Friday, November 28, 2014

We are Thankful for Special Ed Teachers! and a Giveaway



As a thank you to all of the teachers, some friends and I have gotten together to offer you some amazing freebies.  This blog hop is geared for our special ed friends, but ALL teachers have those special kids in class that may benefit from some of these amazing freebies.  Many of the freebies can be used in any class.  I created this flip book and anchor chart set to be used with your sentence types unit.  The flip book comes in both color and black and white for easy printing.  (Click on the images to grab the freebie.)






In addition to the freebies, I am having 2 sales.  Make sure you fill up your cart now, so you'll be ready when the sales start!



GIVEAWAY ALERT!!

And now for the giveaway!  MobyMax contacted me and asked if I wanted to try MobyMax in my classroom, so of course I said yes.  I was so excited to try it.  It is a web based program that can be used on a regular computer or an iPad.  Since I teach in a tech 1:1 school with iPads, I was especially thrilled.  MobyMax has a complete k-8 curriculum in ELA and math.  


My favorite part of MobyMax is there is a section you can assign particular standards to each student that reflect their IEP goals/objectives.  This program will take the data for you for your goals/objectives!!  If you're like me, taking official data is the most burdensome part of the job.  Don't get me wrong, I take data all day long.  I can tell you where each of my students are working, but I hate the official data collection.  Anyway, this program will do it for you!  Also, the program is super fun so the kids LOVE using the program.  Each subject begins with a placement test and automatically assigns lessons to the kids based on their placement test.  EVERYTHING can be read aloud to your kiddos!  EVERYTHING!!  That thrills me.  This program is very easy for our special friends to use and they learn from it.  Also, when the kids are working and on task, they are earning time to play in the game room.  They earn 1 minute of play time for every 5 minutes they are on task.  If the students are "on task" and clicking lots of buttons (wrong answers) they do not earn game time for that.  When my students realized that, I had several mad kiddos.  I explained to them, they had to have at least 80% correct to earn game time and then I showed them the percentage they were at and they understood that hard work = game time.  That put a stop to random clicking right away.  Here's the exciting part, MobyMax is offering a 1 year subscription to another teacher for FREE!  Use the Rafflecopter to sign up for a chance to win. You will not be disappointed!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Make sure you check each blog for more freebies!

Thanks for checking in.  For more freebies and tips, continue the trip through the blog hop by checking out Learning Ahoy...just click the button below.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

My Favorite Apps: Handouts


Have you heard of Handouts?  I love Handouts, because my kids love Handouts.  Handouts is an extremely easy app to use.  You can set up as many classes as you wish and add in your students.  Then you can push out worksheets/assignments to your students.  You can take a picture of the assignment, download a pdf, or use a file in your Dropbox folder.  Students complete the assignment by typing or handwriting their answers.  Once completed, students submit the assignment for you to grade electronically.  Then, you can send the assignment back to your students.  You can also add notes for the student about the assignment.  Students like it because it's easy to use and it's so much more fun to do your work on the iPad than with paper and pencil.  You can find out more info about Handouts {HERE}

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Thursday, November 20, 2014

Favorite Apps: Plickers

So, you don't have a class set of iPads.  Not even 1?  What about an iPhone?  If you have at least 1 device/iPhone, this is the app for you.


This app only needs to be on the teacher's device.  This app allows you to take data on your students responses to multiple choice or true/false questions.  All you have to do is set up an account, which is free.  Then you add all of your students.  Each student is assigned a number.  Print out the black and white cards.  Each card is different and has a random shape.  This makes it impossible for students to copy answers or know what anyone else answers.  Make sure each student gets the correct number.

Now you are ready to use.  This app is perfect for formative assessment.  You can see which kids are ready to move on and who still needs additional practice.  Login to plickers.com  Pull up the question set that you want to use.  Project the first question on the board.  Login to the app on your iPhone.  Read the question on the board and have students to hold up their card to she their response.  Use your iPone to scan around your room.  You will see each student's name and answer choice pop up on your phone as it registers their answer.  It will tell you who has/has not answered the question and the percentage of students who got the correct answer.  You can find out more about this app {HERE}

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Sunday, November 16, 2014

My Favorite Apps: 10 Junior


Do you spend FOREVER teaching kids all of the different ways to make 10?  I know you do and there are several kids who never really seem to get it.  Well, this is the app for you!  The entire app is about how to make 10!  


It starts out very simple.  It guides kids to match 1 and 9 to make 10.

The next few levels only have 2 numbers.  In this level, kids are matching 4 and 6 to make 10.


 Students are still only working with 2 numbers.


 After a few more levels, students begin working with more numbers, but it's still pretty basic.


Now, it's beginning to get a little challenging because students have to be careful not to block numbers into a corner.  Once students combine numbers to get to 10, it turns into a block and will not move.  Students have to work around the 10 blocks to continue combining numbers to get to 10.


Here's what it looks like when students have made some combinations of 10.




