GoNoodle

Have you noodled lately?? One of our favorite new things every afternoon is giving our brains a break through GoNoodle. This is a fantastic brain break website that includes kids Zumba, popular songs with motions, track and field exercises, and cool down activities. Before I explain any further... watch the video below to get a taste of the wonder that is GoNoodle...

 Combination of Zumba and Yoga...

Everyone's favorite... I can't stop smiling every time they pick this one!

One reason GoNoodle is amazing is that it not only provides free brain breaks, but through a monster avatar, it tracks all student activity. After students complete 60 minutes of physical activity they get an award and their monster grows into an amazing creature. Wow! :) Seriously, my students beg for this every afternoon. We have been doing one fast song/exercise to get their blood flowing, and then choose a cool down activity to get them ready to learn for the rest of the afternoon. It is amazing for any elementary age.... try it tomorrow. You'll love it... trust me.

Vocaroo

One of the coolest, easiest resources I stumbled on recently is Vocaroo. This website makes it incredibly easy to record anyone talking. As soon as the site is opened, simply click record, give permission to access your microphone, and viola! You are ready to record. After recording there are several options... share the a link through social media, embed the file, download as a media file, or my favorite - instantly create a QR code with the recording attached. There is no need to copy the link and paste in your favorite QR code creator. Nope... as soon as you have finished recording and have saved the file, click "QR Code"... and it's ready!

How can this tool be used?? For my first try at using this in my classroom, I asked several of my students to record themselves reading. Once we created the QR code, it was taped to the front of the book cover and placed in the listening center. Now during centers, students can choose a book with a code, scan the code, and listen to a friend read to them. So far they love it! And talk about adding to their motivation to read... now even struggling readers are practicing a book to record for the center. Check out an example below.

Could you see yourself using this tool? Here's a few ideas I've thought of... 

• Record yourself giving extra directions or background information for homework or assignments
• Record a reading of a textbook chapter in any subject for struggling readers
• Upload (yes you can also upload any file including songs) a file that students need to listen to activate prior knowledge
• Voice message to parents on a school or class newsletter
• Voice introduction on a blog or website 
• Record yourself or students reading sight words and attach to flashcards/word walls
• Support for ELL students
• Record students reading a research paper they have written and add the code to the display of the paper
• Science Fair poster pictures could be enhanced by a QR code student explanation
• Record students giving a book review that entices others to read (Thank you Mrs. Larrick! :) ) 

Feel free to leave a comment with an idea you have for this tool! :)

Flat Stanley Project and Facebook

If you have been in elementary education for very long you are probably familiar with the Flat Stanley Project. If not, let me fill you in. Flat Stanley is a popular children's book written by Jeff Brown. Stanley becomes flat when a bulletin board falls on him in the night. After going to the doctor, Stanley remains flat and gets to go on several very exciting adventures. One of his favorite adventures is being mailed in an envelope to California to his friend's house. After visiting California, Stanley travels back home in an envelope. Many, many teachers over the years have created their own paper Stanley's with their class and sent him through the mail around the world to friends, family members, or even pen-pal classes. Stanley's "hosts" are asked to take Stanley around their city or town, taking pictures and writing about Stanley's adventures. This is a fabulous way for students to "see" the world through Stanley's eyes. When I have completed this project in the past my students seems to lose interest and almost forget about Stanley while is gone for 2 -3 weeks. How could this be avoided?? Through social media and email of course! I created a Facebook page for our first grade project and sent instructions with Stanley for his "hosts" to post pictures of Stanley's adventures to our page or email them to me if they did not use Facebook. I was a little unsure of the amount of participation we would have during the project. I was however pleasantly surprised.... we had over 50 pictures, comments, and messages sent to us throughout a 10 day period. What a way for the students to stay engaged! In addition to viewing pictures of places Stanley was visiting, we were able to easily look the places up through Google Earth to have a small sense of the world around us. This is a VERY difficult concept for 6 and 7 year olds! However, through the tech integration, the students now have a much better grasp of our place in this world. If you are taking part in the Flat Stanley project in the future, I HIGHLY recommend putting together a Facebook page for your hosts to communicate with you. You won't regret it! :) Check out our page by clicking here.

Look at some of the cool places Stanley traveled...

Stanley in Game Creek, Alaska

Stanley getting ready to board a cruise in Florida. 

Stanley visiting the Freedom Tower in New York City. 

Stanley and all of his belongings. Each travel guide included a map, interesting facts about the state he was visiting, and a place for a letter to be written to us from Stanley's hosts. 

A Big Day...

