Another Day in K

This week on  meredithakers.com , Meredith is sharing about Google Slide features. We use Google all the time at my school and the students use google slides more and more as they are older but I was unaware of these features she shared about today! These google slides add ons are just like add ons for Chrome. Here are steps to add on the extensions: Open google slides Select add-ons from menu bar Choose "Get Add-Ons" Select the add on feature you are interested in (paid for add-ons have a plus sign) To use the add-ons: Click add-ons from menu bar Select add-on you want to use Separate instructions pop up for the feature you selected I added two of the add-ons Meredith shared to my google slides account, Flat Icon and Magical rainbow Unicorn. Flat Icon is an add-on that gives you many different icons to choose from to add to your Google Slides presentation. I found the instagram or email icons would be useful for parent presentations like Open House when s...

My students LOVE the Scholastic classroom magazines. My school pays for a subscription for each classroom. We receive at least two magazines per month sent directly to our school. One of my favorite features with the magazine is the online component. Scholastic allows you to log in to your account and see current and any previous magazines online. The online magazines are interactive. They can be read aloud and the words jump off the page as you read. This is a great feature to help new readers be engaged in the magazines and follow along on their own. You can also highlight or add sticky notes to the pages. Each magazine also comes with a song that relates back to the magazine. These are cute, easy songs to sing along to that my students enjoy. It reinforces the content learned from the magazine. Online there are also  online interactive games, printable activities and a teachers planning, guide. If you are looking for magazines or videos about different topics, you ca...

Today I am reviewing an old post from  meredithakers.com . In this post Meredith shares where to find and how to use graphics in your resources. Whenever I am designing my own test or worksheet, I always want to jazz it up with fonts or graphics to make it more appealing to the students. Reading this post was so helpful for this. Meredith shares where to find the best icons, graphics, emojis, patterns, textures, backgrounds and more. Meredith shares the resource, a description, and if the resource is free or cost a fee. Here is the picture Meredith shares with all the information you need!

This week in my Kindergarten classroom, I have been trying out Digital Task Cards with my students. I found this resource from Tickled Pink. These task cards can be used on any device with PowerPoint but my students have been using our iPads. I use these for when students finish an assignment early or are working during a center. Tickled Pink has Reading and Math Cards but you could make them for any subject and any grade level! Students practice any skill like counting, reading or sounding words or letters and select their answers. They are quick, easy and fun for the students to complete. I have shared a few photos from the Tickled Pink resource.

This week on  meredithakers.com , Meredith is sharing about Google and how it can be used for formative assessments. I love this post and it is relevant to my classroom because all of the studnets at my school have their own school Google account.  The first tool Meredith shares about is called AutoDraw. I have never seen or used this tool before but love it! Its a virtual whiteboard. My students LOVE using whiteboards in the classroom so I know if i introduce them to an online version, they will be ecstatic. Meredith advises you to use this for exit tickets or similar simple activities. I think this is a great easy tool to use! Meredith also shares about Google Forms and Google Slides. Many of the upper grades use these Google Tools in their classrooms but I have not used them in my classroom yet. She gives an example and template for Google slides and discusses how to use it to ask questions to students and see their responses in real time. Meredith suggests usin...

This week was a busy one in my classroom! We had Parent, Teacher, Student Conferences Monday and Wednesday night, I had a surprise wisdom tooth extraction and caught strep throat all in a few days! I am still recovering from all the excitement but hoping to get back in the swing of things this coming week. With all the craziness,  I did not try any new technologies in my classroom this week. I did spend some extra time exploring epic! and setting up reading assignments and quizzes for my students to complete in the coming weeks. I am very thankful for the other classmates who introduced me to this app. I am loving it! While I didn't try any new technologies with my studnets, I wanted to share about how I use Google Drive with my teammates and administration and how it it came in handy when I was out of the classroom sick this week. Each week I plan with my two other teammates. I type up all of our weekly plans into a Google Document and share it through Google Drive. From Googl...

After reading some blog posts from my classmates last week. I was inspired to try epic! in my own classroom. Epic! is a digital library for kids with over 35000 books available. I have currently been using Raz Kids for my independent reading centers in class but its always nice to have other options and mix it up. Epic is free for educators and I had read some great reviews from other teachers so I decided to give it a try. This week I had the epic apps loaded onto all my iPads. I am in the process of setting up my classroom on the teacher section of the website and exploring all that epic! has to offer. Here is a view after logging in to the teacher page. From here you can add studnets to your roster. You can also share your roster from google classroom if you already have that set up and log in studnets using your classroom code.  There are audio books, read to me books and independent reading options available. Teachers can assigning books and quizzes to individual studnet...

This week on  meredithakers.com  Meredith was sharing about kindness February Challenge you could complete at work. I decided to look back at some of her older posts to find something I could relate to technology in the classroom. I read a post from back in November called  Fun with Feedback . In this post Meredith shares some fun ways to use technology to give feedback to students. With conferences coming up this week at my school, this post gave me some great ideas to try with my students. Meredith shares four ideas:                                                                            Sticky AI Ditty Voxer Gifs All of these online resources allow you to use pictures, videos and sound to give feedback to students. I think this is a great idea to engage with your ...