Five for Friday: June 17

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

Beach days, shopping, tutoring, and more! This has been a really great week to really start summer vacation.

This is my first full week of summer vacation! YAY!

I spent some quality reading time at the beach this week. I am not usually a beach person; I really dislike the feeling of sand and I am not a huge fan of being out in the sun, but I am trying to get out a bit more.

It turned out to be a good beach day (for me), as it wasn't too sunny. I was able to get through the first few chapters of the Morning Meeting Book. Our school is moving towards a responsive classroom system for next year, so I figured I would get a head start on the reading this summer. Still not too sure how I feel about getting rid of my color chart for behavior management, but I guess we'll see how it goes...

I love going to Michael's. I love seeing all of the new stuff and getting inspired by all of the awesome crafting supplies. I worked there for 10 years, so I love going in to see the people who still work there that I have known since high school and college.

This week, I came across this:

If you are on Instagram, you have probably seen these Heidi Swapp lightboxes all over the place. They seem to be the big teacher trend this summer! I tried to resist, but at 40% off with an extra 15% off for the teacher discount... I gave in!

I am so excited about this purchase! I even talked my pod-mate into getting one! She came up with the brilliant idea of having Dot (our classroom elf) use it when she comes to visit us in December. I can see Dot having a lot of fun with it. :)

This purchase actually inspired me to work on an unplanned Monday Made it for next week. Stay tuned to see how I organize the lightbox inserts!

This is the first summer that I have offered tutoring services. I just started with a child who will be going into first grade next year. She knows all of her letters and sounds, but is having a hard time with blending.

(I wasn't going to spend our time taking pictures, so you will need to pretend that they are at a picnic table by the pool and not from my classroom.) :)

After assessing her strengths and areas where she needs extra help, we started with some word-building activities.

I had her pick a puzzle that she wanted to build, then we said the letter sounds as we added the letters, and blended the word when we finished.

She needed a lot of short activities to help keep her focused, so we also tried blending with these linking cards.

I am working on getting some new activities ready for when we work together again next week. I am thinking we are going to add some sight word practice in as well.

I am really pleased with what I have accomplished since school let out last week. A few months ago, I started writing differentiated nonfiction units about animals to use with my kiddos who needed enrichment in reading.

(naturally I had to start with flamingos!)

They had a lot of fun this year picking the animals they wanted to learn about.

Then I was thinking that I want them to have the opportunity to work on topics other than animals, so I started to write some units about seasonal topics.

I was able to finish the fall bundle this week. It includes the topics: apples, pumpkins, corn, sunflowers, and bats.

Now that I finished the fall bundle, I am ready to jump into winter! :)

This has been a very busy week for Maggie too!

One of the perks of being a teacher's cat is an unlimited supply of laminating scraps! This silly cat LOVES to play with laminating scraps while I am cutting things out.

Unfortunately for me, that was not the end of Maggie's adventures. I may sound like a proud kitty mama here, but my Maggie is very clever! Normally, this is not a problem. However, this week she really upped her game.

She has always been able to get into the bathroom and kitchen cupboards. If I can't find her under the covers on the bed, in her house, or on the sofa, I know that she is in a cupboard. The one cupboard that was always safe was the one in my dresser where I keep my sweaters. I can't say that anymore!

Maggie now knows how to open the sweater cupboard! It's official: nowhere in my apartment is safe from the beast!

Well, that's it for this Five for Friday. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday Made it- Classroom Store Part 1

Today is the first Monday of summer vacation and I am so thrilled to be linking up with 4th grade frolics for my first Monday made it of the summer!

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen me post about flamingo bucks. My pod-mate and I are both going to be starting to use a classroom money system next year.

We are going to be switching classes for social studies and science. I will be teaching the social studies for both classes and she will be teaching the science. We wanted something that we could both use that would be consistent between both classrooms, so we will be using beach/flamingo bucks!

If there is one thing I love, it is a good theme, so... I am creating a storefront for the Flamingo Bucks Boutique (how cute is that name?!). The storefront itself will be a made-it for later this summer, I just need to work myself up to the effort I know will be needed for the construction...

In the meantime, I have started working on some of the accessories for the shop.

First up, the wallets! I used colored cardstock with some labels I made on the computer.

Once they were laminated, I folded them in half, stapled, and taped down the sides.

Then, I added two Velcro dots on the inside to keep the flamingo bucks from falling out.

I made them in a variety of colors so the kiddos can pick which one they want.

Next, the store signage. I made this two sided open/closed sign that will be hung on the front of the store.

The student who is the cashier for the week will flip the sign when they are ready for people to shop.

A few years ago, I had a warm fuzzy store in my classroom and one of the things that I found really helped with the management was a shopping schedule. I have the students shop as soon as they are unpacked in the morning, but I don't want everyone shopping at once.

