A few updates!

There has been a TON on my plate lately. I managed to be awesome and fall down the stairs at work, in front of a 5th grade class. It was pretty epic, I must say. So after a week of swelling and two visits to a worker's comp. doctor, I am now in physical therapy. The PT informed me he thinks I have a small hairline fracture on my fibula. So no more gym workouts for me for at least another month and twice a week PT! Then a week later my kidneys decided to attack me and I was down for the count. The song that keeps running through my head is....


Thanks for all the help and advice about the LA/Reading adoption. It was narrowed down to three choices by the committee...from a short list given to us by the district (from Oregon Dept. of Ed). So thanks for the suggestions that weren't on the list, but those were our only options. The three are: Wonders, Journeys, and Reach. I'm leaning toward Journeys...I like the two "paths" that are given for the tradition anthology or using their series in Guided Reading.

Finally a follower (Marla) had read my post about paper slide videos earlier this year. Here is what she wrote:

Thank you so much for sharing the information about Paper Slide Videos.  I had never heard of them before.  I teach 5th grade in Texas and decided to have each of my students do an individual video to demonstrate something they had learned the first six weeks.  Everyone had to pick a different idea and it could be from any subject. 

They loved it!!!!  When we were through, we had 22 videos that reviewed all of our first six weeks of school.  We made a bulletin board with QR codes that were on a iPhone template and had it ready two days before our PTA program so parents could interact with it.  Thanks for turning me on to Schooltube also.  I did not know about that either!

My principal was so impressed and showed our superintendent when she visited our school.  The teachers at my school are all excited about it too.  One has already used the idea too!

Below are the pictures and QR codes she sent me! LOVE IT, thanks for sharing!

Open House and QR Codes

We had a great busy, but great week ...picture day, hearing/vision screening, a guest visitor, and open house! I'm tired just typing it.

I was a little nervous about open house, not sure why, because it was just that...open house! I didn't have to give a speech or present anything, just be in my room and say hi to parents.

The next task was to do or have my kids make something that they would be proud of and want to share with their parents. I of course also wanted to use technology.

So what better than a paper slide video! Click here if you didn't read my post about paper slide videos.

We have had a little difficulty getting our iPods updated and going, so we used a flip video camera to film them. I let them choose any topic they wanted, but it had to be something we have done, read, wrote, or learned so far this year (which has only been a few weeks). I didn't get picky or make them be "perfect"...this was their first video, plenty of room for improvement. :)

Some of them came out great! I then wanted to also to have something up, outside my classroom door. I saw a cute board posted on Pinterest (I think), but it was the little MP3 players with the student pics and it said "iRead"

Then light bulbs went off!!! Why not make QR codes (those fun looking squares that you scan and can take you to a website or enter you in a contest) for the student's paper slide videos?!?! Then glue them on the little MP3 players that have their pics on them???

Here is what the display looked like.

The QR codes are right below their picture. The parents came in and scanned their student's code and BAM watched their video! If they didn't have a QR app or didn't have a smart phone I had six iPods available for them to use. I had only one video that didn't work because I had so many private settings on it that it didn't allow us to scan and view it.

So how do you do this you ask? I uploaded the videos to my teaching partner's You Tube site, his was pretty well set up and had some great security features chosen. From now on though I will be uploading to School Tube. I would have done it for this project, but it took the website a few days to verify that I was an educator. I HIGHLY suggest you use School Tube! It's AWESOME!

Once they were uploaded I simply copy the video link and pasted it onto this site QR Stuff. It generated the QR code and I downloaded it. Once it was open I printed it, cut it out, and glued it on the student's MP3 player.

Here is one of the QR codes for one of the paper slide videos. You can even scan QR codes right off the computer!!!

It was a HIT!!!!

So I'm glad to say I made it through Open House with flying colors!

The next thing I am going to use QR codes for in my classroom is my "focus walls". Our district asks that we have focus walls for at least reading and math. Now as to what a focus wall should look like or can look like...that is up for interpretation. Well I have a hard time covering my walls with too much stuff, sensory overload (for me...not saying it's wrong or bad). So my interpretation was more...focus wall posters!

They are posters that have our topic for the week or weeks. During that particular week the poster is a work in progress, usually hung on my board during that class period. Once finished it hangs in that area of my room until the next topic is completed, then I change it. Here are my last three focus wall posters.

