Five for Friday: {Birthday Edition}

I am linking up with DoodleBugs Teaching's Five for Friday Linky Party!

 

It has been a crazy week! Not only have we headed back to school for inservice and workdays, but it was my birthday week too!

1. I love using technology in the classroom. Last year our school provided us with 5 classroom iPads plus I had 2 from Donor's Choose so I had a lot of kids able to use them in a variety of ways last year.

 I posted some ideas for managing iPads and listed a bunch of my favorite apps.

You can click here to find the post!

2.  I grew up in Japan so decided that we would eat Japanese for my birthday. We had gyoza, udon, edamame, and lychee. My sister made a coconut cake for me too. :)

3. I never get to blow out my birthday candles anymore! We celebrated a day early because we had back to school night for Alex's preschool on my birthday. I can't believe he is going to start school. It felt funny being on the parent end of the back to school night. 

4. Check out this freebie at my TPT store! Some cute bookmarks to pass out to your kiddos on their birthdays.

 

5. I decided on a new teacher bag this year. I got a Zip-top Organizing Utility Tote and a Fold-n-File to put in it from Thirty-One Gifts! I love how I can stick my files in it and I am hoping that it keeps me really organized between school and home.

 I am ready to sprawl out on the couch and do NOTHING! My list will have to wait til tomorrow... :)

It's My Birthday!

Its my birthday!

To celebrate I have some gifts for you! 

First is a set of two birthday bookmarks that are a freebie at my TPT store!
Go here to download them!

and

I'm having a sale!

Everything at my store will be 20% off!

Enjoy! 

Getting the Most Out of Your Classroom IPads

Whether you have a class set of iPads or just one, they are an effective tool that can promote independent learning in the classroom! Here are some tips/tricks/ideas to help your students learn lots during their iPad time!

1.Figure out a good way to manage your iPads:

*Number your iPads: I saw the idea on pinterest to number the iPads using the background screens. Once I did this my kids had a much easier time remembering what iPad they had been using for a story or game!

*Storing them safely:

I bought this organizer this summer that should hold them perfectly! I am excited to have a good place for the kids to put the iPads back when they are done. Get good cases too. That way your kids can move freely with them. I like the Otterbox or a SuperShell from M-Edge!

*Organize your apps: 

Make it easy for your kids to find games to play by keeping like apps together! You can either do a page for each category or make files for similar games

*Check your iPads often: 

Every couple of weeks I go through each iPad, download new apps on each one, and make sure that that no apps have been deleted or moved. 

*Set up Guided Access (Settings--General--Accessibility--Guided Access) for your special friends who might need a little help staying on task! ;) 

2. Find Quality, Free Apps:

There are some good free educational apps, but I would recommend downloading Apps Gone Free to find out when good educational apps go free. There are not ones listed everyday, but more often then not you will find some good ones that are well made and don't have any pesky ads. Most of my favorite apps for the kids have come from here! McGraw-Hill often has their apps go free! *UPDATE: I am now posting great apps I find on my facebook page! Go here to like the page and keep posted about new FREE apps! 

3. Decide about Restricted vs Free Play Time: 

Do you want your kids to practice skills and increase their knowledge? Give them a folder of games they can play during that time period. I have lumped games together by categories, mostly relating to my workshop schedule. I have Listening, Writing, and Word Study sections. During that station my kids have to choose a game from that folder. Or during math, I have Math Practice and Math Fun files because I have noticed that some math games are less about practicing skills and more going around in the maze or finding the gold coins. I want to make sure when they are using the iPads, they are getting the most academic practice time they can! 

BUT, at the beginning or end of the day, I usually let them have some free iPad time. Usually it is not random games, they are still somewhat educational, but more fun, so they are still practicing skills and learning even if they don't realize it! 

4. Find your Favorite Apps:

Beginning of the Year apps: Great Alphabet and Number Sense apps!

Teacher apps:

 

Math Practice Skills   

 

Math Fun: Still good practice, but more story lines so practice is spread out.

   

Listening: These are great read alouds for your kids to listen to. 

If you can get a subscription to RAZ kids, it will change your life! ;)

Word Study: Word Magic is a great phonics app! I also use a lot of the McGraw-Hill apps too, but they take up a lot of space so add them as I need them.

Toca Fun: I love this app developer! My kids love to play these during free time!

ABC Learning: These apps are fabulous for kids to learn vocabulary or do research. Some of the videos are silly, but a lot can be used for them to listen to get information and take notes.

5. Think outside the box: 

It's easy for iPads to become almost a "game station", but they can be such a powerful learning tool! My students used the ABC food app to research fruits and vegetables, take some notes, and then we made a class book about fruits and vegetables. Another favorite app was My Story and during writing time they could work on books. I was able to send the stories to their parents which was really fun too! They were able to develop typing skills, revising and editing stories. iPads can encourage creative thinking, motivate those reluctant learners, and is great for differentiating to all types of learners! 

