Thanks to all of this winter weather I am able to link up with the fabulous Kacey over at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! :) Here is my week in mostly pictures!! ;)
Can you believe it is MARCH?! Omg..so scary. Yet awesome! lol Amanda and I did an Instagram linky this week about how #teachersarelucky! Here is my post. Feel free to go grab the blank image from my Instagram here and link up!!
On Monday we celebrated reading at school! We dressed up as Thing 1 and 2! (and 3!!) how ADORABLE is Amanda's shirt?! I can't believe she is about to be a Mommy!!
I have been *trying* to get my Spring products completed and posted but it is so hard to get everything done! (I feel like I say that in EVERY post!!) I am almost finished with my Spring edition of Color by Product!! If you want a sample of the product head to our Facebook page to like and download the fan freebie! :)
I have now not only bought my TPT conference ticke..but we booked our flight and hotel!! YAY!! Hubby and I are staying two extra days in Vegas because I have never been. We have a few shows we are deciding on..if you have any tips of what I HAVE to do when I am there please let me know!! I can't wait to meet blogging/tpt/insta friends there!!!
I don't usually ever post about my Jamberry business on here.. BUT. OMG the new catalog is to-die-for!!! I am stalking my orders page to see when my new jams are coming in!! If you want to try Jamberry (free!), or have any questions about it at all please feel free to email me! jazzyjamswithash@gmail.com Look at some of these new designs!! These are just a *few* that are on my list!! Click on the picture to see the new catalog!!
I am a day late with my Five for Friday post! I really did plan on typing it up last night! I was just so. tired. We all know what teacher tired is like right??? This week was a tough week at school! I am sure I am not alone. :) So anyways...my five favorite things from this week!! :)
I am getting my Spooky Solve the Room ready for my kiddos!! They love the math hunts we do, but for some reason I think they love this one the best!! something to do with Halloween I am sure. I put up the math problem cards around the classroom and they go on a hunt with their recording page and a clip board! I usually put it in my math stations so they are not all hunting at once! :)
You can find the Halloween Hunt in our TPT store! You can also grab all 4 for a super discounted price!!!
This week Amanda and I decorated the bulletin board in the lounge! We are in charge of keeping it up to date throughout the year. We love stuff like this so we are so excited to bring some more creativity to our school! This is our "fall" themed board. Who doesn't love football?! (I am watching TCU beat OU as we speak ;) )
Last night, yes FRIDAY night, I finally finished putting my tier 2 documentation binder together. It has been looming over my head for weeks! I have a tab for each friend of mine who needs reading intervention and a tab for each one who needs math. On their tab page I have their Fall data and strands that they need interventions for. This helps me remember who needs what as I am working with them! I have tonsss of sticky notes of what I have been doing, but I hadn't added my new students tabs and data yet! Let's just say I will be at my teacher table a LOT this year!! These babies need lots of reading and math love!
This week two of my table groups got to scan our very first QR code prize of the year!! Their prizes were sit in the teacher's chair all day (ohhhh!!) and use pen all day! Both of these prizes were a hit. They loved scanning the code to see the secret prize pop up! Check it out here!
This past weekend Amanda and I attended a Women's Conference at her church. It was GREAT! We have started reading the She Reads Truth: Open Your Bible plan (a little late) and have a Facebook group going with some girls to discuss the plan with. It has been amazing to have some fellowship and accountability daily! I can't wait for our new bible study to start next week! It is all about the BEST yes, and how to say no to things in order to be able to say yes to BETTER things!
Okay, I am not going to lie...this post has been a draft in progress for a week now! oops!! But I figured Doodlebugs Teaching Five for Friday linky would be the perfect time to *finally* post it! I am going to be posting about 5 amazing tech ed tools you can use in your classroom!!
