Happy February!

Tech Talk Tip of the Week

I always like to introduce my kids to new technologies. Each week (usually for Fun Friday) we will try a new tech activity and I will do my best to start sharing those with all of you!

Most recently, we used the app Balloon Stickies Plus as a vocabulary/word work activity during our lit block. The good news? It is f r e e and there is very little prep involved. The bad news? Well..now my kids expect everything to be THAT fun!!! And that's ok..I'll try my best. I am just feeling the pressure from my little love bugs. I took about ten minutes to explain to the class how to manage the app and save the pictures the created. They then worked with a partner to define our spelling words with a picture and a sentence. 

Needless to say the kids has a BLAST with it! No management issues, lots of collaboration, and their depth of knowledge grew with each idea, picture and LAUGH! What's great about this activity is that it can be used for any grade level or subject matter. Checking for understanding and holding the kids accountable is super easy by just looking through the iPads camera roll. Please let me know if and how you decide to use this in your own classroom! Have fun!!! 

Anyway, let me step off my tech nerd stool for a little bit. February has been very busy so far. It is one of my favorite months and thankfully the Groundhog did not see his shadow so spring is on the way!!! Well...that is wishful thinking! We celebrated Groundhog Day with a little inspiration from Cara Carroll. She is just so awesome and a great inspiration to a newbie teacher like myself! 

Here are some of my favorite Groundhogs Day books.

On Monday, we decorated our lockers with a Text to Self connection activity that I found on Cara's blog. They turned out SO cute. We talked about how we feel and what we do when we wake up. Check em' out below!

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 On Tuesday we discussed animal habitats and of course the Groundhog burrow. Students then unleashed their creativity by designed their very own burrows. I even had a "Mermaid Groundhog burrow" full of water and ocean creatures. Their ideas were so fun and it was great to see them all sharing and praising each others ideas. 

Target Purchase of the Week

 If you know me, then you know I LOVE Target..especially the one dollar section. What teacher doesn't? This month, we will use my all time favorite Target product...seasonal erasers! Man these things are SO cute. I use them as rewards for kiddos but my favorite is to use them as counters for math. Each month we get out a new set of erasers and the kids love it. It is nice to switch things up.

Here is my February collection! #nerdalert

As always, happy teaching! 

1 Second Everyday #thankful

Alright--so I had a random (but really cool) idea this weekend. My roommate/co-worker Kelsey Svrcina and I were talking about making a Thankful Tree at school so our kids could write down what they are thankful for through the month of November. We both think it is so important to acknowledge how lucky we are to have so many things to be thankful for--whether they be small or big.

As I thought more and more about ways we could show ways we are thankful, I remembered the app my friend Natalie Priest  told me about while we were working on our Masters this summer in Ireland. It is called 1 Second Everyday and it allows you to record 1 second of each day, and then it puts the seconds together for you in a video. It is really awesome. The app is $2.99. Natalie recorded 1 second of each day in Ireland, and the resulting video was phenomenal.

Anyway, I had the idea that my kids could take turns recording 1 second of each day at school to show what they are thankful for. Before we leave for Thanksgiving, we can watch it together as a class! I think it will be a great way to show how how we are all thankful for different things, and that there are some things we did not even realize we should be thankful for. Please feel free to join me and try this with your class! I would love to hear about it and watch your video. Stay tuned for ours :)

Cardboard Challenge 2015

Right before the school year started, I attended and presented at our schools professional development day: Rebel U. I presented on providing opportunities for creativity in the classroom--hoping to inspire other teachers to let students PLAY this year :) During my session, we watched and discussed the Caine's Arcade video and the Cardboard Challenge.

A few days later, our awesome Tech Integration Specialist, Sarah Wood, and one of our wonderful high school/middle school Spanish/English teachers, Rosana Tocco, approached me with the idea of our two classes working together to create a cardboard arcade! I was SO excited and completely on board with the idea. Our district is small enough for Rosana's class to walk to the elementary school and back in one class period (it's pretty awesome). So, our plan was to have our kids collaborate a few times and then display our projects for the school to see. As we continued to work out the details, we came up with the idea of our classes hosting a cardboard arcade for the school. Knowing how supportive our administration is (kudos to our principal, Peter Geerling, and superintendent, David Britten), we decided to take the Cardboard Challenge school wide (that means over 400 students would have the opportunity to create a passion project--woohoo!).

Students spent four weeks working on their projects during art time. Rosana's class came to work with us about five times for roughly 35 minutes at a time. The interactions between the older and younger students was rewarding to see. The older students had the opportunity to act as mentors for my little guys and develop a sense of leadership, and my students were able to create an amazing project in a small amount of the time with the assistance of the older students. What Rosana and her class never got to see was the excitement on my students' faces when I said "the high schoolers are coming today." They really loved and looked up to the big kids :) We truly became a little family of learners and problem solvers. I am really, really going to miss getting together with Rosana and her class! We will have to start brainstorming for the next project :)

On Friday, the four weeks were up and we had a BLAST at The Godfrey Lee Early Childhood Center Cardboard Carnival! Teachers took their classes on a gallery walk through the school to see each individual student's project. As I walked around with my class, I witnessed my students asking questions, complimenting and "ooh-ing" and "ahh-ing" at the projects they saw. I witnessed other students explaining to my students where they came up with their ideas and how they put their projects together. I witnessed so much pride and happiness in each and every student! It was AMAZING! Check out some projects below.

