Thursday, May 23, 2013

Helping Oklahoma



 Many friends and coworkers have family in Oklahoma, since DWF is just to south. I think this is a great thing that these teachers are doing. Check out the fundraiser with the link below. You get some amazing products and the money raised is going to the Red Cross.

                                                    http://mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.com/

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Classroom Blogging

As all of you teachers have noticed by now, its almost the end of another school year. And there is that age old question being asked in classrooms around the nation, "What can we do that to keep these kids from going crazy and taking me with them?" Well, I went to an amazing workshop this school year presented by Alan November about preparing students for the digital world and creating global learners. I've been very excited about plans to try "flipping" my classroom next year, but that is going to have to be a project for this summer. In the meantime, technology has been a sanity saver the past few weeks. We have started two big projects; making IMovie math trailers, and we have started a class blog. I wanted a way to review concepts we have covered this year, integrate a little technology and have a whole lot of fun.

I had already added the app kidblog on my IPad, so I decided to give it a try. We spent a few days going over internet safety. We also took some time to discuss how important it is for us to use proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar in our blogs. After that, I turned them lose! Each day I have been posting a question and letting them respond to them. I haven't let them start posting their own blogs just yet, and I am not certain that we will reach that point this year. So far the results have been incredible. The kids are thrill about coming to math class. They see the importance of writing things that make sense and and correct. They enjoy getting posts from other teachers, family members, and friends. And they just LOVE tracking our site visitors to see where we are getting viewed. I can see so many ways this can be used for next year. I plan on starting blogging much earlier next year. How do you use blogging with your class?

Oh and btw, if you could check out our site and leave a comment, you would make 53 4th graders very  happy.  http://kidblog.org/MsEcholsClass/



Monday, May 13, 2013

What can we do now?

 This school year one of my biggest focuses has been on creating exciting choice activities for my students. These are activities that students can "choose" from when they have finished their "have to" work. For the first half of the year our 4th graders stayed in one classroom and the teachers switched (Yeah, I know! Don't ask!). Everything I needed to teach math to 3 classes each day had to fit on a cart. That led to the purchase of the Choice Cart. I got this one at Sam's and I love it. Since winter break we have started staying in our own room with the students switching, but I still love my cart for storage.


I picked up these cute little baskets at Dollar Tree that I used to store each center.  I have purchased a TON of games from my favorite TPT gals. I would love to make my own activities at some point, but to borrow a quote from Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" When I print out the centers, I shrink the page that has the name of the game or activity and the directions and hang them from a ring on each basket. It saves on basket space and on color ink and laminate. I happen to get this set from my FAVORITE TPT seller and blogger The Science Penguin.



For storage after I switch out the activities I bought these handy dandy storage bags, also at Dollar Tree. I have a few hundred of these baggies now. I have them all in a few boxes until I can think of a better way to organize them.





I would love to hear any ideas that anyone has for storing these baggies!



Sunday, May 12, 2013

Who Knew?!

Welcome to my journey from Kindergarten to 4th grade with stops at ALL grades in between. I never imagined that I could like anything better than 5 year olds. I love the funny things they say all day. I love their brutal honesty. I love their excitement for learning. But then I discovered a different joy - one of students who could write their WHOLE name on the first day of school AND know what I mean when I say "a straight line" (Now whether they will actually form said line is a whole different blog). This blog is dedicated to sharing things that I am learning along the way, making new friends, and building that very important support group of colleagues that we all need during our journey.

Thanks for stopping by!