Last week, I was invited to apply/got accepted to attend the very first Educational Technology Summer Institute through my district!! Holy cow did I learn a ton! I met some amazing teachers in the district(shout out to my techy friends!!) that are just as excited/in love with learning how to use technology in the classroom as I am!! I wanted to do a blog post just to share with you all some amazing tools you can use in your classroom and/or connect with other great teachers..aka..Professional Development online!! Do you ever feel like you just learned so many awesome new things and you are super scared you are going to forget it all?! That's how I feel!
Here are some great things I learned about at the first couple of days of ETSI:
TWITTER!
Okay guys seriously?! I knew twitter was blowing up for educators..but REALLY! Talk about a PLN completely all online at your fingertips all day! This has been so great for me (I just started 2 weeks ago..hehe) to collaborate with other teachers, MEET other teachers, chat with educators, & more! There are twitter chats pretty much every night of the week that you can hop right on and off to get some great ideas and chat about educational things! If you haven't gotten a twitter..just do it!!! and follow me! :)
Also!! A lot of teachers are using twitter in their classrooms! It is a great way to communicate with parents and show them what you are doing in the classroom! We will be starting a school twitter this year & I am super excited!
Mystery Skype!
Mystery Skype is something I have been wanting to do in my classroom since I began teaching. I just haven't! I WILL be doing it this year though!! Have you heard of Mystery Skype? Basically, you Skype with another classroom in another state. Your kids take turns with their students asking yes or no questions about where you live! The point of it is to try and guess what state the other class is in. Once you and your students have done it once or twice, it doesn't take that long! Which I love, because who has a ton of extra time throughout the day?! Before I Skype with another class I am going to have my kids practice their "jobs" with a partner. Looking up things in an atlas, asking questions, taking notes, etc! There are tons of resources online if you are interested in this! If you don't live in Texas (like me!) and want to Mystery Skype with my class..email me!! Once we get started on this in my room..I will "plot" all of the states we have "visited" on a map in our room!! I am sooo excited for this! p.s. remember twitter? You can use the hashtag #mysteryskype to see how others are using this and connect with other teachers skyping!
Kahoot!!! {one of my FAVS!}
Kahoot is a fun, engaging game based classroom response system. (that is straight from their website! ha!) Basically, it is like bringing a game show to your classroom! Ummm hello!! Your students use devices-ipad, tablet, phone, computer- to answer questions that YOU create for them! It gives them a timer and then shows them the correct answer after the 30 seconds. After the time is up, they can see how many points they have and what place they are in. Best part? It is SO easy & quick to create questions! You can plan it ahead of time or just do it on the fly! I believe there is also a "survey" feature if you wanted to something like that. ex: What should we name our class pet? So here is what you do: 1. Create your question(s) 2. Students go to kahoot.it and enter in the game pin you tell them 3. GO! Again..can't wait to use this.
Popplet!
Popplet is a great tool, online and an app, to organize ideas. There are so many options with this! Your students can use this during research projects, to show what they have learned about a specific topic, or as a whole group class discussion about what we already know about a topic. This is basically a thinking map on your device!!
Genius Hour!
I am sure a lot of you have already heard about Genius Hour or are implementing this in your classroom! I LOVE this concept! I will be honest and say it does freak me out a little bit (can you say, control freak?!) Watch the video above to learn more about what Genius Hour is. Students research a topic that they are passionate about. There are no limits!! They must get it approved by their teacher but other than that they go for it! They must show research to prove an answer to a question they have about a topic. They can do any type of project to show this information. Ideally you would want to spend about an hour a week on this. If you do Genius Hour I would LOVE for you to comment on this post with your thoughts!!
Those were just five, FIVE, things/ideas/concepts that I learned from the amazing ladies at our training! If you read this whole post: thank you!! I hope I inspired you somehow to use technology in your classroom! Not just as a tool, but as another way to learn and create!
So what did I do after all this tech talk?! I made some cute posters for my classroom of course! I created a BYOD stoplight (when to use their devices), technology rules for the classroom, Before you.. THINK! (tech version), and a digital citizenship poster. I think teaching our kids how to be good digital citizens is SUPER important!! You can get these posters here!
