Black Friday Cyber Sale

What did you end up getting during the Black Friday Sale or are you still planning to shop on Cyber Monday?

Warning: This will not be your typical teacher Black Friday blog post with pens and post it notes. While I love those things with a passion, this post shares some of my other favorites!

Here are some things I grabbed up.

I absolutely love Aerie for sleep/lounge clothes. I grabbed some of their Real Soft Joggers and the Waffle Henley. These are my favorites. I literally have some on while I am typing this blog up. Last I checked, they are still 50% off. Some sizes are out of stock, but go ahead and sign up for them to notify you when they become available. Thank me later.

https://www.ae.com/us/en/p/aerie/bottoms/joggers-sweatpants/aerie-real-soft-jogger/0496_4924_357?menu=cat4840006

https://www.ae.com/us/en/p/women/t-shirts/aerie-t-shirts/aerie-waffle-henley-long-sleeve-t-shirt/5493_2061_618?menu=cat4840006

I also had to stop by Bombas and check out my very favorite socks. I live in their ankle socks. My husband does as well so I grabbed him some as well. They are 20% off with CHEER20

https://bombas.com/products/womens-holiday-ankle-sock-6-pack?variant=mixed&size=m

I also checked out JCrew Factory

 

I bought my husband a few things and then ended up throwing in these super soft looking slippers and cute earrings. 

https://factory.jcrew.com/p/mens-clothing/slippers/fauxshearling-moccasins/H1299?color_name=caramel-suede

I also thought about my cats and stopped by chewy.com They had a great sale on cat trees. I ended up getting the exact one that we already have, but it has seen lots of love and needs to be replaced.

https://www.chewy.com/frisco-72-in-faux-fur-cat-tree-condo/dp/129326 

For Christmas decorating, we decided to get a few more strands of our favorite lights while they are on sale.

These are from Target. They have color and white lights and are Philips brand. I like that they are big and it's plastic around the lights. I've dropped them quite a few times while untangling them and they have yet to break. 

https://www.target.com/p/philips-25ct-christmas-led-g40-string-lights-multicolored/-/A-50851666#lnk=sametab

My husband was extremely excited to get a tree for our front porch from Home Depot.

Ok, let's talk for a second about Rakuten. If you shop online a lot and you don't use it, you are missing out. Just leaving money out there that could be in your pocket. I use it as an extension on my computer and before I make a purchase on a website I check click the extension and see if they are offering cash back on what I am about to purchase. I signed up to use it last Christmas and I've already earned $350 to date from them. I admit that I shop online and rarely go into stores (this is just me, even before quarantine). 

Click the photo link below if you also like to shop online and would like to sign up. 

Technology Recap from GaETC!

GaETC was different this school year...as everything has been different this school year. It was a Virtual Conference and took place Thursday Night, Friday during the day on into the night and then Saturday. My principal allowed me to attend from my office in the media center on Friday. I watched many sessions that were specifically about Media Specialists of the Year, Exemplary Media Programs and Future Ready Libraries, but I also attended wonderful sessions by some presenters that are my favorites at GaETC each year, Leslie Fisher and Tony Vincent. 
I've put notes from their sessions into a Smore Flyer, like I have done in the past for GaETC Recaps.
Check out some of my previous GaETC Recaps as well. You will be shocked at how useful and relevant the resources and information from years past remains.
2016 GaETC Recap2017 GaETC Recap2018 and 2019 GaETC Recap

Integrate Science and Writing

Are you running out of time for teaching science each day with the main focus being math and language arts while science and social studies get the short stick?Well, I just may have a solution for you.

I have revamped a product that I made and used in the classroom many years ago. 
Now this resource is a PDF as well as a Google Slide.Use it in-person with students in your classroom or use it during a google meet or zoom by sharing your screen and having a discussion about the animal similarities and differences. The absolute best part of this lesson is the discussion. Kids are so funny and when you start getting them talking about animals and their prior knowledge about each animal I promise someone will say something that shocks you and is funny. Those laughable moments turn into teachable moments where you are also making connections with your students and building relationships. 

Response sheets are included that can be printed or shared in google classroom. This is where the integration of writing comes in. You can print the response sheet for in-person students to draw the animals they are comparing and write a response. 
If you are teaching remote or if you enjoy using technology instead of paper copies, you can share the slides and students can add text boxes. 

Did you know that students can actually draw on assignments in google slides?The image below shows how to get to the scribble option where they can freely draw on the assignment. This would of course be something you need to teach and I'm sure they will become pros over time. 

