Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Our school district has rolled out iPads to all students in grades 3-5 (and Dell Venue 11 Tablets with detachable keyboards to students in grades 6-12). This has kept us (all the tech coaches) BUSY this year!  One thing I am trying to do is incorporate the use of iPads with the notebooks. One web tool I use a lot is bingobaker.com  . It is free bingo game card generator that you can either print out or play using your tablet.  For students I created a QR code (using QRstuff.com ) and put it at the bottom of their science vocabulary sheet that goes in their notebook (see second picture). When we are ready to play students take out their iPad, scan the code and it goes straight to a randomized bingo board (no two bingo boards are the same). Students touch the screen to make the square light up and touch it again to make it go back if they made a mistake. Once a winner has been declared students touch the "refresh" circle and they get a new randomized board. 

This is one of my favorite videos/songs sung by 14 year old Rachel Crow. Since October is Anti-Bullying Month I thought I would share how you can use it in your classroom (as an excuse to show it :). You can have students write down what they think, "I'm just gonna comb you out of my curls" means. Explain how figurative language can be used to paint a picture (have them draw a picture of someone combing mean girls or mean words out of their hair - post in the hall). Teach students what pronouns are and then have them count the number of pronouns in the lyrics version of the song . (Lesson idea came this website ).

This poster was up in the hallway of one of the schools I go to. I thought it was pretty cool. Student's get to sign their name in one of the numbers once they have mastered that specific fact. The banner is in the younger hallways as well with 1-10. The poster was made using one of the school's colored poster maker (Staples might be able to make it as well if you don't have a poster maker).  Here is the link to the adobe files of the numbers (1-12 and 1-10).