Back on Line...Finally & IPads

So I took what I thought would be just a little time off from blogging in December to spend time with Family and here it is almost the end of January and I am just getting back to my blog. It has been such a crazy month. The first full week back to school we were out 1 day because it was cold (It was in the teens. ???) and my husband had a death in his family so I was out 3 more days traveling for the funeral. The next week we had a teacher workday and a grade level planning day so I didn't teach for 2 days. This week we were out for MLK day, we will go skating tomorrow (fundraiser) for the first 2 hours, and Friday I will be visiting another school in the county as part of our Digital Renaissance team.
We will be implementing IPads into our K-2 classrooms this spring. 1st and 2nd will be 1 to 1. K will be hopefully by the fall but for now we will be 1 to 2. I am really excited about having more IPads in my room. Right now I am working with 3 IPads to 20 kids so I hear a lot of "I haven't had a turn," and "When is it going to be my turn". Right now we are only using educational apps on the IPads but I really want to move to using them as a resource not just "games".  I promise I will share anything exciting I learn with you as we get further into our Digital Renaissance. For now, here are a list of apps that I love using with my kids:

Bob Books










ABC (Photo Touch)


iLearn with Boing











A Bee Sees















ABC Magic


All of these apps have free versions for you to try. You can then purchase more games in the apps.

 I would love to hear how you guys use IPads in your classroom. Do you have any great app suggestions? Have you done any great projects with your kids? How do you store/charge a class set of IPads? Please leave your comments below.

Five for Friday!

 Wooo Hooo! It is finally Friday! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 random things from my week!

 This week we began talking about Thanksgiving. To begin our unit we made a KWL chart.
I was surprised by what the kiddos did and did not know. I love to see how their minds work.

 Directed art alert!!! If you have read my previous posts, you probably have realized that I LOVE directed art. When planning this lesson on Native Americans I worried the kids would not be happy to be doing directed art again.  However, when I started the lesson Thursday, one of my kids said, "Oh wow! I love directed art. I wondered when we were going to do that again." The rest of my class seemed to concur which is good because there is still a lot more directed art in their future! We did two different activities. First Native Americans using our fingers.

Then we read the book 10 Fat Turkeys and learned how to draw a turkey using directed art. We then decomposed the number 10. We put some turkeys on the fence and some turkeys on the ground. This was a lot of fun and they did really well! You can pick up my writing template for free here!

 Mamma Mia Cook Off is tomorrow!!! A few of the team members and their spouses are coming to my house tonight to begin cooking our soup. We are going to cook some extra for our dinner to taste test and to take to share with the faculty on Monday. I am excited to have some grown up time with my teacher friends I never get to see!

 Because Mamma Mia is tomorrow, I made aprons and bandanas for a few of us. I have not sewn in a while, but I think they turned out cute. We are dressing as 18th century Italian farmers! I will have to add pictures after tomorrow night!

The Mr. and I have been trying to be a little healthier lately so I have been trying to cook dinner every night and have leftovers for lunches. I have been using Rachel Ray's cookbook, Just In Time. We have had some amazing dinners this week and I have not spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Our favorite was Hoppin' John Soup with rice!! We have had 3 meals from this book this week and they have been excellent! If you are looking for a good cookbook with fast easy dinners, check this out.

This has been a crazy busy week and tomorrow is going to be more of the same but I know it is going to be a lot of fun! What crazy fun things have you done this week? Link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching  or comment below and let us know!

Five For Friday!

Happy Friday! Being out a day this week has really thrown me off. I have been a day behind all week and my post this week proves it! I seem to have forgotten to take pictures of some of our projects this week but I promise to come back and add them ASAP! 

This week we have been doing a lot of great creepy, crawly, and spooky things the past two weeks and I have picked some of my favorites to share with you all this week. A lot of the ideas/lessons came from Pinterest. (See my Kindergarten Creepy & Spooky Board Here.)

Night Animals

To begin our creepy and spooky unit we began with some not so creepy or spooky night animals. I even learned something new - animals that are awake mostly during the day are called diurnal. We played a game (from A Place Called Kindergarten) using a double Venn Diagram to sort different animals. Then we took a deeper look at bats and owls. We read fiction and nonfiction books as well as watched the Reading Rainbow about Stellaluna, which had some fantastic bat facts.

 Bat Glyphs from the book Critical Thinking Glyphs (Teacher Created Resources) 

Torn Paper Ows (from here)

 Go Away Big Green Monster

I was actually out with the lovely stomach flu and my sub did this with me kids. They read the book and then did a directed art project to create their very own Big Green Monsters. I also found (from where I don't know) a Flipchart for my Promethean Board with this story. As the kiddos retold the story using the Promethean Board, they drew their version of the monster. I have since seen a few different versions of this activity that are really cute and have them create the monster as you read the book the first time and not showing the pictures. I have put that in my file to try next year!

 The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything

For this lesson we read the book and talk about all the sounds that the old lady heard. I teach them the word onomatopoeia and we make a list of the words from the story. My kids also thought of their own words so we added them to the list. If they had their way, the scarecrow would have been covered but it was time for lunch  so we had to stop! (I got the idea for the cute anchor chart from Welcome to Room 36.) I also have a Promethean Board  Flipchart called The Strange Visitor. It is very similar to this book so we make a Venn Diagram of the two.

 Inside a House That is Haunted

This is one of those times where I had a cute activity and needed a book to go with it. In this book, a kid dressed as Frankenstein scares all the residents in the haunted house. Since I found this very cute directed art idea from here I though, why not! I also found a video of the song Monster Mash on YouTube that shows the mad scientist bringing Frankenstein to life. The kids LOVED it!

I saved the very best for last! I have to brag on my wonderful school. This week is Red Ribbon Week. Each year the third grade students are able to apply to win the Red Ribbon Week Award by sending in proposals for a service project. The staff votes on the service projects submitted to choose a winner. This year our service project was "A March for Super E" to support a former student of ours that was diagnosed with cancer last year (& in remission now!!!) to help cove expenses. Students made donations to the Super E Fund in order to participate in the march. If they sent in $5 or more, they could bring and wear a cape as we marched. We had set a goal of $1500 but our FABULOUS students raised OVER $3000!!!!!! I am so proud of our students and their families for donating so much to such a great cause! 

Don't forget to check out the other Five for Friday posts at Doodle Bugs Teaching!

(I edited my photos on piZap.com)