Spring Has Sprung

It is that time of year again for everything to start blooming and that brings on seasonal allergies. I love to see all of the pretty colors this time of year but the pollen does not agree with me. With that being said, I will take allergy medicine and enjoy the beauty around me.

I have been busy taking care of my daughter who has dislocated and broken both bones in her leg. This has given me a new understanding of how much we take for granted. She has to depend on my help for everything. She has been a trooper through this accident. I am proud of her strength and courage. While she is on recovery, she is completing the 2nd half of her last semester online at WCU. She will graduate this May with a degree in Biology.

This time away from my classroom has allowed me to create some new items. I have created Compound Word Puzzles.

You can check it out and see if you would like to use it in your classroom. 

Compound words are hard for some students to grasp. SO this is a great way to practice. 

Hope the seasonal allergies are not too rough for you. Enjoy your day and come back to my blog again.

Using Technology to Create an ePortfolio

In my classroom this year, we are excited to be using a new program called Seesaw. It is amazing!

 This has become my favorite technology piece this year. My students can access it with a QR code that they scan with ipad or chromebook to add their technology piece into their very own ePortfolio.

Then I have the ability to see their work and approve it. Parents can have access to their child's ePortfolio with a sign in access that I give them. Students are able to create with ipads and chromebooks and save their work into Seesaw. I have all of their work coming into one place and I can assess their work and provide feedback.

I can also post student work on my blog page, twitter and other social media platforms. Students enjoy getting to add pieces of technology into their ePortfolio. Parents have loved getting to see the work that their child is producing.

If you have never tried Seesaw. Then I highly recommend that you give it a try. If you use Seesaw, share ideas and success stories that you are having.

ArtBots

During a recent lesson, we were learning about vibration. We created ArtBots!! During a Professional Development session at NCCAT. I learned about using Artbots in the classroom. Students had to use the parts to assemble their ArtBot and make it move and create art.

The images and video below shows the Artbots in action. The students had a blast getting their ArtBots to work. The Bots have markers attached to the bottom that would draw as the ArtBot vibrations moved it across the paper. Some moved in circles while others moved diagonally or sideways.

Students had to record the steps and the materials needed to create the ArtBot and complete a self-assessment.

ArtBot Video

Students will use their art piece to work on a creative writing piece.



 

A New School Year Has Begun!

It is always fun, exciting, and nervous at the same time, when a new school year begins. Will I have my room ready in time? Will Open House be a success? Will my students be excited to be in my class? Will I meet the needs of each students in my class? These are questions that run through your mind as you prepare for a new school year.

This year my school has a SUPER HERO theme. SO my grade level did this for our doors. Each teacher has a different color background on their door.

My students will be the SUPER HEROES in TRAINING in my room. Each day will be full of training experiences to prepare them to launch into 3rd grade next year. We will be using technology to enhance our curriculum and learning in a variety of ways.

Here you will see that my room is setup for the first day of school. I am always so excite to see my students on the first day and to welcome them into our classroom community. Each student has a WELCOME pack for 2nd grade. I always begin with my desk in this arrangement so students can get to know each other. Then desk arrangements are changed as needed throughout the year.

Below you can see my new Job Board with the cutest kiddos from Little Lucky Learners. I love having a picture to represent the kid instead of just a name. Students has a job for the week. This is a part of building our community in our classroom. Students are held accountable for their job. We work together to keep the class neat and orderly.

Here is one picture of my students working hard. They have been some SUPER HEROES with Mclass testing that started on the first day of school. Learning classroom rules and procedures has been the main focus here for the first 2 weeks of school.

Come back soon to see what exciting things we will be doing with ipads and chrome books. I am ready to have a SUCCESSFUL year with this group of SUPER SECOND GRADERS!!!!!

Getting Ready For Back To School Blog Hop & Giveaway!!!

It is so hard to believe that summer break is quickly coming to an end. I have to officially return to work on August 17th for teacher work days. Then student return on August 24th. You always think that you have all this time during the summer but you blink and time is now ending. I have been to several PDs this summer and have more to  come.

Be sure to enter to win TPT items from my store. Join in on the fun to get awesome resources for your classroom to make this a GREAT year. A great group of educators with fabulous giveaways in this blog hop.

Summer Camp took place in my classroom this year again. So my room is still waiting for the flooring crew to coming and wax my floors. I always start freaking out when I am ready to work in my room and the floor is not even waxed yet. You can get a look at my room below with it being emptied out and packed up.

Most of mine belongings are stacked outside my classroom in the hallway.

SO now I have to wait until the end of the week before the floors are ready. 

