Homework Club (an adaption from Pinterest)

I found this really cool idea on Pinterest and have decided to use it in my classroom. Get a cookie sheet, decorate it any way you like, and use magnets to identify the students. As long as the student turns in his or her homework, their magnet stays on the cookie sheet. If they forget to turn in their homework, or turn it in late, their magnet is removed. On the last Friday of the month, the students with their magnet still on the cookie sheet get lunch with the teacher.

You could simply write each child's name on a magnet; however, I am going to take pictures of my students on the first day of school, print those pictures, and glue them to a magnet. This will make it more visual for the students.

Here is my cookie sheet:

Again: NOT MY IDEA!!!!

Using Google Earth to fly through the Solar System

This past year, while teaching my students about the solar system, I ran across an awesome feature on Google Earth. This feature (I have not idea what it is called) allowed my class to take a trip through the solar system. Let me give you the steps on how to get there.

1. Download Google Earth (www.googleearth.com or www.google.com/earth/index.html)

2. Open Google Earth. At the top are buttons. The fifth button from the right looks like a planet with a ring around it. Click on that button and select Sky.

3. On the left side, there is a pane showing "Search," "Places," and "Layers." Select Layers.

4. Select "Our Solar System." When this opens, you will see the names of some bodies in the solar system. Simply click on the planet (or Sun), and you will "fly" through space until you get there.

There are a couple of bodies that you can zoom in on. I think you can even "walk" on the moon. Play around with these features to see what it can do. My kids LOVED flying through space on the SmartBoard!

Parental Involvement Link and a new website

I was discussing Parental Involvement with one of my friends today and I posed the question, "What is Parental Involvement? Is it simply parents being involved in their child's education, or is it Parental Involvement only when parents actually come up to the school?" Well, I found a wonderful website that actually answered that question for me. The website, from National Network of Partnership Schools, provides information on the six types of parental involvement. It also provides links for each type that allows you to see samples of how to get parents involved. 

http://www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000/nnps_model/school/sixtypes.htm

I stumbled across a new website called School Notes www.schoolnotes.com. Teachers can post information to the website, and parents can visit the website to receive this information. I created an account, and am contemplating on using it this upcoming school year. Feel free to view my page: http://new.schoolnotes.com/KimberlyArd/

Creating Your Own Audiobooks on Your iPad - Videolicious

Videolicious is a free app that will allow you create videos. One idea I had for Videolicious was to use it to make audiobooks (maybe for a listening center.) The simplest way to explain it is to take a picture of each page of the book, load the pictures to Vidoelicious, and then record yourself reading the book.

Another way to use this app would be to create a video of a field trip that you take with your class. Upload the pictures to Videolicious, make comments about each pictures, and allow the students to watch the video!

I am linking a sample of how it can be used. It is a sample, hence... not perfect! But at least it gives you an idea!

Oh, and you'll need a mic that hooks up to the iPad. I just use the mic/headphones that came with my iPhone and can probably be purchased in any store!

http://video.videolicious.com/80b1e803-6fb8-44a8-b177-943c61836e20

Parent Communication Idea

I was speaking with the new Arkansas Teacher of the Year (Ali Weimer) at ALA and we kind of came up with this cool idea together. I want my parents to have access to the videos that I use in the classroom. The kids will be able to watch the videos at home, and maybe the videos will have more of an impact that just watching them a couple of times in class.

To accomplish this, I plan on sending home a weekly newsletter. Last year, one of my coworkers told me about a website that has newsletter templates:
http://www.kellyskindergarten.com/Newsletters/newsletters.htm

I will customize the newsletter to include links to videos I how in the classroom. I will send home the usual paper copy of the newsletter. I will also email the newsletter weekly. This will allow parents to simply click on the link that is in the newsletter instead of having to type in the address. Parents can also create a playlist to store the videos for their kids to watch in the future.

The newsletter will look something like this:

Upper Right: "A Peek at Our Week" shows the focus for each subject.
Lower Left: "Video Links" show the videos that I am using in the classroom.

Communication with Parents - Remind 101

Remind 101 is AMAZING. It's a cool website (and free app) that allows you to send parents text messages (whole-class message) without the parents ever seeing your phone number! You cannot send individual text messages (one message to one parent), but you can send a message to everyone who signed up. A few ways to use this would be 1) To remind parents of upcoming events, 2) To remind parents that homework is due, or 3) To inform parents of inclement weather (just in case there is a parent who is not watching the news when your school lets our early like mine did last year.) There are probably a lot more good ideas...

The website is https://www.remind101.com/ and is completely free. I signed up for myself and have the directions saved to my iPad. I will send the instructions home at the beginning of the school year and encourage the parents to sign up!

Communication with Parents - Todays Meet

While attending the Arkansas Leadership Academy this past year, I frequently used a website called Todays Meet to give opinions, comments, and reflections. I would really like to use this tool this year. I thought about maybe using it during conference times to allow the parents to select their own conference times. That way, the parents could see which times had already been selected and which times were still available. I would conduct this on a first-come, first-serve basis.

This website can be found at http://todaysmeet.com/  Simply create a room name, then choose how long you would like for the room to be open. You can then direct the parents to the website, have them read your message, and go from there.

New way to communicate with parents

One of my colleagues and I were discussing ways to keep parents involved in their child's education this upcoming school year. One of the ideas that we came up with was to use a forum. Instead of the parents sending questions to us via email (or via phone), they can simply log onto the forum and ask the question. The benefit of using a forum is that if multiple parents have the same question, they can just read the answer to the question that has already been asked.

