Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and wonderful new year!






Blinkie courtesy of Barb over on Ruby Slippers Blog Designs!

Thinking of Sandy Hook

It's hard to believe that is has been two weeks since the horrific tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.  I wanted to share this photo of the staff at my school as we gathered for a moment of silence, shared our thoughts with each other, and sent thoughts to those families in Connecticut.  We will never forget you!

CCSS Resources

Like all of my fellow teachers, I am always on the lookout for new CCSS resources.  I would like to thank Jeannette Stein for sharing the following CCSS related websites via SimpleK12!


  Teaching the Core is an amazing site! Not only ELA teachers, but history, science, and math teachers will also find this helpful as we integrate the literacy standards into our schools. It gives understanding and real meaning to the Common Core Standards for reading and writing.

     CCSS Math  This site is a collection of math resources from across the internet. It includes videos, lessons, interactive practice and other resources all sorted by standard.

 Achieve the Core is a great tool to help teachers understand the Common Core. 

Whose Child is This?

I want to join with all of my fellow bloggers in this day of silence to honor those families in Newtown, Connecticut.  The following poem as posted by Erica Bohrer does a wonderful job of summing up our sentiments.





Let's keep these dear folks in our thoughts and prayers.

Remembering Sandy Hook: A Day of Silence

My Classroom Blog

Hi everyone!  I just migrated my class blog to Blogger.  You are invited to hop over and check out what we have been up to in my classroom!  The link is below:

J Nelson's First Grade Blog

Vocabulary and "WordSift"

Recently, I attended an RTI workshop emphasizing the importance of vocabulary instruction in the new Common Core State Standards.  It just so happened that I also watched a webinar sponsored by Scholastic and USC Rossier School of Education on adapting to the CCSS which, coincidentally, also included the topic of language and vocabulary.  Then, while searching out some new apps for iPad, I discovered this amazing website that is a perfect tool for enhancing lessons involving complex vocabulary and thought I would share it with you:
WordSift.com 

This website has numerous features enabling a teacher or student to focus on the words that are essential to the understanding of a piece of text.  WordSift is easy to use.  The first step is to cut and paste any text into the text box.  The program quickly identifies important words that appear in the text.  Unlike other word cloud type programs, this program has some features that are important to teachers such as the ability to mark and sort different lists of words.  For example, words can be sorted by domain and appear in color if they relate to that particular domain.  Other functions include visualization of word thesaurus relationships, and Google® searches of images and videos.  In addition, when clicking on any word in the Tag Cloud, the program displays instances of sentences in which that word is used in the text.

Uses for teachers could include, but are not limited to: preparing lessons, previewing text with students, small group activities, supporting literacy, and assessment.

I can't wait to try this in my classroom!  I hope you find it useful!

Common Core Resources for Teachers and Parents

I wanted to share some resources I recently ran across to aid in the implementation of the CCSS.

This five minute video provides insight as to why children need clearer and higher standards.



Here are some links to Common Core Resources:

http://www.gwd50.org/cms/lib01/SC01000859/Centricity/Domain/41/Common_Core_State_Standards_gif.png

South Carolina Department of Education
Additional link:   http://scde.mrooms.org/index.php?page=27565

NYC

Engage NY

Georgia DOE

http://www.smarterbalanced.org

http://insidemathematics.org/

http://illustrativemathematics.org/

https://www.teachingchannel.org/

I hope you find these helpful!

Free Classroom-ready Resources from PBS

Where has the time gone?  Can it be the end of November already?  With illness and busy days at school this blog has been somewhat neglected.  I did take part in an interesting webinar that I been wanting to tell you about.

There is a fairly new resource called  PBS Learning Media.  
In fact, the neat thing about it is that they have it customized by state.  Just search for your state on the home page.
The link for Illinois is:  Illinois Edition. 

This site contains the best of public media on various subjects, thousands of digital resources, audio, video, interactives, documents, lesson plans, and is very user friendly.

Illinois PBS Learning Media allows educators in Illinois access to 22,000 local and national, classroom-ready digital resources.  Resources are aligned with state and national Common Core education standards.

You can search, save, tag, share, and create a favorites list. 

 Searching can be customized to include particular subject areas, grade levels, and media type.


New content continues to be added from such sources as:  PBS, public media stations around the state and country, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, National Geographic, NASA, the National Science Foundation, NPR, and the U.S. Department of Education.  PBS Learning Media is also in the process of correlating the current resources to the new Common Core State Standards.

You need a login, but it is free to sign up!  This is a great resource!  Spread the word!

CCSS Practice Via "Scootpad"

                                      

              I just learned about this amazing FREE Common Core ELA and Math practice website!

