It's the 100th Day, the Techie Way!!

So the 100th day has come and gone, but not without a lot of learning and fun with a tech twist of course. 

This year, we worked to read 100 sight words. Knowing this day can be a lot of fun but a bit chaotic, I wanted to find a way to get the kids up and moving a bit so I used the QR code making website, Kaywa to create a QR code for each of our first grade and kindergarten sight words.  I then taped 100 QR codes around our 1st grade hallway. Students worked in pairs to scan the QR code, read the sight word and then they wrote it on their clipboards. Scanning is totally simple. If you've never done it before, you'll need a QR scanning app. There are lots but I use I-nigma.  I've used others but for various reasons this is my favorite at this point. After opening the app, student simply point the iPad camera at the QR code and the embedded text automatically shows up on the screen. To do the next word, students simply had to hit the back arrow. Easy-peasy!

To modify the activity for my visually impaired student we also attached the braille for each of the words (so cool for all students to experience!) His group worked a little bit differently in that one of the students scanned the word and as they wrote it, he read the braille he then told them what the word was and they double checked each other to be sure they were right. It was awesome to watch this group work together and to know that the learning was appropriate for each person in the group.

Students really enjoyed the activity and the buzz in the hall throughout the day was always full of excitement. After school, I even caught a group of four 4th grade girls going around and doing the activity as well! Never ceases to amaze me how QR codes and bring the engagement level from a 6 to 10.

Creating the QR codes is truly very simple using this website. It maybe took me an hour at the most to create all 100. It is simply a matter of entering the work, hitting generate, copying and pasting the QR code into a word document and then printing and cutting them out. Simple!

I plan to share this project with everyone for next year but need to make a few tweaks before I post it. Once it's posted, I'll add a link here to my TPT store if you'd like to try it for yourself next year and don't want to create the QR codes yourself.