The best part, this app is FREE!  You can find more info {HERE}



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Thursday, November 13, 2014

My Favorite Apps: Where's My Water?

I know what you're thinking.  "Is she serious? This is a game."  Well, yes and no.  It is a game, but it requires kids to plan ahead, solve problems, and use critical thinking.  While this app does make kids think, I really use this as a "reward app."  I only have this app on my iPad.  When students have worked really hard towards a specific goal, they get to "play" on the iPad.  While they think they are playing, they are still working and learning.  Anytime I can get my kids to think and try to solve problems that are beyond their current level, I am thrilled.  Since this is a game, they are much more willing to try.  They don't even mind trying the same problem multiple times until they succeed.



 This app begins simple.  The object is to get enough water to the drain so the dragon, Swampy, can take a bath. You also need to fill up each duck with water.  Water flows down and uses the basic principals of physics.  If you create a curve, you can shoot the water in that direction.

This is the first level of the game.  As you can see, students would take their finger and "dig" a hole to allow the water to go down.  As students trace the path, the water begins to flow.


This is a much more advanced level.  Now we have purple goo.  (I have no idea what it is really called.)  The purple goo is bad.  If one drop gets into the drain, Swampy gets mad. There are also additional challenges.  You have to get water to it the containers which act as a switch causing the bridges to move.  Once water hits the red container, the red bridge will swing over and over the purple goo.  If the goo fills up and hits the blue container, than the blue bridge will open and allow all of the goo out which will go into the drain. 

As you can see, that even though this is a game, it requires the students to think and solve many kinds of problems.  You can find more information about the app {HERE} 

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Sunday, November 9, 2014

Favorite Apps: ChatterPix Kids

ChatterPix Kids is so much fun!  My kids beg to use ChatterPix Kids for everything.  I love using ChatterPix Kids for summarizing, retelling, and point of view.  At this time, this is a FREE app.



To begin, students decide if they are going to take a picture with the camera or select a photo from the library. 



My students took a picture of the polar bear they drew.  (We did a step, by step drawing using chalk.  This student is a perfectionist when it comes to his art.)  After students take the picture, they take their finger and draw a line across the mouth (or wherever they want the mouth to be.)  If you look closely, you can see a dotted line across the polar bear's mouth.  

The next step allows students to record their message.  They have 30 seconds and can record as many times as they want until they are happy with their recording.  For this lesson, my students had written a nonfiction article (paragraph) about polar bears.  They recorded themselves reading their paragraph.  When they were finished, the polar bear spoke the information.  When we had Open House, parents went around the room and could listen to all of the different polar bears sharing information.


You can find more info about this FREE app {HERE}
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Thursday, November 6, 2014

Favorite Apps: Zircuits

This is one of my favorite math apps because the kids think they are playing.  They have no idea that they are learning and working on their critical thinking skills.  I also like that when my kids get stuck on a puzzle, they will work with a partner to try to solve it.  This means they have to use their oral language skills to express themselves and their social skills.

This is the opening screen.  Students press the play button to get started.

Students are then take to this screen.  Students can see which levels they have completed so they can pick up where they left off.  This student has completed all of the levels in this section.


Here is the very first level.  The first few levels of the game walks you through the steps to teach you how to play. Students simply touch the 1 and then the 2 and the two numbers will switch places.



Here is the last level of the first section. As you can see, all of the symbols are red except for 1.  The > between the 2 and 0 is green because that sequence is correct.  As students switch the numbers while solving, the symbols will turn green as they are correct and red if they are incorrect.

 As you can see, this game requires the students to think and plan ahead.  The kids LOVE this app and call it a game.  I love it because it pushes my kids to think critically and solve problems.  If you want more info about this app, you can click {HERE}


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Sunday, November 2, 2014

Favorite Apps: Book Creator

Do you have iPads in the classroom?  Even if you only have 1, it can become the greatest educational tool you have.  Over the next few weeks, I am going to share some of my favorite apps with you.

I love Book Creator because it is so versatile.  All of my kids can use it and I can easily differentiate the assignment so that everyone can participate on their instructional level.

When you open Book Creator, you have 3 icons on the top left.  The "I" allows you to select the color of the page. 

You can change the size and style of the text.

You can delete a picture that you added.

You can export your student's work into iBooks.


Under the "+", you can add photos from your library, take a picture with the camera, write or type text, and record your voice.  This feature is what allows all of my students to participate in the same assignment.  For my higher kids, they can type their sentences and record themselves reading their stories.  My middle kids, they can type or write their sentences. My lower group of kids can orally tell their stories since they are unable to spell most words.

 Here is an example of a page that one of my students wrote.  They typed in the text and added a picture of a scene they created in Felt Board.  (I will share more about Felt Board later on.)


This app is super easy to use and allows all of my students to participate on the same assignment.  It allows my kids to show their knowledge in manner that they can be really proud of.  If you want to find out more about this app, you can click {HERE}





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