Now since BTS is coming full speed ahead. I would like to give you a heads up on a great giveaway and blog hop. Be sure to check out all of the goodies that are in this giveaway!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Hop & Giveaway

Best to all for your new school year and check back soon to see my classroom reveal with new shiny floors and room ready for students!!!

Using Google Classroom

Using Google Classroom has become one of my favorite ways to use technology with my students. Google Classroom is a great way to share assignments with your students. My school is completely Google with email and Drive, so we are using Chromebooks that allow students to login with their Google accounts and begin learning.

I use Google Classroom with Blendspace and Thinglink. Depending on what we are currently working on in our curriculum. I mostly use it with Science and Social Studies. We are learning about Matter and Landforms. I can easily find lesson or even create lessons on Blendspace or Thinglink and add the assignments into Google Classroom.

Here is a Thinglink that I created on Plant Life Cycles. My students have really enjoyed getting to learn about Plants by using this awesome site. All you do is insert an image and you add tags on the picture that has videos, websites, articles, songs, books and more. Students work their way through each tag on the image and begin to learn. You insert a quiz or assign a journal or activity to complete the lesson.

Google Classroom

Blendspace

Thinglink

Would love to hear of ways that you use these with technology in your classroom. I highly recommend that you go and check these. We use them almost every day in my classroom.

5 Beliefs of Education

As being a part of my school systems Pinnacle Leadership, we were given the prompt to write a blog post about our 5 Beliefs in Education. This really made me think long and hard about what my beliefs are. I am very curious to know what other educators beliefs are as well. Please share your 5 beliefs as a comment below. Well here are my beliefs.

One: I feel that all children can learn. Each child will learn at their own level and speed.We are born learning as soon as we take our first breath. We learn how to eat, we learn how to roll over, we learn how to sit, crawl and walk are just a few of the ways we learn at the beginning of our lives.

Two: I feel that it is important to make a connection with your students. Students will feel valued and respected if this is achieved. Students will be made to feel a part of the group and belong.

Three: I feel that it is a responsibility for parents, educators and the community to help support the learning of a child. It is a united effort of all that come into contact with that child.

Four: Education is about enabling a student to learn by using a variety of methods to discovery of knowledge. This is obtained by using technology, explicit instruction, independent and cooperative learning. We are all lifelong learners by making ourselves be reflective thinkers.

Five: Learning is the primary goal of all students.Creating an environment that is conducive to learning for each individual. We should be challenge our students in their learning.

I would love to hear your beliefs of education. Leave a comment below.

In my classroom we are using technology is all areas of learning. We use ipads, computers, and smartboards with our instruction and independent/group work. Students love learning about a new app to create presentation on all content areas. This week we began using Pic Collage for retelling stories and grammar showing  what a noun is, an adjective, and verbs. Students have even worked with their 5th grade buddies and showed them how to use Pic Collage and Poplet.

Hope you find some ideas to use in your classroom.

Classroom Activities This Week

This week we are having fun getting ready for our holiday break. We have been working on writing about our Holly Days!!! Here in picture you will see the holly leaves with students writing about their holiday with their families and their traditions. This is always a cute display that I have my students to create each year.

Next, my students did a GREAT job creating their winter snowman pictures. They are hanging in our hallway for all to see. Students will be writing a story in class to go along with their picture. 

I think they turned out fabulous. I love snowman. SO any chance I get to make something with them I do!!! This activity was in our ART center. My students always look forward to what I have each week for them to create in my ART center.

So being that I LOVE SNOWMAN. I have my door as one. A few years ago, I made my door into a snowman and the ladies on my grade level wanted one too. So this year this is my door. Each teacher on my grade level has one just like it in a different color.
Mine is LIME GREEN cause that is my favorite color.

Let me know what you think.

This is such a busy time for year. I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Technology In Our Classroom

My classroom is very lucky to have ipads, smartboard and laptops for students to integrate technology into our everyday learning. I love technology and use it in all aspects of my life. It is also used in many ways in my instruction with my students. Every day lessons I teach, I use some type of technology. It may be the smartboard lesson. We use many ipad apps for all subject areas. We use laptops and desktop computers in centers.

Here is a list of some of our FAVORITE APPS to use!

 Here is one that students made!

We love Sock Puppets. We used this app to tell about Helen Keller. You know technology and its quirks. It will not allow me to post students video. But here is a look at the app.

Students are using ipads daily in centers. Here you can see then using one of our fun apps Word Ball.

They have to build words as fast as they can before the letter balls disappear. We have even used this app with our 5th grade buddies that come to our class on Wednesdays.

   

Students have a blast with Rocket Speller to practice working with words.

                                  

                       

 Big Cat stories are AWESOME!!

We use them in our Listening Center. Students listen to the story being read to them. Then they read it them self and complete the Listening Center Sheet with comprehension questions about the story.