I've been teaching students how to use google drawing during our media center lessons and they have really been enjoying it. If you know how to use google drawing, it works exactly the same in google slides. 
If you like this product also check out Digital Picture of the Day to focus on generating ideas and making inferences. 

I've actually update all of my Picture of the Day Products in TPT. Here are some other examples:

One Month in the Life of a Media Specialist During Remote Learning

My school district started this school year with remote learning. We've now completed one month and here's what I learned and what I used for lessons.

A little background, I am a media specialist that is on the specials schedule. I teach 6 live lessons everyday of the week and actually teach 7 classes on Friday. Our county provided K-2 with ipads and 3-5 with chromebooks. My district uses Google Meet to stream live lessons from 7:40-1:40 each day (in elementary). 
One of the main things I quickly learned was that I need to be very consistent and routine with my lessons. Instead of using a new website/app each week just pick a couple to use every week. This will help especially with K-2 that need to learn how to use that app or website. So the main website that I taught K-2 to use was whiteboad.fi. This is website that I was able to post a link in the chat box and then they clicked on the link to use it. One thing to keep in mind is you have to teach students what and where a chat box is. I quickly drew a picture on a scrap of paper I had at my house and started to hold up that visual while directing them to the chat box.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, I started out the first week by showing each class a google slide and talking about expectations while on google meet. This is basically what I do the first week while in the media center, we talk about expectations while in the media center. 
For K-2 my lessons each week were made up of me reading a picture book aloud, have students use whiteboard.fi to draw the main character from the story and any other details. I'd then have my awesome and amazing paraprofessional read an Elephant and Piggie book my Mo Willems. If we still had time, I put a link in the chat box to starfall.com where students could practice letters, letter sounds, and phonics skills for the remainder of our time together.
The books I read each week were:Week 1: The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by: Ken Geist and Julia GortonWeek 2: The Good Egg by: Jory John and Pete OswaldWeek 3: The Pout Pout Fish by: Deborah DiesenWeek 4: Gaston by: Kelly DiPucchio 

For 3-5, I spent a lot of time during the first two weeks of school discussing how to check books out using Sora. I presented about how to do it. I put a tutorial video into Google Classroom for students to refer back to if they had questions later on and I answered any questions they had while checking books out. I also made a pretty extensive list of some of their favorite books in the media center that we also have on Sora for them to look for and check out. I also immediately bought additional copies of some of their very favorite titles including a couple of copies of the new Dog Many book that was just released at the beginning of September. I'm pretty sure I could buy 20 copies of this book and it would just constantly stay checked out. I know my patrons and their interests!
For the last two weeks I've started class by having students check books out on Sora and read that book or read a book from home for the first 20 minutes of class and then for the last 20 minutes I introduced a Virtual Makerspace option for them to explore.One week I specifically pointed out that they could use Minecraft Coding or code.org during this time if that's the one they wanted to explore. I demonstrated how the website works before having them explore it themselves.

Last week, I pointed out that another good coding site is Bitsbox on code.org. This website simulates what it would be like to program an app. I again took about 5-7min to demonstrate how this site works before letting them loose to explore it on their own. I find that if you demonstrate first it alleviates most questions or problems that will naturally occur if you don't explain how it works first. 

Teacher humor for the first week of remote learning:Lots and lots of things will happen during remote learning that you did not expect and it is best to just laugh to yourself and keep it moving. For example, you may want to add to the norms that students don't need to take their device with them into the restroom at any point. Also, mention that it is best to wear pants even if you think the teacher will only be able to see you from the waist up. Students often forget that their cameras are on and yeah...
I also found out that if you end up having students wait a second while you take attendance or something else you will often end up with students suddenly sharing their animals/pets with classmates or even their loose and silver teeth with one another. HA!

Lastly, I learned that students can be pretty honest in the chat box and sometimes you just have to shake your head when they come in 32 minutes late and post this...

 

My At Home Classroom Space!

Now that we know we are starting the school year virtually I have started to set up my at home classroom.

A few things I picked up from amazon for my home classroom space. 

AN EASEL

I have ordered the blue one, but they also have it in pink. I love that it is adjustable in height, as well as how far the bottom expands. I am able to put it in a small space. 

MONITOR

I bought an additional monitor to use in addition to my laptop and I absolutely love it. I should have done this a long time ago. It makes so many things so easy instead of going back and fourth between tabs.

NOTEPADS and PENS

If you are a list maker like me you are going to want some awesome notepads and pens. 

