iPad licenses and PicCollage

Well it's day 5 of the school year and we are digging further into iPad use than we ever have by this time of year. I truly think a big part of it is the amount of technology that kiddos have available to them at home as well as the digital native aspect of our young learners and their willingness to take risks.  

We are already well into taking pictures with our iPads and using the app PicCollage. We've also been working hard to earn our iPad licenses by knowing how to carry our iPad, how to adjust the volume, where to put them when they need charging, how to enter and exit apps, and more. Half of our class has earned their licenses and the privilege of creating on their iPads in some of the fun areas in our classroom such as the stools, crate chairs, etc. 

This week we discussed how to take pictures. We learned how to zoom in and out, how to change our vantage point by turning the iPad horizontal versus vertical and what makes a good picture. The kiddos did a fantastic job and it was neat to see the pictures they took as their eye for a great picture is often different than what we might expect. I made sure to go around and conference with each of the kiddos regarding their pictures to find out what they thought (were they blurry, too far away, or maybe didn't show what they wanted?) If they had some that didn't meet the criteria or their expectations, we discussed how to delete those pics and redo them.
After finishing our pictures of the items in our Me Bags, we learned how to import our pictures into the app, PicCollage. This is a free app that allows you to collage your pictures, add text and stickers, and change fonts and backgrounds. It's a powerful, but very easy app to use.  

Each of the kiddos then moved and re-sized their pictures to create their own unique version of their Me Bags. They also learned how to add text, change the font, color and background of the fonts!  We will be sharing these with parents as soon as we have our email accounts set up.

Pandora in the classroom

Just wanted to share a fantastic find for those of you the listen to Pandora in the classroom. I love listening to Pandora but have found that the ads are annoying to the point of not wanting to have it on if students are in the room for fear of what the ad content may be. Well, there is a fantastic, easy, awesome solution... and it's as easy as a quick click on a Google extension. It's called, Pandora Audio Ad Remover. After adding it to Google Chrome, you simply click on the icon in your extension list and Pandora will pop up in a separate window with no ads whatsoever!! It also removes the audio ads!! All the shows up is the album cover, the station name, and your thumbs up/down and play/pause.

I am absolutely loving this and have loved being able to have Pandora on now while we are writing. One of favorite stations to listen to is Lorie Line. I love instrumental stations when we are trying to work as kiddos are able to still focus on their work. 

I definitely recommend giving this a try for yourself. If you do, let me know what you think. Do you have a favorite station that you listen to with your class? Comment below and let us know!

PAWSitively germ free

OK,  PAWSitively germ free might be a bit of an overstatement but anything I can do to help prevent the spread of germs is a good thing, especially with 17 little munchkins bopping around the room.

I simply created these cute little labels to match my dog themed room and then printed them out and used packaging tape to adhere them to bottles of hand sanitizer. (You can get a set from my TPT store here.) When my kiddos ask to use the bathroom, they grab the correct bottle and leave it at their desk. When they return, they take a quick squirt (a great way to double protect in case any of my little sweethearts forget to wash their hands when they are in the bathroom). This has also been a great way to manage bathroom visits during Daily 5 time. I keep the bottles near my reading table and if kiddos need to use the bathroom they simply check to see if they pass they need is available and then leave it at their desk. This way I can see who is sneaking out of leaving the room and with a quick glance at the tables I can see who is still gone. 

I've been using this idea in my classroom for a couple of years now and love it!! 

Getting to Know your students

Are you ready for your new crew of students? 

The end of August is always such a crazy, busy time for teachers with the new school year just around the corner.  I'm sure all of you have been busy getting everything organized, printed, laminated just like I have. 

One of the things that I have done for many years is to send home a "Get to Know You" questionnaire to parents prior to the school year starting along with my welcome letter. I've found this to be such a great source of information for me. It has often times sparked conversations with parents that otherwise wouldn't have taken place or has given parents a place to share information such as a recent divorce that otherwise is difficult to bring up in person.
I've also had parents comment on how they appreciated receiving this prior to all of the beginning of the school paperwork which gave them more time to complete it.

