TasteKid.com - Cool Site!

I discovered this website today and wanted to share! It's www.tastekid.com. It's a kid-friendly site that offers suggestions for books, music, movies, etc. Simply type in a book, music, or movie you enjoy and the site will generate suggestions for you! You can create a profile or just use its free resources.

According to the website: "I provide recommendations and help you discover new music, movies, shows, books, authors or games, based on what you like. Some call me a recommendation system or a discovery engine, but I prefer to simply be called TasteKid. Explore your taste"

Can't wait to show it to my students!!

Make Your Own QR!

I made a QR link for my Welcome to Third Grade brochure! These are sent to each of my students before school has started. Our school posts the class lists about a week before the first day of school. As soon as the lists are posted, teachers send our letters/postcards/brochures about themselves and the students' new grade level.

I thought I'd bump it up a notch and at a QR code!

I haven't ever made a QR before, so what does someone do when they need to know something?! I Googled it ;) I found a 4-Step How-To and followed it easily! I chose to use Microsoft Tag to make my QR code. It was so fast and easy to do. I linked it to my blog's parent page. I plan to include a QR code in my monthly newsletters giving teachers some resources to use at home as we cover a variety of subjects.

Have you used QR codes in your classroom or to provide information to parents? Any tips or tricks to pass along?

Finding Technology Resources

I am so looking forward to my new iPad that is coming in the mail! I am scouring Pinterest for iPad for resources for using the iPad in the classroom. Something very exciting, I am getting a projector adapter along with the iPad so we can all work together and see what is happening. Here are some iPad Pinterest boards:

• Katia Zamorano - iPad for the Classroom
• Jessica Harris - iPad Activities
• Erin Radway - iPad for the Classroom
• Heidi Chism - ipad for the classroom
• Patrice Bryson - iPod/iPad Ideas for the Classroom
• Dana Elyse - iLearn- Ideas For Using The iPad in the Classroom
  

Also, I'm sure most of you have seen this version of Twitter in the classroom:

But what about using actual Twitter in the classroom?! A suggestion from The Teachers Corner, is to give your students (or parents) your 'teacher' twitter account URL. Then use this to easily communicate quick reminders about homework or tests. They don't need a twitter account to see your tweets. Also, you can send links to parents and other teacher to information related to what you are teaching. If you are already on Twitter, you might want to check out these articles: The 2012 A-Z List of Educational Twitter Hashtags and 100 Serious Twitter Tips for Academics.


Teaching Blog Addict has a few cool features you should check out. First, TBA has a Pinterest link up area!

Click here to go add your own Pinterest page!
Here's my Pinterest page!

Up All Night, Then Woke Up to an AWESOME Email!

Good morning blogging world! I understand to most of you it is the afternoon, but I have just woken up! Last night and into this morning, I participated in our town's Relay For Life event. I am team captain of our school's Relay team. We do many events throughout the school year to raise money to fight cancer and find a cure. Some of the events we do are Penny Wars, Dress Up Days (for students), Dress Down Days (for staff), bake sales, and selling items at our school store. Our team raised about $2,000 this year! So I just woke up after walking all night (10+ miles!) and going to bed about 6:30am.

Once I did wake up and get my email checked, I became ELATED! Back in early June, I went to a workshop called Math, Money, & Make-Believe at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. At the workshop, we were given TONS of free resources and many websites to find resources for teaching elementary students about economics and the use of money. As the workshop was wrapped, the instructors told us that they are working to develop their website Classroom CLUEs which has many children's literature books with tie-ins to instruction. They were asking us to add teaching tips to books we have used in the classroom. Our incentive, of course it was an economics workshop, was that for each teacher tip we entered our name would be placed in a drawing for a FREE iPad! And guess what?! I won!! This is the fabulous email:

WOW!! I never win anything, so this is something HUGE to win! I can't wait to get some school apps on that baby and share it with my students!

Have a great Saturday!