This is the exact notebooks I have. I actually have three of these. Sometimes you can find them at TJMax or Marshalls, but I've not been getting out much at all and ordered the last two on amazon.

My FAVORITE PENS and some fun MARKERS for taking notes.

LIGHTING

You may want to invest in a large ring light, but if not you could use a selfie ring light that is much smaller and much cheaper. Just know that if you have glasses there will often be a ring of light in the reflection on your glasses when recording or during a live session. I've gotten used to it and still prefer having the lighting bright and nice for recordings. 

Here's the large ring light that I have used before in our news room at school.

Here's the selfie ring light that is in the picture that I use to light up my face.

TIP FOR VIRTUAL NEWBIES: Sitting in a chair all day is uncomfortable. I considered ordering a seat cushion, but found that a pillow works perfect! 

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Virtual Open House Video and Bitmoji for the Classroom

I jumped on the Bitmoji craze and created my version of a virtual library to share with students. We are now starting remote on Aug. 17th and as the media specialist, I wanted to give students quick access to many ebooks and websites. 

If you need more direction on how to create a bitmoji classroom, you should just search youtube for a tutorial. So many tutorials are out there!

I also put a link to the public library for my area so they could connect with them and gain access to the public library resources as well.

One BIG TIP I have for if you would like to make a Bitmoji Classroom, would be to not limit yourself to only the images you can find when doing a web search that have a transparent background. ANY image you find can have a transparent background if you upload the image to the website remove.bg and then download the new image. I used this to get the perfect purple library cart that matches the library carts that I use in my own library. 

I also used in on the bitmoji images to remove backgrounds when I created the google slide above that shows each special teacher's bitmoji. We are going to have classes go to this slide and then click on the bitmoji to join their google meet special for the day. A fellow media specialist shared the background with me that had the windows, but I added the purple and yellow flower window boxes to match our school colors. I've also heard of school using this concept with doors instead of windows. 

One other tip would be that if you do not want to use a bitmoji, but would rather the virtual classroom show an actual picture of you, you can use the website remove.bg to remove the background around an image of yourself. To take it one step further, my husband teaches 7th grade science and he took a video of himself waving and then uploading the video to www.unscreen.com and it automatically removed the background of the video and put the video on loop. He then put this video onto his virtual classroom.

I used this same concept on my Virtual Open House video.

I used google slides to create the presentation and then added gifs of myself. I created the gifs by taking a short video of myself waving or holding cats and then uploaded the video to unscreen.com to remove the background. I then downloaded the new image from unscreen.com and was able to drop the images into the google slide. After I complete the google slide presentation I used www.loom.com to record myself talking while presenting the google slide in presentation mode. This turned my presentation into a video with audio and students/parents will not have to click for the slide to advance. Loom is free for educators it is similar to screencastify and other screen recording options. One thing I really liked about it is there is a spot to add a "Call to Action" link within the video. So, I was about to add a button where people could click that and go to a link that I mentioned while watching. 

Amazon Back To School Essentials 2020

We don't have a lot of control over the if and when we are going back to in person learning in the Fall, but you do have control over how you will use best practices to set up procedures and organization that will limit the spread of germs within your classroom.

 I have put together some suggestions I have from amazon that you may want to add to your wishlist for the new normal for school while social distancing. I know the idea of social distancing within school is quite unimaginable, but that's not the point of the post. I am merely making suggestions that may make your life easier if and when we go back to in person learning. My district is in Metro Atlanta with extremely high and rising cases and we are supposed to go back Aug. 3rd, but again, not the point of this post.

One thing I would definitely do is have separate materials for each child instead of having shared materials like crayons, pencils, etc.

To do this I'd use pencil pouches.

I used this exact set in first grade before and absolutely loved how it was colorful and fun for students. 

I would also put a label maker on your wish list so you can label these pencil pouches as well as other things like earbuds.

Here is how I label the earbuds for each student. I had students keep these earbuds in their pencil pouches as well. 

I've used book pouches in the past for students to get 3-5 books from my leveled classroom library. I have them get books on their level and then they keep these books in their book pouch for the week and get new books the following week. This is the perfect solution for students that early finishers. One of the procedures in my class was for students to read a book from their book pouch if they finish an assignment early and the rest of the class is still working on that assignment. I also made it one of my station or literacy centers. Students that were at the read independently station would read books from their pouch during that allotted time. 

I also would suggest each student having their own pencil sharpener. This way they keep their own pencils, but also there is not a line for sharpening pencils. I really like the Maped Pencil Sharpeners. Some pencil sharpeners are cheaper, but I'm telling you these are my favorite.

