If you've been to my classroom more than once, you may have noticed that furniture acquisition and re-arranging is one of my favorite teacher hobbies. I've been lobbying to poor Cameron to build some shelves in our living room because I have my eye on a tall bookcase from home that would look just lovely in one of the corners of my classroom. My classroom furniture obsession is problematic on many levels. Never mind the countless commutes to and from drop-off/pick-up locations, it is tough on the pocketbook! Still, I can't help but 'nest' in this nest, because first: it is my home away from home...and second: I truly believe kids work more productively when they are cozy and comfortable.
Last week, I rearranged AGAIN and I am so excited about the way the room 'feels' following this latest iteration of furniture swapping/moving. Lowering tables by removing the legs and raising others with cheap bed risers from Target have really helped spread kids out better and didn't cost much to execute. Take a peek and holler if you have any good ideas for my next round of swapping! -Lorrie P.S. I found out you can get cushion material cut to fit any size you'd like from this upholstery store off Ben White! Very nice for making your own floor cushions.
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This is post that has been in the edit phase for about a million years, but is also the post I'm most excited about sharing. In this one, I'll show you how to make a scavenger hunt that incorporates the beauty and ease of Google forms, along with the joys of actually hunting around in the real world. (The complete step set can be found by clicking on the button at the bottom of this page, but first a little background!) I owe the idea-hatching for this invention to my dear, sweet dad who was a creative weirdo. He invented "secret friends" for myself and my 3 siblings by writing to us anonymously from a P.O. box. He hid walkie-talkies behind the TV set to trick us in to thinking we were communicating with aliens. He held candy auctions for my friends involving Lifesaver fun packs and Monopoly money. The man was a nut, but I am so thankful for his contribution to our imaginations. I get worried that kids these days aren't getting to stretch enough of that creative brain in part because of this wonderful technology we love. (Oh no! I just used the phrase "kids these days!" I'm officially old!) Speaking of technology we love, Google forms is one of my all time favorites. (You can click here to see a slightly outdated how-to video for creating one, if you haven't had the pleasure yet!) The idea for this project sprung from ability to set constraints for data validation which could (and did!) come in handy for a scavenger hunt! It works like this: you create a Scavenger hunt using Google Forms, alternating between content specific questions and real-life running around the room to find "clue" words. The kids will not be able to advance to the next section of the activity until they have either successfully put in the correct answer or found the mystery word hiding in the room. Using custom text for the data validation field, you can guide kids who are having trouble. The kids are so engaged that behavior management goes on the back burner, and you can actually concentrate on the small group instruction when teams are stuck. It's so much fun! Here are some photos from our last hunts! I am obsessed with Thinglink. It is a way to turn an ordinary image into an interactive experience. You can add 'hot spots' to link to important resources and websites. I gave a short presentation on the many uses of this super-useful tool at a tech PD session a few months back and am adding the resources here in case anyone reads this blog and is so inclined to fiddle with a new tool. It is one of my favorites!
I recently discovered Google Drawings (part of Google Drive in the Student Cloud), and it has proven to be very engaging, versatile, and accessible for all of my students. It's a great tool for representing learning visually, and it has endless creative possibilities. You can see one way that we have used Google Drawings in my class (5th grade ELA) at this link: http://besswirht.weebly.com/google-drawings.html. There are great videos on YouTube of teachers incorporating Google Drawings into all different subject areas, across all grade levels. Kids LOVE it, and it's very intuitive. The best part is, any work done through a student's Google Drive can be accessed at home (with an internet connection), and all work is saved automatically (fewer crises). If you use Google Classroom, students can turn in assignments completed on Google Drawings on their account. I highly recommend it!
I'm really dying to post about these crazy Google Form Scavenger hunts which have been a total blast and easy to create...but time is biting my booty (as always!) For now, I thought I'd share a funny little discovery made today---merging Bitmoji with Quizziz memes to create more personalized (and silly) feedback for kids during group games. Sadly, some of my favorite Bitmojis are not appropriate for school use but the pictures below will give you an idea of how to use these 2 tools together!
Ever think about how you wish your class parents could see what their children are doing in school? Ever have students build something awesome, or write 100 things on a whiteboard, or build all the words of the week with magnet letters? Oh how we wish the parents could see these things- and now they can! See-saw is an online portfolio that is easily accessed through an ipad app. Students are taught how to upload their own work, and there is even a series of lesson plans to help you achieve this level of independence. As a first grade teacher, I sometimes upload things for the students (pictures of them working, pictures of the whole classes work together) and I also allow them to upload work! The design is very simple to use, a QR code automatically signs students into the class account and then each student has an emoji associated with their profile so that even the earliest readers can use the program. Our most recent upload was students taking a video of themselves reading aloud a biography they wrote during writers workshop. See-saw provides teachers with a digital record of work, and also provides parents a window into the classroom. This helps answer the evening question of "what did you do at school today?" as well as gives parents a chance to "like" and comment on their kids work. I just learned about See-saw in January and have already made it a part of our classroom! It's quick, easy, and a wonderful tool!
I can't tell you how excited I was that I was able to talk Mr. Mayer into particpating in this silly video commercial to pump up the kids about the Flippin' Olympics. What's that? Well, it is a pre-holiday math activity concocted to capitalize on the water-bottle-flipping obsession and teach the kids about converting fractions to decimals to percents. I wasn't sure if it was going to be a disaster or a ton of fun, and I'm pleased to report it went swimmingly. The kids seemed to have a bunch of fun, it was easy to set-up, and will make a darn-good math lesson when we crunch our numbers to find the winning team. Yay for strange ideas! (This one literally came to me in the middle of the night on a SATURDAY!!!) If anyone ever reads this blog and/or wants to use the files we created, I'd be so happy to pass them along. Happy Holidays!
I have been using google classroom more and more this year. It started with just my GT kids and their projects. It was soooo easy to have them log into their google classroom through the AISD cloud, make a PPT or word doc via their google drive, and to have them upload it into different assignments I posted on my classroom blog. I could write them feedback while grading it and write in a grade, so I wouldn't forget what I gave them and so they could access the grade immediately. Now I have kids using it to submit extra credit assignments and optional digital versions of regular class assignments. Some kids are more inclined to the assignments in digital format, too! So in love with the easi ness. It's making my life better :)- by a 5th Grade Teacher
After finding quite a few stray iPads laying about the 5th Grade Commons and a handful of totally-unrelated-to-class-projects videos on the camera rolls, it became time to have "The Talk" with our sweet children to remind them of the Technology User Agreement they signed with their parents at the beginnign of the school year. We used a free contract from Teachers Pay Teachers, and doctored it to meet our needs. Highlights of the meeting included reminding kids that we worked so hard to compile this cart--the equipment needs to be treated with love. Further, "playing" in a way that isn't in the bounds of "creative exploration" would result in a loss of tech privileges. "The Talk" went well and it was good timing as we round the corner towards the holiday-mayhem. : )
The traffic visit stats on this blog are very sad and lonely...However, in the spirit of the weekly update I am posting a little note to talk-tech. The biggest hill for me (no school pun intended) has to do with a glitch happening with my Google classroom. A few months back, one of my math class sections got deleted mysteriously in TEAMs. It was fixed rather quickly but now that same section refused to show up in Google Classroom. This is driving me bonkers because some of the software I'd like to use talks "through" Google, so this tiny little TEAMs glitch is cramping my technological style just a bit. : ) Hey...Hill Innovators! If you are out there, please share on this lonely little blog. It would be so much interesting that way, I swear!
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April 2017
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