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

 

GaETC notes from the past 2 years!

I created and shared smore flyers with notes from GaETC from 2018 and 2019. I've included the flyers below for you enjoyment. This is the perfect time to refresh yourself on technology resources. 

The 2018 smore flyer highlights:

- lots of wonderful people to follow on twitter

- music websites

- photos/clip art/icons that are public domain (copyright free)

- helpful hints for google slides, google drawing, and google slides

- graphic organizers for google drawing

- a coding game

- background noise cancellation

- geography websites

- history and augmented reality

- fun art websites

The 2019 smore flyer highlights:

- lots of graphic design stuff

- bookstagramming

- lots of info about google

- learning activities in google drawing

- youtube tips

- stop motion animation GIF

- sketchnoting

I'm Back!

I’m back! I am ready to start blogging again. I basically took a two year break and I have lots of things to share. 

I had a hard time deciding where to start, but I’ve decided to start by sharing that I plan to rebrand myself as Casey Crumbley (my actual name) instead of CasedillaCrumbs in the Classroom, so bare with me while I work all of that out. 

TPT Store https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Casey-Crumbley

Instagram @casey.crumbley

Twitter @casey_crumbley

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CaseyCrumbleyTPT

I am also working on updating product covers to be squares instead of rectangles...this is going to be a huge undertaking, but I think it will be worth it in the end. 

Here’s one product I updated today:

BEFORE

AFTER