setting up and planning at a nice easy pace. Unfortunately, this summer, our building was undergoing MANY projects. The classrooms and hallways were all painted, and all of our carpeting was removed and replaced with tile. We also had some exterior drainage and landscaping work done. Oh, and did I mention that I had to move classrooms this year? So, not only did I have to pack (and unpack) everything, I had to figure out how to make it all work in a new space! I had about two weeks to get it all done.
Today, was the teachers' first day back, and tonight is our Supply Drop Off. Students get to come see their classroom, meet their teacher, and drop off their supplies. My room is looking pretty good considering the quick turn around. The above picture is looking in from my door. I apologize for the darkness of the picture. I forgot to turn all of the lights on! Oops! My classroom is in the basement, so there's not much natural light anyway. I have 27 students this year which is the most I've had in a long time! I have their desks arranged in five groups of five or six students.


One of the adjustments I had to make was going from having lockers to having hooks. I prefer lockers, because it keeps things looking tidy and it hides all of the clutter. So, I needed a place for students to keep their gym shoes. I have numbered the baskets, and the students have been assigned a basket. The clipboard on top of the shelf lets them know which one they've been assigned to. There's room for two students per basket. I got the baskets from The Dollar Tree. I had to go to a couple different stores to find enough red ones, because they had to match my theme, of course!


I am lucky in that I have A LOT of cabinet space in this room! But, I wasn't happy with the entire back of my room filled with boring cabinet doors, so I made the doors into my word wall. I'm really happy with how it came out! Ribbon is from Hobby Lobby.




This is my calendar, Reading Focus Wall, and carpet area. The cabinet that the whiteboard is sitting on has my iPads in it!! (Post on that coming soon!)


My spelling words, trick words, and amazing words wall.


My job board. I prefer to have only a few classroom jobs with two students per job.


Yep! More cabinets! I told you I was lucky! The posters on the front are my I Can statements for all of the subject areas.


The storage drawers on the counter hold my math manipulatives and my listening center books/cds are hanging on the rack next to them.



Well, that's it for the tour of my room! I'll save my desk area for another time (once I've cleaned it up a little!)

Monday, August 10, 2015

Getting Started

I'm so anxious to get started with my classroom blog! Please ignore the blah design for now. I have just hired someone to design my blog to match the red, black, and white theme of my classroom! Unfortunately, she's so good, that she's booked until the beginning of November :( I can't wait to start working on the design concepts, and it is really going to bother me that my blog won't look "pretty" for a couple of months. Stay tuned for my classroom reveal. It's finally starting to come together...