With this schedule, the kids know which day their table will be shopping.

I used Velcro dots so I can change the order each week.

On to the shopping baskets! I am especially in love with these.

I used the mini plastic tubs from the Dollar Tree, added some ribbon for handles (also from the Dollar tree), and stuck some labels on the front (gotta have that branding!).

(even Maggie approves) :)

Total project cost: $3.00!

I made sure to print enough labels to have a couple to add to the cash register that I will be getting later this summer. :)

Last up, my new geoblock center. I made this a couple of weeks ago, but am super excited about it, so I just had to share it now! My kiddos are always really excited when we first start out unit on 3D shapes at the end of the year. Excitement tends to turn to boredom when they realize that it is all about describing shapes and matching footprints. So, to up the engagement level, I made these geoblock structure cards.

The kids seemed really excited to try them, so I left them out at the center let them go for it. They ended up having so much fun! Some of them chose to work on a card together, others preferred to work alone. If they didn't have the same block as the picture, they tried different blocks until they made the same shape. A few kiddos even decided to add on to the structures to make them bigger or taller.

Definitely going to be bringing these out again next year!

Well, that's it for my made-its this week. I'm off to a couple training/work days of writing gifted extensions for the district.

Thanks for stopping by!

Creating QR Codes for the Classroom

Today I am going to be writing about one of my favorite ways to use technology in the classroom- QR codes!

There are tons of websites you can use to create QR codes, but I am going to be talking about the site that I always use- qrstuff.com

Something else you will need is a QR Reader for the devices that your students will be using. QR codes can only be used by devices that have a camera and an app to read the codes. There are tons of free ones in the app store, just search for QR code reader and a long list will show up.

The first kind of QR code I am going to talk about is linking to a website.

One of the units we always do in first grade is research writing. Let's say that I want my students to be able to research their animals on the tablets. But for safety reasons, I don't want to give them free reign to just google search. I can open the website I would like them to use on my computer, in this case, World Book Kids.

Once I have the website open, I click in the address bar so that the link is highlighted, then copy it. I go to qrstuff.com and make sure that "Website URL" (the first option under "data type") is selected. Then I will paste my copied link into the box. After the QR code image refreshes to the correct image (it may take a moment, you will see it change), I can download my QR code to my computer.

Now I need to have a way for students to access the QR code. I like to make things a bit fancy, so I put together a card that I can laminate and put out for the kids to scan, but if you aren't worried about making things look cute (or if you are scrambling to put this together! It happens!), you can just put the codes in Microsoft Word and print.

Since World Book is a subscription site, I would also need to have the login information available for students.

The next kind of QR code that I often use is a link to a YouTube video.

Earth day is coming up, so I may want to include some content about recycling in my literacy centers. I found a short Reading Rainbow video about recycling on YouTube and want the kids to watch it, then respond to a comprehension question about the video.

As you can see, ads have popped up around and on the video. I really don't want my students to see any ads while they are watching the video (who knows what may pop up!), so there is an additional step I will need to take.

I start the same way as I did with World Book. I will go to the address bar, select the link, and copy it. Here is where the big difference comes in. Instead of pasting the YouTube link directly into QRStuff, I am first going to filter the video through a site called safeshare.tv to remove the ads and links to other videos.

Once I have pasted my YouTube link into the box and clicked "Generate Safe Link," the following screen will come up:

On this screen, you can decide if you want to keep your video private and alter the title/description. One thing I would recommend is checking the box to hide the buttons below the video player. If you don't, there will be buttons linking to Facebook, Twitter, etc. under the video. Once you submit, you will be ready to make your QR code!

The process here is the same as it was for generating a website link. Although QRStuff has an option for YouTube video links, if you filtered the video through safeshare, you will want to use the regular Website URL option.

Again, you will need to have a way for students to access the code (and questions if you are using them).

Print the above picture for a quick and easy center!

Last, we have plain text QR codes. I use these as a way for students to self-check answers or to give students additional directions or questions to answer.

The first thing you want to do is make sure that the Plain Text option is selected under data type.

Now you are ready to enter your text!

I try to keep it relatively short. You will notice that the QR code will get complicated very quickly as you add more text, so I try to keep it two sentences or fewer. Sometimes QR readers can have trouble reading the codes if they have too much information included.

Once the code has refreshed, you will be ready to download your code and add it to whichever activity you are creating.

I use this kind of QR code the most as a way for students to check their answers. Here is an example of a plain text QR code:

In this case, the QR code only includes a yes or no answer.

I usually have students work on the cards individually, then work with a partner/small group theck their answers when they are done.

You can find more QR code task cards here.

That's it for my QR code tutorial! I hope you found the information useful and that you feel ready to try making some codes for your own classroom!