Sumdog

With summer quickly approaching, I was on the hunt for ideas for summer practice for my kiddos. My best friend, Christy (who happens to be a third grade teacher), recommend the website Sumdog.  I had never heard about it before so I decided to check it out and see what it's all about.

Here's what I've found:

1. It offers fun and exciting games that kids across the world or within your school can play together.
2. The questions that are offered are geared specifically for a students to improve on weakness areas.
3. As the teacher, you can set goals for students by choosing from specific grade leveled skills aligned to the Common Core.
4. They can earn coins that will allow them to dress up their uniquely created avatar in the Sumdog store.

Now, this is only what I've found out from my first time exploring, but I'm sure that the website has way more to offer.  It appears that most of their math games are free, but some also require a subscription.  They do offer a language arts and a writing component (available soon), but I believe that these areas may also only be available through a subscription. 

I'm planning to introduce my students to this website this week and let the exploring and practice begin!  I'll keep you posted and hopefully this will be a HUGE SUCCESS!

Ps...Click under the teacher tab and you'll be provided with a video and more information about what they have to offer.

Enjoy,

 

Happy Mother's Day

In honor of it being Mother's Day, I have a special video that I'd like to share.  On Friday, I shared this video with my class and they loved it.  I heard about Kid President from my teammate's maternity sub.  She had originally introduced me to the Kid President Pep Talk video, which is also fantastic and great to share with kids (see below).


Kid President- An Open Letter to Moms

Kid President- Pep Talk

Enjoy,

Earth Day

It's been doing nothing but raining cats and dogs here the past few days.  Better yet, it's been raining on and off for the past two weeks.  I love mother nature (cough, cough)!

In honor of Earth Day on April 22nd, I've created a freebie for you to use in your classroom.  My students will be completing this tomorrow and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do.  For the first part, they will need to come up with a 50 word (Yes, 50 words!) sentence about Earth Day.  Then, students will have to thinking creatively as they slim that sentence down to just 5 words!  They'll love it, I promise!

Enjoy celebrating!

Pencil Sharpener Battle

We've all been through it before on a daily basis.  I'm talking about the battle with the pencil sharpener and I've finally WON!

Sharpening pencils has become one of my pet peeves (especially while I'm teaching).  Therefore, my students know that they need to sharpen their pencils during appropriate times.  However, it never fixed any of the problems that I continued to run into.  After my most recent battle, I was DONE!  I decide to try out the sharpener that all the teachers are talking about....the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener.

SUCCESS!  I'm not joking!  This sharpener produces a sharp point (EVERY TIME) and it's quiet enough that it doesn't bother me if a student needs to sharpen their pencil while I'm teaching.  I even have teachers from other classrooms coming into my classroom to use this new GEM.  

The only downfall that I've found is that colored pencils don't work.  The colored pencil is so soft that the tips break off inside and prevent the next pencil from sharpening to a fine point.  Therefore, we've reverted back to the electric sharpener for those.

I would definitely recommend this sharpener to any of my fellow teachers and for those future teachers!  I have not been paid by the company for any of this, but I thought that an honest opinion may help some fellow bloggers finally win the battle!

Enjoy,

Last Chance!

You heard me right and now is your last chance to snag a free $10.00 gift card toward Educents.

Educents is a "Groupon-like" website that will be launching on TOMORROW and providing teachers with daily deals on educational products.

What are you waiting for???  Click on the link below to sign-up and snag your free deal!

Educents

Enjoy, 

Who doesn't love a deal????

You heard me right and now is your chance to snag a deal!

Educents is a "Groupon-like" website that will be launching on April 2nd and providing teachers with daily deals on educational products.

Those who sign-up by Friday, March 15th will receive a $15.00 gift card and those who sign-up after that date will receive $10.00.

What are you waiting for???  Click on the link below to sign-up and snag your free deal!

Educents

Enjoy,

Google Drive

I'm happy to say that my directing days have come to a close for this year.  We just wrapped up our final performance on Saturday of Once Upon A Mattress.  The cast and crew did a fabulous job and I was so honored to be apart of all of it!

I was recently asked by my district to participate in a technology pilot for Google.  We're planning to use Google Drive as our means for sharing and Gmail as our district email.  I'm 100% on board for the use of Gmail, but I'm still trying to figure out how to use Google Drive with 4th and 5th grades.  Does anyone out there have any ideas that they've found to be successful?  I'd love to hear them as this is all new to me. 

Thanks for sharing,