Wish you had iPads? My school provided us with some last year, but in years past I was able to get two through donor's choose and am hoping to get one more too (I'm linking to my current project)!

Do you have any great tips or secrets to making iPads work effectively in your classroom? Please share them!

Did you survive this long post? ;) Head over to my TPT store to download a iPad Rules poster!

First Five For Friday!

This is my first time linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

1. I stepped into my classroom on Monday to start working in my classroom! I am making progress but doing a lot of sorting and getting rid of stuff! I still have lots of things that need a place, and I am hoping to find a place for everything instead of hiding it in cupboards right before school starts! 

2. I took my boys to school with me one day! I did get some things hung up, but we spent some extra time cleaning up! Alex loved the pointers and wanted to take home a whole basket of my lego books! 

(It is going to be really hart taking them back to school!)

3. Summer is not over yet! We spent some time playing in the pool, but Liam decided it would be more fun to get muddy. I am kind of over the hot weather and wet swimsuits, but not ready to go back to school just yet!

4. I spent Friday on a forever long trip to Atlanta, in a huge thunderstorm to pick up my sister, only to discover that I was at the wrong terminal and her flight was diverted and delayed by several hours! Fortunately, it all worked out and she brought be Green Tea KitKats from Japan! 

(which means I am one happy girl!)

5. Rainy mornings call for a trip to the library! Alex is excited to be able to play with Aunt Sarah and I have lots of new books for the beginning of school! 

Next week starts teacher work days of school! Summer is quickly coming to an end... not to sure how I feel about that!

Who We Are

One of the great things of the IB program is that is requires a lot of collaboration among teachers. We are also constantly reflecting on what we taught previously and how we can change it to help the kids make better connections to what they are learning. We had a great time collaborating and hashing out the wording on our central ideas.
(Maybe that makes us total nerds, but it is fabulous!)
We wanted to make sure our planners were working for us this year, so we chose a central idea that would be practical for the beginning of the school year...

Self actualization guides personal interactions.

We are going to focus on our students' strengths, weaknesses, and needs to help them see how to best work in our classroom community. We want to teach kids how to respond to what they are feeling, how to take care of their bodies to help them be good learners, and start to internalize our Learner Profile and Attitudes. As they learn how to respond to the other first graders around them, we will be able to teach them classroom procedures and workshop routines and get our rooms running smoothly for a great year!

More to come on our unit later!

Hello August!

Well, I decided to head school today and stepped into this:

So much to unpack, organize and rearrange! I got a good start today, but am no where near done!

The first area I always organize is my reading area! 

I love having a classroom library. I think it is one of the most important parts of a classroom! If you want your kids to be readers, you need to give them lots to read! Thanks to a couple of donors choose projects, I have been able to build up my library quite a bit. (still need more though! Check out two of my projects here and here. :) ) I have also been able to get a lot of the lakeshore reading bins and love using those to organize my books! 

Last year I made some new labels for them that fit inside the little pocket in front of the bin. You can download them as a freebie! Go here to grab a set! 

Here is a little peak at what they look like:

I have them organized in different ways--authors, series, interest etc. My kids love the days when they get to check out books. I tried to have a picture with each one for some of my kids who need the visual! :) My leveled section I use some stickers I got from a Lakeshore pack because I change them around a lot depending on where my kids are at. There are a couple of blank ones too in case you have other bins you want to add (or for your leveled section)!

Target dollar spot has lots of good baskets for books too!

Pictures of my classroom coming soon, but it is NO where near ready! :)

TPT sale!

(graphic by more than math mo)

Teachers Pay Teachers is having their back to school sale!

Here are a couple of back to school items that might be helpful for you!

1. Worldly Word Wall

Each letter of the alphabet has a city and picture to match! I glued these to a sheet of construction paper and laminated. Then I taped our sight words underneath the letter! It was easy to take the letters off and start again each school year!

2. Classroom Job Chart 

 Let your students take off and land the every day jobs in your classroom! 

3.  Stamp a Sight Word

Do you every struggle to figure out what to keep your kids working on while you try to complete beginning of the school testing? This activity kept my kids busy, but ENGAGED, last year while I worked on mine! It was perfect practice as the year went on too! 

4. Handwriting Mad Libs

I used this activity later in the year, but if you are starting out in second or have a group of high flying firsties this would be a great beginning of the school activity! Your students can practice their handwriting, reading, and comprehension by tracing each story, and then filling in some words to help the sentences make sense!

Be sure to check out all the fun things in my store and download the freebies too! :) 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Inquiring-Our-Way-Through-First-Grade

Thanks!