Snowflakes for Sandy Hook

Connecticut PTSA is collecting snowflakes to create a "WINTER WONDERLAND" for Sandy Hook students. See the note below:

"Snowflakes for Sandy HookPlease help the students of Sandy Hook have a winter wonderland at their new school! Get Creative!!  No two snowflakes are alike. Make and send snowflakes to Connecticut PTSA, 60 Connolly Parkway, Building 12, Suite 103, Hamden, CT  06514, by January 12, 2013. "

In conjunction with our RAK week in our classroom, this was the perfect activity to do today. We used coffee filters to make our snowflakes. Prior to cutting, we colored with blue marker on them and sprayed with water and allowed to dry. The students did wonderful! We are so happy to help bring a smile to the faces of those precious students.

Just wanted to let my fellow teachers know! Have a great rest of the week!

Technology Tip Tuesday!

Linking up for Tech Tip Tuesday.....love this! My favorite thing ever is finding ways to incorporate technology into my lessons! Here are some ideas for you!

Host a Skype Story Time! See my post HERE to read more about it!

Record reviews/lessons for your students to study at home online! See my post HERE to read about it!

Use the Star Walk app on your iPads or iPod Touches to look for constellations in the sky! This takes the coolness factor in your classroom and kicks it up about 10 notches! Click HERE to read more!

O-FISH-ALLY First Graders!

This is the theme of my door this year and I've received a ton of compliments on it! Check it out yo!

 

My door last year was very Pinterest-popular -- check it out HERE!

2012-2013 Classroom Pictures!

Wow, first I apologize to all 500+ followers for being MIA! Life is really busy at the moment....we are in the process of building a house so that is consuming our lives at the moment! I do have some new and exciting tech ideas to share with your for the new school year, so follow along and stay tuned!

Good news this year! I moved back into the main building! I had been out in a portable classroom for the past 2 years, and while I loved the space, I hated being out there. So to celebrate, I decided to go with a brand new classroom theme -- SEUSS!!

Student tables and cubbies

Back wall with student computers, bulletin boards for student work, and Word wall.

Carpet area and library....and SMART Board! I really wanted the library to be the "heart" of the classroom.

View from the door

Carpet area looking back at the door

My desk area

Books are organized in baskets from Dollar Tree (online)

Another view of Smart board and my CAFE Menu will be to the right of it.

Word Work area for Daily 5

Student book tubs

One of the listening stations

Small group learning area...still need a few more seat cushions!

Read to Someone area

Happiness! I loved the way my room turned out!

I will post pictures of my completed door soon!

PBL with Earth Day Music Video!

Every year, I have my students make a music video to Jack Johnson's 3 Rs song.....they create the ideas for the video, I produce it, and we show it during lunch to the student body. Here's last years video....be sure to check back for this year's creation and also a tutorial on how to do the "green screen" feature in iMovie!!

 Please visit MY CLASS BLOG HERE to see last year's video!

The Dot Project -- Digital Art!

I read about The Dot Project and thought I'd try it out with my first graders. We read the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. This is an inspiring story about a student who doesn't think they can draw and ends up making great art. The students were ready to make their own art after reading this book!

Drawing on iPads would have been super fun, but we don't have any in our classroom. So we went to the computer lab and used Kid Pix to draw our very own dots. They are all unique and beautiful. The kids really enjoyed this and I'm sure we'll be doing more digital art in the future! Just another easy way to incorporate some tech into your day!

Nonfiction Text Features

We've been spending the week learning about text features of nonfiction books. This is coinciding PERFECTLY with writing "All About Books" ala Lucy Calkins.

We made this anchor chart...a great visual for the kiddos.

And today, the students dug deep into their own nonfiction books and looked for the specific features we've been learning this week.

To download, click the picture.

Quietube -- A Safer Way to Youtube

In the words of Junie B. : WOWIE. I learned so much over the last 2 days at the annual MACE conference, which is a tech conference for teachers. I hope to share some of the things I learned and how I'm applying it to my classroom with you all through my blog.

One website I was introduced to was Quietube....which allows you to watch youtube videos without all the "crap" -- related videos, comments, etc. Because every once in awhile an inappropriate related video or comment will be right near the video you are trying to use with students. This gets rid of all of that...plus it's just a lot less distracting.

So you go to quietube.com , and all you need to do is drag the button to your toolbar. Then when you have a youtube video you want to share, go to the video on youtube and click the quietube button on your toolbar and you'll go from this:

To this:

Dr. Seuss Camera - The Cat In the Hat Edition - iPhone App for Dr. Seuss Week!!

**UPDATE: Hello Pinterest! Wow, I thought no one read this little blog of mine. It's been on the back burner for over a year now. :) YES this app is FREE now and it is searchable in the app store --- Dr. Seuss Camera -- The Cat in the Hat Edition. Thank you and have a great Read Across America Day!



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Wow, my kiddos had fun with this one I just had to share!

During one of my centers today, students were able to use the Cat Cam app to put their picture into a Dr. Seuss scene. They selected the frame they wanted, took their picture, cropped how they wanted it, added a border, and saved it. We then put them on our class blog for parents to see. Too fun! Here's an example of the one I did. :)

You can download the Cat Cam for $1.99 on iTunes.   It's Free Now! Works with iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad....enjoy and HAPPY SEUSS WEEK!