If you are in a classroom with tables instead of desks I would suggest using chairbacks or seat sacks for students to store their pencil pouches and other items. 

If you are planning to wear a mask and you also have glasses I would suggest this spray to help reduce fog.

These are just a few items that I've used in the past and had success with that may help with discouraging the use of shared items while trying to social distance and reduce the spread of germs during COVID 19.

Like I said, you can make a wish list with these items on amazon. Also, consider created a donorschoose project to help fund these items. Check out my donorschoose blog post about it where I shared the information I used when presented about this topic at a conference. 

Bulletin Boards - Look At This!

I want my bulletin boards to scream "LOOK AT THIS!"

I feel like we all want that. Why put in the effort if no one is going to look and appreciate it?

This is one of those fun blog posts with lots of pictures of my bulletin boards (display case) from the last few years.

TACKLE A GOOD BOOK!

I highlighted books about football.

I remember one boy passing me in the hallway after I put this out and he said, "How did you know I like football?" "You did that just for me?"

My response: "Yes, yes I did!"

BEE KIND! 

 I highlighted books about kindness!

CHILLIN' WITH MY SNOWMIES!

I found a clip art snowman on TPT and then wrote typed each teacher's name on each snowman and put a book in their hand. I tried to be clever about which teacher was holding which book, but I don't think anyone noticed. The PE teacher was holding Junie B. Jones Captain Field Day and etc.

LET'S TALK ABOUT BOOKS!

For this one, I made a google doc for students to write about a book that they would recommend to others.

IT'S SNOW SECRET READING IS COOL!

FALL INTO A GOOD BOOK!

BOOKS TAKE YOU ON AN ADVENTURE!

I highlighted books about different states.

PAWS FOR A GOOD BOOK!

OH WHAT FUN IT IS TO READ!

I found the bunting on amazon for the "OH WHAT FUN" part.

HAPPY FALL Y'ALL

Leaf Through a Good Book!

Whew! Just looking at these photos reminds me of having to get the step ladder and crawl into this display case to decorate it. I'm exhausted just remembering.

Hopefully, these images will help spark some inspiration if you are trying to figure out how to decorate a display case or bulletin board. 

BOOK TASTING!

This year was the first year that I had a Book Tasting and it was lots of fun. 

What is a Book Tasting?

Well, first off let me tell you that you do not need to bake anything! It is just a fun way to expose students to different genres and books that they may not usually pick up to read. I tell them that when they taste a meal they do not eat the whole thing. They just get a bite. During the book tasting they are not going to read the whole book. They will just read a bite or piece of it. 

Students came to the media center during their specials time and we had books from different genres on each table. Students stayed at each table for about 10 minutes. They read one of the books for 5 minutes and then had 5 minutes to fill out part of the "menu" to tell about their first impressions of the book and to rate the book out of 5 stars. I then had students switch tables and read from a different genre. 

 

My para and I wore a chef hat and a red apron. We decorated the tables with red and white table cloths and silver platters in the middle for the books to sit in. I was able to order all of these things on amazon. The tablecloths were large rectangles and I cut them in half to used one table cloth on two square tables.

I make lots of products for TeachersPayTeachers, but sometimes you don't need to because someone else has created something wonderful. I used https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Book-Tasting-Introduce-Your-Students-to-New-Books-2741616 by Head over Heals for Teaching. I used this product for my 3rd-5th grade students and it was such a time saver.

The main thing I really had to plan and make something for was Kindergarten-2nd grade, because I am one of those media specialists on the specials schedule and I see K-5 all in one day. If I am going to dress up and decorate the media center with table cloths, silver platters, and menus, then we are ALL going to enjoy this book tasting! Not to mention, students would have been super sad to come to the media center after seeing it like this during the week and not get to participate. In reality, the main purpose of the Book Tasting is to get student attention and to get them excited about reading. I feel that I definitely accomplished this main goal.

So, for K-2, I put different stacks of books on each table (it was just a general variety not organized by genre) and they rotated from table to table and I made a simple sheet where students could draw a quick picture and write about whether of not they like the book or their favorite part of the book  after reading/looking at the books on each table. They are also able to rate their impression of the book out of 5 stars, which they really enjoyed this concept. I always try to explain this by saying a really good restaurant is called a 5 star restaurant. 

I wish I had take more pictures. Well, there's always next year!

The super simple sheet I made for K-2 can be found for FREE in my TPT Store.

BOOK TASTING RESPONSE SHEET