Techno Thursday!

Greetings! I've been using my iPad more and more every day in my classroom! I wanted to share a few new fun (and some free!) things we've been enjoying in first grade! Before I start mentioning apps, I must also tell you about THE most amazing thing I've heard of in quite some time. If you already knew this was possible, please ignore my enthusiasm. If you have a digital projector in your room, you can hook an Apple TV into the back to wirelessly stream WHATEVER is on your iPad directly through your projector. Our amazing PTO purchased one for me, and it's been a lifesaver. It's great for introducing new apps, projecting student work, the possibilities are endless... Look into it!

Our MOST favorite app is currently Don't Let the Pigeon Run This App! by Mo Willems... If your students are as obsessed with Mo Willems as mine our... Well, let's face it, I'm obsessed, too... They'll LOVE this app! It allows you to create your own Pigeon stories with endless possibilities, and even lets you record YOUR voice to be read within the story... Has provided endless entertainment during inside recess with all this rain! Highly recommend. There's even a Pigeon drawing tutorial. PLUS, the whole thing is narrated by Mo Willems. My kids were over the moon.

*Click to view in the app store*

*Click to view in the app store*

We just started our fractions unit, and I found this SUPER simple and *FREE* pizza fractions app. My kids love it. 

 *Click to view in the app store*

*Click to view in the app store*

Another math favorite is SLIDE! There are multiple versions of this game... some free, some paid, but all the same general concept. It's designed for 1-4 players, and students simply "slide" the right answer to the center. I love how one student sits on each side of the iPad. They rock at sharing this game.

*Click to view in the app store*

Any favorite apps that keep your kids busy and engaged?

Do You Dojo?

Last week I discovered an awesome resource... Class Dojo!

Class Dojo is a resource that you can use to track your students' behaviors in real time. You have the ability to input your entire class (and multiple classes if you have the need.) It can be accessed online, and on your smart phone. I downloaded the app to my iPhone, and take it with me throughout the building. LOVE that I'm able to give my kids immediate feedback, even on the go!

You have the ability to customize the behaviors that you'll be tracking. I let my class help me determine what positive behaviors they should get points for, and what negative behaviors should cause them to lose points. Here's what they came up with, and I think they're pretty good!

One of MY favorite features of Dojo is the report. You can open up individual and whole class reports. It's broken down into how positive their feedback was, AND the percentage of each individual behavior. I think that's pretty incredible, especially for a FREE resource! You can even give parents login information, and they can choose to have reports automatically sent to them every Friday. Pretty awesome.

So... Do you Dojo?! If you use it, please share! I haven't opened it up to parents yet, but I'm hoping to soon!

I just started working on a new TpT product... I'm making a series of math morning work, starting with April. I'm lining it up to the first grade common core standards. Is there something that your firsts struggle with that you'd like them to have a little more practice with?

Techy Tuesday

Happy Tuesday, friends! I don't know about you, but coming back on a dreary Monday after daylight savings was rough. Add a rainy Tuesday, and my kids were struggling. We plowed through it, and I'm crossing my fingers for a little sunshine tomorrow!

Anywho, I've got a few fun things to share... We love love LOVE our iPad Minis from Donors Choose. Here's 2 apps that we're hooked on. First off, I'm loving the Dr. Seuss digital bookshelf. It's free, and it's basically an easy way to organize your Dr. Seuss e-books. If you haven't played around with the Seuss books for iPad, you're missing out! They are absolutely incredible. There's 3 options for each book. Read To Me, Read It Myself & Auto Play. Right now my kiddos are listening to Cat in the Hat as their listening center, and it's pretty cool! The bookshelf also allows you to lock the app, preventing students from purchasing more books, which is super helpful! 

Also hooked on the Magnetic Alphabet app. It sounds silly, but we use it literally all the time. Mostly, I use it to introduce new phonics skills, rather than using those letter tiles that I hate sorting and putting away. It allows the students to drag letters and plop them on the board, then they can drag them back or erase the whole thing. The free version gives you one background and limited magnets. Love it.

Hope you can use these in your room!

Techy Tuesday - Valentine Version!

Happy Tuesday, ya'll! I found it VERY hard to get out of bed this morning. I had my alarm set for 6:00, hit snooze until 6:30, then my wife finally came in to ask me if I was getting up for school around 6:45. OOPS! I have a theory. Yesterday was the ugliest rainy day ever. Rainy Mondays are the worst. I feel like I never recover the whole rest of the week. Upside? No school on Friday! Anywho, on to the post...

Linking up with Katie King from Queen of the First Grade Jungle to share some things I found for my kids to work on! I wrote a project on Donors Choose for 2 iPad Minis that was funded and they arrived in our classroom on Friday! It was like Christmas. Right now, I've got them out as a center while I figure out other ways to use them. I went searching for Valentine's Apps to go with my Valentine centers unit, and here's 2 that we're loving right now...

First up, First Words Valentine, which is FREE lets students spell a variety of Valentine words. What I like about this app - it allows you to change tons of settings. You can allow students to spell in any order, or from left to right. You can decide whether or not you want them to see how the word is actually spelled, or if you want the slots to be blank. Not a huge list of words, but my students have been enjoying it nonetheless!

Another one we're loving right now, less of an educational value though, is The Memory Game Valentine's Day Edition.  Just a simple memory game, but you can choose how many cards you'd like (12, 24 or 48) as well as how many are needed for a match (2 or 3). The game also allows 1, 2, 3 or 4 players. This was a hit during indoor recess!

Off to grade some math tests... Hooray! Have a good night...

Techy Teacher Tuesday

Greetings, all!  I was browsing one of my favorite teacher blogs, Queen of the First Grade Jungle, and she's hosting a Techy Tuesday link-up.  I immediately thought of something that my students are OBSESSED with right now.  Our school has a subscription to Reading A-Z, which I love, because it has an endless amount of leveled texts.  Our reading specialist (who's a long-term sub and is leaving next week and I'm super bummed because our kids LOVE her and she's doing amazing things for them) introduced us to Raz-Kids...

Oh my gosh.  It's amazing.

Raz-Kids allows you to input your entire class, along with their individual reading levels.  When your students log on to the site, they are given a wide variety of texts to choose from, ALL ON THEIR LEVEL.

Each book gives them the option to read the book, listen to the book & take a quiz.  When they finish each of these things, they earn "stars" that can be used to "purchase" pointless super awesome prizes!  It lets them buy aliens and planets and lots of other stupid fun things!

Making this product even COOLER, you can download a FREE iPad app if you have an account set up.  With the marking period rolling to an end, I've been listening to sight words and DIBELS and other fun things.  I checked out enough iPads at school for a whole reading group, and it kept those little cherubs as happy as clams while I pulled them to read for me.

Hope you're able to use this in your classroom!