It's so easy to set up your class and it is "ad-free."  Scootpad automatically creates CCSS grade-level based practice for each student with no intervention from the teacher. Students can sign in from school or home at any time of the day.  Earning points and badges makes it fun for students!  The awards can be set up by teachers and/or parents to further motivate students.
                               
                             

 When clicking on the Scootpad reports tab, teachers can get real-time data on how their students are doing.  There is even an option allowing teachers to assess and customize proficiency settings, curriculum, and the practice pace depending on student needs.

There is also a social media feature enabling students to connect with their friends.  Preselected messages are available to choose from, as well as, the option of changing the student's avatar.  A news feed provides information such as updates about messages from friends and coins they have earned.  Teachers can post to the media wall as well.

 

Let me know what you think about Scootpad!  I know that if you're like me, you just love "Free" resources!!  Thanks to the folks at Scootpad for providing this opportunity for our students and teachers!

Here is the link if you would like to check it out:

http://www.scootpad.com/for_teachers

ClassDojo: A Classroom Behavior Program Webtool

This year I began using ClassDojo in my classroom and I LOVE it!  It is a free web-based tool that is designed to:

Improve student behavior and engagement by awarding and recording real-time feedback.

Print or email behavior reports to easily engage parents

Save time by recording behaviors and accomplishments right in class, with just one click: NO extra data   entry required.

The ClassDojo screen can be projected on the IWB so that students can view their points and see when a reward is given.  The teacher has the option to show both positive and negative rewards.  Another nice feature is the ability to create your own rewards based on the need of your classroom.  You can also choose to have an audible tone accompany a reward.

I have found that students really sit up and take notice when a fellow classmate is rewarded for their behavior or involvement in class.  The whole class works better as a team to get points for the entire class, and they can't wait to see their "end of the day" report. As a class we discuss the sections of the "circle" graph to see how many were "good helpers", "hard workers", "on task", etc.  Students cheer for their great efforts that day.  I give the class an extra special treat if we go three days without any negative section on this report.  This report has benefits for me, the teacher, also.  It is a really good self-check to ensure that the number of positive comments/rewards given in any one day are at an acceptable ratio with any negative points.  This really hasn't even been an issue though as students are so engaged in the process that negative behaviors rarely happen at all!


ClassDojo is such a fast and efficient way to record behaviors. I use the iPad app, so behaviors can even be recorded when we leave the classroom.  At the end of the day I make comments on a students page if necessary.  On Friday, the two students with the most points get a prize from our class treasure box get to pick a new avatar. (Each student has a cute avatar next to their name on the screen.)   I also send individual reports via email to parents requesting them.  (An introduction letter explaining ClassDojo, along with a request form was sent home at the beginning of the year.)  This process only takes a few seconds!  I reset all points back to zero for the new week.  (This is optional.)


The ClassDojo folks are very efficient at answering any questions.  They also have an ongoing format for teacher input and are continuously making changes to their product based on this input.

Here is the link if you would like to take a look at this great web tool:

http://www.classdojo.com/

I would highly recommend it!  

iPads in the Classroom and Free Apps!

This year I was fortunate to receive an iPad for use in my classroom!  Over the summer I got busy learning all about it via webinars, websites, blogs, etc.  Finding really good apps can be a time consuming process, but I found some great resources that really helped.  To avoid a lengthy post I have chosen to tell you about two of the many, many resources out there.  One of those I have already mentioned in a previous post, but felt it worthy of a second nod.  The Simplek12 folks have provided teachers with a wealth of information including some free ebooks listing popular "teacher-tested" apps.  Their free webinars and resources are invaluable! I also ran across a web site called "Smartappsforkids."  This site lists a free app of the day, a top 100 list, lists by grade level and much, much more.  You will have to check out these two resources!

I am also going to try to review some apps here on my blog throughout the year.  One of the apps I recently tried with my first graders is called "Story Wheel."  It's like the old fashioned game where each person adds to the story of the person before them, only kids get to spin a "wheel" on the iPad and when it stops, they must add to the story based on the picture shown.  Another really fun twist on the game is that the kids record their part of the story on the iPad.  When the story is complete you can replay it, email it, post it, etc., so that everyone can enjoy the creation!  You can see my students having fun with this in the pictures below!

I look forward to trying out more fun apps with my first graders and will let you know how it goes!

Changing Borders to Frames

I'm sure that many of you are like me and love to collect free borders, fonts, frames, etc.  Well, I was just trying to create a little  "kid friendly" instruction sheet to go with an activity, and the border I was trying to use just wasn't working out the way I wanted it to.  Much to my delight, one of my fellow bloggers came to the rescue with a wonderful tutorial on how to change a border into a customized frame via a free web site called "Pixlr."  Have you hear of it?  It does just about everything you can imagine!  Anyway, here is the tutorial I mentioned.  Thanks Angelia!  P.S.  She has other tutorials you might want to check out.