Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

This past summer I worked a reading program and I put together a week of creative bookmarks crafts for participants to complete. My favorite were these very easy Star Wars themed ones. I ran across them randomly from a library blog (which I am sad I did not bookmark to give credit 😢). The library site directed me to the YouTube Video  for instructions and the templates. The instructional video for these bookmarks is in Portuguese but since we were following what the child was doing versus what he was saying it was fine.  I downloaded the templates to my Google Drive so I could keep them even if the video or related site went down. Here are the links to each: Kylo Ren Chewbacca Yoda Princess Leia The were a lot of fun to put together. I thought they would make a good back-to-school activity, or project for a Star Wars themed school night, or to complete the week of May the 4th (as in May the 4th be with you...#scifinerd 🤣).  I wi...

I have done a series of training's on how to utilize ReadWorks Article-A-Day and Book of Knowledge in the classroom. I love this resource. In fact I love everything about ReadWorks! (huge FAN here) The general gist of an Article-A-Day is that it is a short 10-12 minute routine you do in the classroom during a transition time (not as part of your ELA block) that exposes students to more ideas, vocabulary, and reading. I work with 15 Title 1 schools and I know how important it is to expose students to more of everything...we just simply don't have enough time and the Article-A-Day idea is a brilliant way to sneak in more literacy (thus more ideas). As a teacher you would pick your dedicated classroom time for the routine. My recommendation is to be religious about it. If you don't take it seriously neither will your students. FYI - I feel the same way about notebooking in the classroom as well. For K-2 students you pick your grade and topic and simply pull up the ...

I just discovered that ReadWorks has a highlighting and annotating feature. Game. Changer! I have always loved ReadWorks and this was the one thing I really felt it was missing. ReadWorks, a free literacy resource for teachers and students, has REALLY stepped up its game. A third grade teacher asked me to introduce it to her students, which is how I stumbled across it. There are four highlighting colors and an annotating feature. To keep students organized with the colors I used the first letter of each color to come up with a guide/anchor chart for students. Since they are new to annotating text I thought having them pick two of the four colors was an easy way to start them learning how to annotate. They can do more for extra credit. I put together a sample of what you might see when students are finished (there is a blue annotation but I couldn't fit it on the screen). If you have different ideas that might work for the colors let me know!

This summer I learned that Amazon sells these awesome scratch off stickers . I posted it in our district's EdTech Group and a teacher showed me how she is planning to use them at the beginning of the year to sort students into houses (see last picture).   With back-to-school mandatory technology training happening next week I thought I would try it out with some some random "give-a-ways" to keep participants engaged. I kept it simple and had three things listed - candy, prize bag (dollar store items), and a hug (that was more for my amusement and to add an element of danger..think of it as scratch off Russian Roulette...I am allowing a fist bump substitute for my non-hugging teachers)  I made the cards in Publisher using a business card template that I modified. I liked the template because it had guide lines for cutting. You could use any program to make them though. I printed them on card stock and used my paper trimmer to cut them down. ...

Yesterday I wrote about using Book Snaps to have students engage with text in a creative and engaging way. Today I made a 2.5 minute video on how to create the "Snap Chat" like effect using Google Drawings as part of the Classy Videos course I am taking with Tony Vincent (the assignment was to create a narrated video and I chose Snaps as my topic).  Beaufort County (SC) is a GAFE district so we predominately use Google for everything. It makes sense that any teacher in our district wanting to try out Book Snaps would use a Google application  for it, hence the video.  Google Drawings is not available as an app for the iPad but there are plenty of apps that can be used to make a Snap for those in primarily iOS districts. My two favorites for students would be PicCollage and SeeSaw (both are free apps).  I am excited about introducing Books Snaps to our district and I am hoping to see some fun Snaps come out of our classrooms this year!

T rending in ELA are 'Book Snaps'. It is play on Snap Chat filters where you use a book page with text, clip art, emojis, and Bitmojis to convey something about the book.  If you look up ‘student book snaps’ on Google images you will get a better idea. I posted two above I made using Pic Collage on my iPad but I could have made these using PowerPoint, Publisher, or Google Drawings. I’ve seen examples of younger students making these with the SeeSaw app as well.  Here is a good overview article if anyone is interested -  https://bookcreator.com/2017/09/booksnaps-and-book-creator/ .  I like the creative element to them. I've seen a lot of teachers on Twitter (search #booksnaps) use them for book studies they are in but I really feel they have a lot of potential on the student side. If you have used them with students please feel free to post in the comments. I would love to hear how it went!

https://twitter.com/EpicKidsBooks/status/1002636637191327744 As a parent you can subscribe to Epic (an online digital library for children ages 12 and under) for three months for $3 total...that is an insanely great price for access to a ton of digital books for children over the summer.  There are a lot of great resources within Epic from ebooks, audiobooks, videos, and read-to-me stories. You can cancel after the three months (but don't forget to do that or you will be charged the normal monthly fee - $8 I believe). Classroom teachers can sign up for a free account but that is limited to use in the classroom only (not at home). If you are interested you have to sign up by June 12th to get the deal.