But what do I do with the old posters? How can the students use the old posters and topics to reference?

ANSWER: QR CODES!!!!

I can make, print, and post on my wall...in that subject area of my classroom the QR codes for previously taught topic posters! The kids can use their iPods to scan the codes and the picture pops up!

Here is one of my other math posters...but scan the QR code to take a peek, ENJOY!!!

Do you use QR codes in your classroom? How?

Here are some updated pics of my room I took during open house.

Prefix, Suffix, Root Word Trees in bloom

Finally got all my writing drawers and got them numbered!

My book boxes came in!!!!! I LOVE LOVE using the book boxes!

HBA, Craziness, and Technology

So I give myself the HBA...Horrible Blogger Award...this summer. I have posted here and there, but not as much as I intended to. Things have been very very hectic! I don't feel as though I have had much of a summer break. Thanks to many of you my bucket business has taken off! Every spare moment I have been making buckets. For the bigger news we have decided to begin our move to the west coast! Yep, we are wanting to move to Ashland, Oregon area. So our little trip to California was not just time to see family, but we were also looking at areas to live, school districts, and jobs. Therefore we just put our house on the market and are going from there. More than likely my husband will head out there prior to my daughter and I going...it may be another year until we go. We also adopted/rescued a cutie, 7wk old, Maltese girl puppy, Georgia (it's like having another infant), but she is so cute it's worth it! And I have to admit she is good, really really good! She slept through the night, doesn't whine, and loves to snuggle.

Now on to teaching stuff....

One of the other things I had to complete this summer was a technology inservice for the county I work in. They are starting a new technology push called eClass, and my school is one of the pilot schools. Believe it or not I LOVE technology! I know I don't post about it a lot, but I am a bit of a techie geek at my school. A lot of my files are mimio files for the interactive board and those are very difficult to share on blogger, I don't even know if that is possible.

Well the class was mostly run by Discovery Education was was pretty neat to be a part of, a lot of the presenters were from around the US. As I get back into being a "good blogger" I intend to share some of the fun things that were presented so that maybe you can get a few ideas of how simple it is to integrate and use technology in your classroom, not just interactive boards.

The first thing I wanted to share was using student created videos in your classroom. This was probably the most hands on class I attended, as well as the most interesting and believe it or not simple! I know that when people mention video in your classroom you immediately think of actually video taping (do we still say taping???) your actual students. It doesn't have to be that!

There was this great and simple activity that can be done in one, YES ONE, class session. It's called paper slide videos. The easiest way to explain it is...a Power Point using paper and a video camera! Not kidding.

What better way to show you how to make one, then for you to watch one! The only difference is that the students can only have ONE take! Yep ONE take, so they have to be serious and practice.

Now here are a few great examples of how to use them in your classroom and a few student created ones!

Possibilities are ENDLESS!!!!! Seriously can't wait to make some of these with my students this year!

As an added bonus for being so horrible, AND for reaching over 1,000 followers...I CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT....I have tried to put as many of my documents that you may need for the beginning of the school year here! Hopefully this will help you as you area getting started and setting up your classroom. I will be in my classroom next week, so be prepared for pictures and hopefully a lot of great ideas!

Guided Math Checklist: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4-SUxXaRtQsNDdjNjY4M2ItMjRhZC00Mzg2LTg0ZTItNTkzZmZiNjEyOTVh

Vocabulary Word Work page: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4-SUxXaRtQsMDQ4MjU4N2ItOWJkNy00MGEzLWEyODItYmY4MDg0NjE0ZjI2

Behavior and Work Folder Labels: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4-SUxXaRtQsYjQyYTVjNDUtNGY1MS00MWZmLWI4ODAtMzRmNzk3ZDk5ZjM5

Behavior and Work Folder Page: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4-SUxXaRtQsMmx3SEQ0d1E3MjA

Lesson Plan Pages: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao-SUxXaRtQsdEpfblRWQUx1QU1icXFGSk5YdTE2Q2c

Lesson Plan Pages (how mine look): https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4-SUxXaRtQsUGFfWEw5dklQLXM

Grade Book Page: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4-SUxXaRtQsSEZXSEtyR29HSU0