Multiply the Magic!

Happy President's Day to you! Did you have the day off? Not me. Professional Development for us today. Today was a pretty good day, though.
My district is at least trying to make our PDs more useful and productive. And since they can't really let us just work in our rooms which would be the most beneficial thing they are trying to let other teachers guide our PD. So, we were given a catalog of several different 1 hr workshops to choose from and we signed up for our choices online. I only got to sign up for 4 because I presented at the other two sessions. So I got to wear this awesome t-shirt.

Can I just tell you how much I love t-shirts?! I think I started running just so I could sign up for races and get their t-shirts. (My favorite, not mine but one of my BFFs, it says, "I thought you said Rum!!" Love it!)
Anyhoo...this shirt turned out pretty cute. The name of all our elementary schools is on the back.
What did I present, you ask? Well, earlier in the year, our Technology Specialist came to my classroom and shared this awesome story making app with my class. I used it and shared our finished product with her and she was so excited she was like, Could you present this with me at our workshop in February?!  You will just have to share your finished product. She was right and what an easy presentation.
I shared this app called Story Kit. Do you know it????

This is actually an iphone app but it works well with iPad, too. It allows the user to create a story using pictures saved to your device or you can illustrate digitally if you are so inclined. So what my class did, was we were working on our Animals unit. In the past, the students did their own research on an animal of their choice, wrote a report about it, and illustrated it. I would then make it "fancy" by glueing  it to construction paper and laminating it. Well, this time, I took a picture of their illustration with my iPad, (except the cover of the book is just an image off Google the kids chose) typed in their text and then recorded each child's voice reading their own report. It looks like this...

You can't hear it of course, but if you tap on the little gold speaker on each page, it plays the child's voice reading their own story. What I love about it, is that each child participates and is successful, no matter what their ability level may be. My highest students could elaborate a little more, my lowest could dictate one fact. They were all able to illustrate and record, which I helped them with. I will say the recording of course takes a lot of time, but the finished product was so worth it. If you use it, do know that when you select to record the student's voice, the text disappears, so your student needs to have whatever they're recording, written down in front of them. Your non-readers can simply tell you their fact and you can add the text later. When your product is complete you can read it on the ipad like a book and even email it to whoever you'd like to see it! Really cool!!!
Give it a try and let me know how it goes or if you have any questions. I'm really no expert, but the app is so simple to use that I almost feel like one!

What a Week!!!!

Let me just start by saying, Ohmiword, what a week!!!

For some reason my school district always schedules conferences around holidays. First conference the week of Halloween, second the week of Valentine's Day. I'm not sure who's great idea this is, but I don't agree with the planning.  So this past week was, conferences until 6 Monday and Tuesday, Valentine's Party on Thursday. I know. I am still alive, but just barely. I'm only still awake right now because of this...

This is worth staying awake a little longer. :) Notice my sweet girl laying on the floor. She is never far from my side. She looks like she's thinking, Oh great. One of those nights. Ha! How was your week? And let me also ask, do you have two sets of conferences for every student? It is pretty much mandatory that we meet with every parent, too. If we don't have 100% participation, they encourage us to do home visits. Let me say, in 16 years I've never had to do a home visit and I hope I never have to. I just sometimes feel silly at the second conference with those parents whose kids are doing just fine. They know their kids are fine, I know their kids are fine. And we sit and gush about how well the child is doing. I don't know...

For Valentine's Day, we did some conversation heart sorting thanks to Kristin A Teeny Tiny Teacher. I loved that they not only sorted the hearts but then they added them together. Great stuff! Go grab it for next year!!!

Next week we're starting our "American Contributions" unit. The first week we study George Washington, the next Abraham Lincoln and then Benjamin Franklin. I'll try and be more diligent and do some more posting to let you know how things are going. Thanks for staying with me although I have not done very well at keeping up with my blog. Life just seems to get in the way. :)

Thanks for reading!!!

Outbreak and Berlioz Freebie

Hi there! How are you? Are you staying away from that nasty flu?!?!?! Unfortunately it has struck our house and it has actually caused the pneumonia I had in December to flare up again. Yuck! I think it's a rather mild case, but it just doesn't want to go away!!! I wish you all good health and nice weather so we can all get outside and away from each others germs!

So I wrote a week or so ago claiming I'd have a freebie for ya and it's taken me awhile but I finally got it posted to TPT! It's not much, but eventually I hope to get a bigger pack together. This was just something I whipped up really quick!

We are focusing on Common Core Standard RL1.4 Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses. So I'm incorporating this into my week of  Jan Brett read alouds. We're starting the week with Berlioz the Bear and before I read the story we will talk about music and how it makes us feel. To access prior knowledge (apk as we affectionately refer to it) I'll show a picture of an ipod and discuss what it is, what they're for, who has one, who'd like one, etc. We are not affluent by any means at my school, but it's amazing what these kids already know about whether they can afford one or not.

I've included the pic of the ipods in my freebie, but you could always just google the image and show it.

Then, I'll read Berlioz aloud, pointing out any of the words that generate any feelings that I have as we read the story. After the story we'll discuss the feeling words and jot them on a chart.

Finally, the students will listen to "Flight of the Bumblebee" and the students will draw how the music makes them feel as they listen.

You can head on over to TPT and download the freebie here. It's generic, but I hope it helps you out. Leave me a comment if you download it and any suggestions you might have. I'm still learning my new Mac, but I've discovered Pages and I think it might be the program I've been looking for!!!!

Stay well!!!!

Happy New Year almost!!!

Happy New Year!!! Thanks for sticking with me even though I've been away for a long time! I have a goal to come back and hopefully with me new MacBook Air, I will be up and running! I know!!!! Thanks so much to my mom and my hubby who went in together to buy me this computer I've been dreaming of! I am so eager to learn. I've been a Windows girl most of my life, so this will be all new, but I'm hoping my ipad will help my learning curve.

If any of you all have converted to a Mac, I'd love to hear your advice. I'm not sure what sort of word processing program I'm going to use, so that advice would be especially helpful.

 I've had a week off from school so far and it's really been a lot of fun. This next week will be more of a challenge because we won't have the holidays to keep us busy. But I'm thinking of a little midweek trip to grandma's, so that will break up the week. Not only did we have Christmas to celebrate last week, but also, my children got baptized!! It was wonderful and we did it two days before Christmas in hopes of keeping our family remembering the true meaning of Christmas. My sons are 6 and 2, so I don't know that that message broke through, but we will keep trying!!!

 I'm thinking of going up to school sometime this week although I already feel pretty good about the week we go back. My lesson plans are done, I just need to clean up some and get things organized for our next semester. The first week back we will be doing an author study unit on Jan Brett, but we are not going the read The Hat or The Mitten since my students have already studied those two in the library this year. So we'll be reading some other great stories like Berlioz the Bear and Hedgie's Surprise. Also Armadillo Rodeo which is one of my favorites.

If I can get myself together, I will try and get some things up to go with each of these books. Stay tuned and I hope you have a great New Year's Eve!!! If you're like me, you'll be at home in bed like every other night, but I'll be celebrating in my sleep!

Silence