QR Codes are used through out our learning. We used them with Math, Reading, Science and Social Studies. Students love to scan the code and see what it contains. It maybe just to check their answers. To watch a short video segment on Plants and complete a comprehension activity. It can guide them to an app or website to go to for the lesson. QR Codes are a great way to get student active in their learning. This is the app that we use for it.

Students in my classroom love using the ipads. We use the Showme app to display how to work out math problems during math block. Students can show their thinking on ipad and share with the class. 

During our geometry unit we use the GEOBOARD APP instead of  geoboards.

Students really enjoyed using this app instead of the old geoboard with the bands that snap and break. They really understood how shapes are created with the bands and how a rectangle and square have right angles.

I hope I have given you some ideas and apps that you would like to try in your classroom. We are always working with apps to find the best ones. All the apps here are FREE!!!! I love to use the free apps, that way my students can use them at home also. 

Please leave a comment below with any apps that you love to use in your room. I am very interested to hear what works for your students. Share any lessons or activities that you do with the apps or technology in your classroom.

Getting Back Into The Swing Of It

Hello fellow educators!!! Sorry it has been a while since I have made a post on my blog. It has been a crazy start to my school year. I had moved back to 2nd grade with a whole new classroom make over. To top that off, our grade level was flooded with 2nd graders. I have 25 kiddos and we just got another teacher to make our grade level have 6 teachers. So now after all of that I am with 21 kiddos now. Then this week I had a student to move. Now my roster is sitting at 20, WHEW!!!!!!!

Now, since we have settled into our new roster and getting the students that moved into the new teachers room placed and started. I now feel like I can begin my year. Wow, it to say the least. It has been an emotional ride. Having to let students from your room go it very hard. I had already became attached to them.

On to better things, my classroom is doing GREAT!!! I feel this is one of the best group of kids I have ever had. The students do a fabulous job or working together to build a real classroom community.

My students love using the ipads on daily basis. We use them with math, writing, reading, centers, whole groups, guided groups and this week we are having 5th grade buddies coming to work with us too.

Scootpad is a great app/website that my students use to work on reading and math. They can also access their account and practice at home. It will give me a message about the weekly progress made by my students. I suggest you go check it out and see if it may be something for your students. You can assign what grade level you need. It is Common Core aligned.  It is amazing how the kiddos love it.

Come back soon to check out all of the fun and amazing activities my students will be working on. I look forward to hearing your comments on your classroom. 

Technology and Education

During my career as a teacher, I was chosen for our school districts Pinnacle (technology) program this past year. As being a pinnacle leader, we were given ipads to use in our classroom with our students. In my classroom I had 22 students with 6 ipads. Having the ipads opened up a new resource for my students to use in their learning and creativity.

Using apps with the ipads was a great way to meet the needs of my students. Students worked in groups, with a partner and alone on numerous apps and our classroom kidblog. The ipads were used every day by the students. Kidblog was a part of our morning work everyday. Using the ipads with STEM was very beneficial for my students to discover and share with each other.

In my room, our favorite app was Toontastic. My students had the most fun with this app. Students worked collaboratively in groups with a leader. The groups were assigned different tasks each time. My favorite activity was for them to create a script for a story layout about bullying. There is one of these videos displayed on a post here on my blog.

We also have lots of fun using QR codes. My students always enjoyed the excitement of what would be in the code. A video, a link, a picture or answer to a question.

My classroom loved using the ipads in their learning. Using technology is a major component of my teaching. We used our school computer labs to work on project based learning. Students research about a county they choose. Did a presentation and were evaluated by their peers. Students made a powerpoint Biography that was shared with the class. At the end of the school year, students had to CREATE a newspaper. We used Microsoft Publisher for this. They had to create the layout, theme or newspaper and complete a full page with head line, articles with photos and share with class. My students really got into this one. Most of the boys in my class did it on Minecraft.

I would love to hear about ways you integrated technology with your students and what apps, or programs you use. As I head tomorrow for my 2nd year of Pinnacle. I am excited to see what new resources we will have to use with our students this coming school year. Here is to a new year or endless opportunities to reach every student that enters our classrooms. Happy learning!!!!!!

Owlesome Words

Come check out this fun activity for students to work with words. It is a FREEBIE!!! This is the beginning of a huge pack that I will be creating for my 2nd grade students to use this year with spelling. I will be adding to this freebie and posting soon when it will be available. Please enjoy this freebie and I hope it is great for your students. It is quick and simple print out recording sheet, print cards cut and laminate. Ready to go center or activity for early finishers.

This FREEBIE is in my TpT store. You can see that I used the ever so popular OWLS!!! Hope you're enjoying summer.