For example, if there was a question about the homework one night, a parent could as the question on the form. If another parent has the same question, they can simply read the response instead of emailing us again. This will prevent us, as teachers, from having to answer the same question numerous times.

In addition, we can use this in our Domain 4 folders as one of the ways we communicate with parents.

I was able to create a free forum by using http://www.forumotion.com/. You may view my specific forum at http://firstgrade.forumotion.com .

PS I just had a thought, I wonder if there would be a way to use a forum to have parents sign up for conference times? I will check on that...

I have been introduced to a quite a few websites that I love to use in my classroom, some kids have told me that they play on at home, or some that I use to help create homework and sub work.  These are those websites, with descriptions...

Spelling City: www.spellingcity.com I put the weekly spelling words in and let the kids play games with the spelling words. The games include: Hang Mouse (Hangman), Word Search, Word Scramble, and Fill in the Missing Letter.

PBS Kids: http://pbskids.org/ Kids can watch educational videos and play games.

A to Z Teacher Stuff: http://atozteacherstuff.com/ Free printable pages for many subjects. I use it mostly to make word searches of spelling/vocabulary words.

Little Book Lane: http://www.littlebooklane.com/ This website has activities divided up by grade level. I used it to create centers and homework around word families.

Hubbard's Cupboard: http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/ Pretty much the same as Little Book Lane's description. 

Cool Math: http://www.coolmath-games.com/ Free math games for kids of all ages.

StarFall: http://www.starfall.com/ A lot of Literacy and Math activities.

FunBrain: http://www.funbrain.com/ Mostly Math Games

Below are some websites I have heard of and appear to be free. I have not had the chance to use them in my classroom... yet!

ABCYa! http://www.abcya.com/

Sesame Street: http://www.sesamestreet.org/

Wise Owl Factory: http://www.thewiseowlfactory.com/

JigZone: http://www.jigzone.com/ - Online Puzzles

Edutopia: http://www.edutopia.org/

Storybird: http://storybird.com/

*******Two very AWESOME pay websites are: www.tumblebooks.com and www.brainpopjr.com (there is also www.brainpop.com) Our school pays for the subscription to both of these websites. Tumblebooks has many, many animated books with the words on the screen for the students. BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. have a lot of videos to teach children specific lessons. BrainPop Jr. is for grades K-2, BrainPop is for grades 3-5.*******

If you know of any other websites (free would be awesome), please let me know. After I check them out, I will pass the information along!

Videos in the classroom - Yes, you can!

While attending the Arkansas Leadership Academy (ALA), I was told about an amazing computer program (download) that would allow me to show videos in my classroom. For those of you who do not have internet access in your classroom, or like me, have a less-than-stellar connection, there is a way around this. It will require you to do a little work on your home computer but, trust me, it's worth it. Here is what I did.

On my home computer, I went to www.youtubedownloader.com and downloaded the program. There is a tutorial showing what to do. Be mindful, I had to ignore all of the add-on options (there are about three of them.) Once I had the program downloaded, the program was pretty easy to use. I would simply find a video on YouTube that I wanted to use in my classroom, copied the link and pasted it into the YouTube downloader program. Once it was downloaded, I would select Show Files (this might require you to close the program and reopen it.) From there, I could simply Click and Drag the file from the current location to my flash drive (thumb drive, memory stick, etc.) When I got to school, I would again Click and Drag the file from my flash drive onto my desktop. I began to create subject-specific folders so I could find my videos easily (Spelling, Shared Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies.)

By the way, this is really awesome to use when there is a sub in the classroom. My subs always had access to my desktop (I gave them my username and password.) They could show videos (and books) to the kids.

I even took it a step further, I loaded the videos onto the computers that the students use (in the Computer Center.) If the kids wanted to, they could watch the videos and sing along with them quietly.

Here are some Search terms (or authors of YouTube videos) that are directed toward elementary aged students:

Have Fun Teaching

Barbara Milne

KidsTV123

High Frequency Words

Harry Kindergarten

Super Simple Songs

ELF Learning

Introduction

My name is Kimberly Ard. I have decided to create a blog for a few of reasons. 1) I want to share what I know/have learned as a teacher with other teachers, 2) Receive feedback from other teachers, 3) Become better at reflecting on what I have taught/how I have handled situations in the classroom.

First though, I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself. I am once again a First grade teacher. I taught First grade for two years, moved down to teach Kindergarten, and am moving back up this coming school year to teach First grade again. I will have some of the same kids that I had last year.

I have a BSE in Early Childhood Education and a Master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction. I have just recently completed the Arkansas Leadership Academy training on being a Teacher Leader. I have completed two years of CGI and am currently working on CGI Year 3. In the 2014-2015 school year, I will begin working on my National Board Certification.

I have an iPad that I use for intervention and as a learning center. I also use a lot of technology in my classroom. I plan to tell you about those things in my upcoming posts. I am a huge fan of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. I also want to share ideas on how to use these types of social medias in the classroom.

My idea is to post a couple times each week with updates/ideas of things that are happening in my classroom. If you have suggestions, or if you try something that I suggest and it works (or doesn't) please feel free to share. Anything that I post will be free for everyone to use. If I post something from someone else and find out that I am not supposed to post it, I will remove it immediately.

I will close this post now and get some things together for my upcoming posts. I am currently working on ideas of new things to try in the classroom, in addition to purchasing items for the classroom. One I get these things together, I will post again.