Wow, it has been a big day... and a long time since I've written a post. :) My goal when I decided to begin a blog was to post tech ideas and thoughts a few times a week. Sadly this has not happened. Instead, life has happened. Between discussion board posts, projects, writing papers, building two websites, classroom work, meetings, my family (the list could go on and on really)... I have not been a "true" blogger. I really don't know if I ever will be a "true and faithful" blogger, but I sure am going to try harder to share simple ideas for tech integration! As I said, today has been a big day. Today, I turned in 4 papers, submitted my final portfolio for review, and received my cap and gown in the mail (27 days until graduation, but who's counting???). So, now that life will (hopefully) be slowing down, I'm excited to reflect through blogging on things I've been learning in my program and implementing in my classroom. Maybe, just maybe, I'll post some ideas tomorrow! :)

ReadWorks.org

Over the past few months I have been using ReadWorks as a supplement to my district's reading curriculum. The more I use this site, the more I love it! This research-based, Lexile leveled, free reading curriculum has been a solution to encouraging deeper reading for all students in my classroom. What originally interested me in ReadWorks was access to over 1,800 non-fiction and literary passages, all based on the Common Core. Recently, ReadWorks has started to add skill and strategy units for concepts of comprehension, close reading with paired text comprehension units, and novel studies. With over 1,800 reading passages available, as well as numerous units, it could be difficult to locate material that fits the exact needs in your classroom. But it's not! Ways in which searching can be done in less than 5 minutes include:

• Searching by keyword, grade level, Lexile level, skill/strategy, and domain (such as history, science, government, etc). 
• In account settings, set your standards for automatic alignment of materials
• By saving any passage or unit you like to My Binder, materials can be accessed from any computer or device after logging into your account. 

 ReadWorks is a reading comprehension solution for grades K-8, which makes it easier than ever to differentiate reading instruction. After sharing this site with a colleague, they mentioned that one aspect that they loved about ReadWorks was the variety within the reading materials - such as the inclusion of charts, maps, picture captions, and so much more. Although this would not be a stand alone reading curriculum, it would surely supplement any curriculum by meeting the needs of multiple levels. Give it a try...I promise, you'll love it!

QR-azy Numbers and Operations in Base Ten

My students LOVE using QR codes to practice math skills. So far when I have used QR codes it has been in a hunt around the room. Although the students have enjoyed rooming the room with the iPads, there has been more preparation involved then I would like to spend on one lesson. Soo... I decided to try something new... folder packets of QR code activities. I love them! I created six activities that cover CCSS Numbers and Operations in Base Ten each with a student direction page, 12 question QR codes, 12 answer QR codes, and one recording sheet. Each activity fits into it's own folder so that students can choose which folder they would like to work from, or I can place one folder a week in a math center.

So how does it work? Good question. Students will first scan each question code with the iPad (or other device with a QR reader). Next, they record their answers on the recording sheet. After all questions have been answered, students scan each answer code to check their work. They will "grade" each answer by coloring in the happy face for correct answers, and sad face for incorrect answers.

Here are a few sample pages...

If you would like to see a larger sampling of the activities, or would like to purchase, click on the link below to view in my TpT store. I hope your students are as engaged in these activities as mine have been!

Educreations Student Lessons

Educreations is an interactive community in which lessons can be created on an iPad or computer and shared by anyone, anywhere. I have been reading about all the different ways educators are using Educreations in their classrooms, and have been eagerly awaiting the moment that it would fit into my classroom. (I truly believe that when integrating technology into the classroom it must have a purpose based on the needs of the instruction, not because it is just a "cool" technology). Anyways, my students have just started to grasp the concept of place value and are able to answer questions about this concept. In terms of Blooms, they could understand and remember the concept of place value. Now it was time to apply place value - enter in Educreations. I decided to challenge my students to pair up with a partner and teach others about place value, thus asking them to use higher level thinking of applying their knowledge and creating something. With this being our first experience teaching others through Educreations, I first modeled for them how to use the app on the iPad, as well as provided a model for their thinking and speaking process. After one time of modeling a lesson, they were on their own to figure out how teach others. My first grade students did an outstanding job! I was so impressed to see them working together to create their own instruction. Once their lessons were created, we used the Apple TV to project each lesson on the IWB. Each lesson lasted about 1 minute and provided the opportunity for us to discuss correct and incorrect parts of each lesson. I am so excited to use this tool and explore other ways in which it will enhance the learning of my students!

Steps to Successfully Create Student Lessons

1. Identify the curriculum goal and learning objective

2. Model how to use the tool

3. Create rubric or other assessment tool for evaluation of the lesson (I will admit, I did not do this for this particular lesson, however it is something I would change and will do next time :) )

4. For team or partner lessons, guide students to assign jobs for the tasks involved. In this lesson for example, one partner was the recorder and the other was the speaker. The recorded wrote down the "script" during the discussion before teaching the lesson. The speaker used the iPad to write and speak the lesson.

Script written out for the speaker

This team consisted of 3 students. They decided to also add the third job a director. The director helped to hold the iPad and start and stop the lesson. 

5. SHARE, SHARE, SHARE!!! Students will be SO proud of their work, so show it off! Share it with the class as soon as possible, email links to parents, or post to your class website. For lessons that have errors in them (as one of mine did), discuss with the class what would need to be improved and ask students to rerecord their lesson. Talk about immediate feedback and  authentic learning!