Five For Friday- 9/18

I am excited to link up with DoodleBugs Five For Friday

This was my first week back, after being out for the past month. It was a lot like the first week of school with reviewing procedures and expectations. The good news is that it is now Fall Break and I have a week off. We are going to the beach! When I return to school I am sure I will need to review procedures and expectations again. This is a bit like the first week of school that never ends....only kidding, but I am super excited to take a trip to the beach!

Here's a peek at our week!

How- To Explanatory Informational writing and Bulletin Board

Day 1- Eat an Oreo and then we wrote about how to eat an oreo.

Day 2- We blew soap bubbles and wrote about how to blow soap bubbles.

Day 3- We chewed bubble gum and blew bubbles and wrote about how to blow bubbles.

Day 4- We recorded ourselves reading our writing and made it into a QR Code.

Day 5- Completed recording everyone, while others wrote about how to make their favorite sandwich.

I also took photos of the students "blowing" a bubble. I then attached a pink balloon to look like a bubble gum bubble. I posted this photo, their writing and the QR Code (some I'm still working on) to the bulletin board in the hallway. You can scan the QR Code to see a video of each student reading their writing. 

We had lots of fun with this and students were excited about writing as well as proud of their work

Standards and EQ's

I have been trying to find a set up that I like with my standards and EQ's. I am finally happy. Here is the before and after. (Please ignore my terrible handwriting)

Now with a black pocket chart (amazon) laminated color coded sentence strips and "ticket holders" to hold my standards. (These First Grade Georgia Standards are in my TPT Store)

Here is what the ticket holders look like on amazon.

After being out for a month, the student nameplates I had on their desks were already looking nasty with the tape pulled up and honestly I never really liked those. So, I made some new ones with a monster theme to match the rest of my room. I'm really happy with how they turned out. 

I'm reorganizing my reading centers to be similar to The Daily Five. I am using these FREE Posters from Kristen Smith HERE  and I created two more, one for computer and one for iPads. Each day I plan to move the two from above down one row to rotate the centers. Basically, I am planning for students to go to two centers a day and also meet with me for guided reading. If I find out they need more than two centers I can easily add another card. 

I am going to use this same method for Math Stations (Build Stations, but again I added more technology) I've made cards with real photographs to use for FREE in my TPT Store. HERE

One more FREEBIE in action! This Roll, Tally, Graph FREEBIE HERE

Thanks for listening to my randomness from the week! 

Tech Tip Tuesday- QR Codes!

I am linking up with Techie Turtle Teacher for Tech Tip Tuesday to talk about QR Codes!

I love using QR Codes for math stations, literacy centers, listening centers, and even during writing for research.

Yes, you have to have a tablet, iPad, iPod, or phone with a camera in order to use QR Codes. I have written many DonorsChoose projects to get the ones I use in my classroom, but you may want to consider sending a letter home to parents to donate old phones, etc. that have a camera capability that you could use in your class. You know everyone has to have the next "new" thing when it comes out and they may have their old phone of device lying around. Smart phones are basically small computers and can do many things.
Look how this school system posted about a Smartphone Giveback Program.


Now, let's talk about how I make QR Codes. I use QRStuff.com and this site is super easy to use and FREE!

On the site you have many options to choose from.

I usually use either plain text or website url depending on what I am want my students to accomplish with the QR Codes.

I use the plain text option for quick answers to questions that they will solve and then use the QR Code to check their answer.
I use the website url if I want students to view a specific website. I always use safeshare.tv before creating a link for students to view youtube videos etc. Safeshare will allow you to view the site without commercials. There is nothing worse than when you are trying to watch an educational video and suddenly a beer commercial pops up on the screen! ugh! So, as a side note, safeshare.tv is also great to use when you are just viewing videos projected up on the screen for the whole class not just for qrcodes. :)

My most recent products and uses of the QR Codes have been this set of QR Codes for Researching Zoo Animals! This is perfect for the little ones and allows for "guided" instead of letting them loose on the entire internet, the QRCodes take them to specific videos about the animal they are researching When I introduced these QRCodes and this activity I first modeled how to find the QR Code Reader App on the iPad (I use i-nigma) and then we talked about while listening and watching the video you can pause the video to take notes and write down interesting facts you learned. They really enjoyed this activity! I am now on my way to making more sets with different topics we can research!

The link to the product is HERE!

Here are some other ways I use QR Codes in my class:

HERE

HERE

HERE

HERE

HERE

HERE

Five for Friday- 3/20

Five for Friday- 3/20

 

Do you GoNoodle? We had some rainy days and we enjoyed indoor recess with GoNoodle. My students thought the Chillax video was hilarious!

Animal Research with QR Codes! Such a success! 

The paper in the pic was just a rough draft, I have since made a more "presentable" Zoo Animal Edition in my TPT Store HERE

STEM Challenge: Create a bridge a Troll (toilet paper roll they decorated) can fit under and 3 Billy Goats (the three cubes) can balance on. We had lots of fun with this today. I also had students retell the story using these props after creating the bridge. 

New Picture of the Day Product where students can compare similarities and differences of animals in real photographs. HERE

Setting up for our Monday PL day with another school. We have another school coming over to see some math and literacy center/stations. As a grade level we tried to pull all kinds of things to share.

So much info in one place!!

Literacy Centers:

Recognizing Letters

Beginning Sounds

Sight Words 

 CVC

 Changing Letters to Make New Words

It looks like I didn't take pics of the writing center ideas...sorry. 

Math Read Alouds

 Math Centers/Stations:

Counting On/Number Sense

 Geometry

 Technology

Addition/Subtraction

 Measurement

Now to make some kind of list of activities/links for these teachers to take with them. Looks like I will be busy this weekend!