After the gallery walk, grade levels met my class and Rosana's class in the gym to play the cardboard arcade games. Rosana and I sat back and watched our kids take charge and run their own carnival. Her students brought in hundreds of dollar store prizes...and GOLDFISH--yes, real, live goldfish (I am pretty positive every student who came to the carnival left with a prize). They passed out tickets to students who played the games and the students then took those tickets to the prize table (with huge smiles on their faces).

The atmosphere in the gym was incredible--excitement, ownership and a little bit of nervousness. I have to admit I was super nervous about how the day would go...and that is why we, as teachers, need to follow the advice we encourage our students with: take chances. I am hoping the Cardboard Carnival at the ECC is an annual event and I cannot wait to see what we come up with next year!

I also cannot forget to add that we were all able to participate in this awesome afternoon because we were fed a delicious lunch from some of our wonderful parent volunteers. Homemade tacos :) I love, love, love our school!

I'm back!

Wow...sorry for the leave of absence! As you know, I was in Ireland for 4 weeks working on my Masters in Educational Technology (I am 2/3 of the way there...woo!) and then I spent a week traveling Europe with my mom. It was a LOT of fun but I am very happy to be home :) I took lots of fun pictures of videos that I look forward to sharing with my new batch of first graders!

Speaking of my new batch of first graders...I am SO EXCITED! When I compare my feelings now to this time last year, I think I am more eager and more excited to get back. My experience with my first year teaching last year and all of the new things I've learned this summer is what I believe has me so psyched. It is a beautiful summer day outside so I am going to make this post quick.

Here is what I have been up to!

1.) Classroom Website: Last year I did not have much time to consistently update and promote the use of my classroom website. My goal this year: make it a priority. I have spent so much time since I have been home updating and morphing my website into what is going to work best for myself, my kiddos and their parents. The part I am most proud of: subject area resources. Disclaimer: This is not done yet. I am going to continue adding resources as the school years go by--I think it is unrealistic for me to get all the resources on there at once! I am using Blendspace to organize all of the resources by skill. Please check out our website and give me some feedback!

2.) Daily 5 CAFE: This year, I am going to implement CAFE along with our Daily 5 instruction with the other teachers at our school. I am really, really excited to do this as I feel the two frameworks/strategies complement each other perfectly. Here was my one problem: I could not find matching Daily 5 & CAFE posters...URG! Huge problem...right? (I know...I am crazyI). I am such perfectionist when it comes to bulletin boards. So of course I had to create my own! I am not complaining though...it was really fun for me to practice my designing abilities and also learn more about the frameworks. I feel as though I have such a better grasp on how and what I will be teaching during reading this year. You can find my new Daily 5 CAFE posters here and here FOR FREE! :)

3.) Relaxing & getting back in shape: Yep...I am forcing myself to do these things! Teachers have this tendency to revolve their lives around helping other people instead of themselves. During August, we revolve our lives around our future students and how we are going to support them in our best ways possible. However, I don't think we can be our best unless we feel our best. I have been jogging/walking 5 minutes each morning (getting addicted), replacing coffee with MateFit tea, and replacing chips as my afternoon snack with Balance Bars. I am not making any drastic changes (besides the getting rid of coffee everyday thing) and I feel great! Hopefully I can keep it up as the year goes on!

That is all for now! I am going to spend one more week at home by the pool and then it is back to Michigan to set up my classroom (YAY!). Enjoy your last few weeks in the sun!

Happy Teaching!

Base Ten Organization

Schools go a little later in New York, so today was my moms last day of school! I went to school in the same district she teachers in, so I always love to go back and visit everyone. Now that I am an official teacher with my own classroom, I have what you might call teacher vision. Only teachers have teacher vision. Teacher vision is kind of hard to explain--but basically it is when you see something in a school hallway and you wonder...Is that free? Can I take that? I can totally use that in my classroom. Is someone seriously throwing that out?! ... Then, you take it (making sure you've checked with the person who ditched it first--that part is very important) and put it to good use. One teachers trash is another ones precious treasure. What I am getting at here is that today I hit the jackpot. Teachers left and right were ditching stuff and I was taking it all! They were relieved and happy their belongings were finding a 1st grade home!

My mother then had the brilliant idea to stop by my old elementary school and look for grade level goodies. I left with 5 BOXES full of stuff (score)! The pictures don't even do it justice--my moms SUV was full, too Not only was it great to get more supplies for my classroom, it was great to see old teachers and go back to the place that instilled my love for learning. That is where the magic happens and I'm so lucky I get to be on the other side of it now.

Now that I am done rambling...to the good stuff. One of the very useful things I acquired was different types of base ten blocks. Lots of different colors and even some foam base ten blocks--which I think my kids will really like.

I could not stand this past year how I organized my base ten blocks (in ziplock bags). Half the time the bags weren't closed, the amount of blocks in the bags were totally uneven, and by the end of the year the bags were totally destroyed (if they even made it that far). SO here is where my crazy organizational side comes out. I went to the Dollar Tree and found these Betty Crocker Divided Containers.  ($1 a piece, about $26 total--completely worth the money for me). Next year, each student will have their own box of base ten blocks to be responsible for (alleluia). All that's left to do is number them and decide where I want to put them--desks or shelves? Any suggestions are appreciated.

How do you organize your base ten blocks?

Happy Teaching!!