Here's looking forward to a fantastic year of fun and learning with our students and their families! If you'd like to get a copy for yourself, you can find it here in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store or just click on either of the images.

Writer's Tea

Three of our 1st grade classrooms hosted our first ever Writer's Tea on Friday and I can tell you that it will definitely be an annual tradition for my classroom!!! 

We started by sending an invite home to parents about a month in advance and planned our celebration for the last hour of the day on a Friday in hopes that parents could make arrangements to get off of work or leave a little early. Grandparents were also invited as we wanted every student to have at least one person to come and celebrate with them. 
We served punch and cookies to make the event all the more special.

In the grand scheme of things, this was a relatively easy event to get ready for. I saved my kiddos' writing all year long... every single piece of writing! Let me tell you, it is eye opening how much writing we do in the course of a year when you have to find a place to store it all!  A few days before the event, I began passing back all of my kiddos' writing. It was fun to listen to them as they got certain pieces back and they would say things like, "I forgot about this one" or "Oh my gosh, I can't even read this" The latter comment was the best as they really were able to appreciate how far they have come as authors!


After getting our pieces back, we needed something large enough to hold all of our pieces as some of them were larger craftivites. I wanted something that would make it easier for them to tote their writing to a place in the room and that would also hopefully serve as a "one-stop storage spot" that would have special memories for them and their parents. I am hoping that parents won't just throw all of their child's hard work away. My solution was to fold a piece of tagboard in half and to glue students' 1st day of school pictures and a matching end of the year picture to this folder. (It was amazing to see how much some of them have changed over the course of the year!) Students then decorated their portfolio however they wished. They weren't overly fancy, but each student's was unique and they had a lot of fun designing them. It also gave them even more ownership of this event.

Finally, students filled out an About the Author paper to share with their visitors. This ended up being the very first piece in our portfolios that student's shared with their visitors. You can click the link above to download a free copy for yourself if you're interested. 

When the big day finally came, my kiddos were beyond excited! They asked all day long when the Writer's Tea was starting. It was fantastic to see how excited they were and to feel the energy in the room. Every student in my class, except one had at least one adult in attendance. Knowing ahead of time that this student, and a few others from the other 2 classes didn't have a visitor, we made arrangements with other staff members in our building (Assistant principal, reading specialist, LMS, etc) to come and be a special visitors for them so nobody was left out.


I have to say, the event was fantastic and went off without a hitch. The students were in charge and I was able to mull around the room, take pictures, chat with our visitors and sit back and watch as students were the teachers. Throughout the course of the hour, they shared all of the writing in their portfolios, shared the stories they had done digitally on their iPads, enjoyed a cookie and punch, and also shared a few projects in the hall, including our Global Art Project. I was shocked when we were 3 minutes from the dismissal bell ringing and I still had 3/4 of my class and their visitors in my room!! I told them all to enjoy and not be in a rush and many stayed even longer. All together, most of my students spent about 45 minutes to an hour with their visitors.

As I said above, this will definitely become an annual tradition for me. The only change I think I may need to make is to plan for a full hour next year. Three days later, I am still smiling about how well it went and the sheer joy that my students experienced getting to share all of their hard work!

Word Clouds

Have you tried the new app by ABCya called Word Clouds? It is currently free and is phenomenally easy to use! If you are not familiar with word clouds the idea is that you get a graphical representation of your text. Words that are used in higher frequency are represented larger. 

This app is phenomenally easy to use. My kiddos learned how to use it in about 5 minutes. The next day, they taught another first grade class how to use the app. If a first grader can teach someone how to use it, you know it's easy!

We used this app to create a word cloud for our moms as part of their Mother's Day gift. We did a bit of brainstorming together on chart paper to get the ideas flowing. Students were then asked to write the name they call their mom at the top of their paper (mom, momma, mommy, etc). They then numbered their paper from 1-10 and thought of 10 (or more if they could) words that would describe their mom.

When putting their words into the app, each student typed the word "mom" four times so that it would appear larger than the others and then proceeded to type in their other words. When they were done they were able to choose the font, color and directionality of their words.

These turned out wonderful and were a nice addition to our Mother's Day gifts.