Sunday, February 23, 2014

Connecting and Applying Ideas...

Blog Reflection
I spent a lot of time looking at the different posts that my classmates had put together throughout the past few weeks and found a lot of interesting information. We have all been taught in our EDT class how to use feedly but there is so much information out there that using each other as sources helps narrow down the information into a smaller circle of people.
Connection to Teaching
Kids are so connected with technology these days even more than we were as children (it’s hard to believe and hard to keep up). Having technology integrated into the classroom is so important because that is the way most of these children have grown up and know how to connect things, concepts, and ideas. Classrooms now have iPads, computers, and even SmartBoards in the classroom. There are some great apps and programs designed to help children learn fun, new, and exciting information. By keeping up and keeping each other connected as a community of teachers will help in the long run in being able to help a student get the most out of what you are teaching in the classroom!
After viewing other’s blogs I had some amazing ideas of things to add to my own personal blog. Some of my classmates blogs that I viewed included:

  •          Emily- The first blog I visited was Emily's blog and found a tool that I had never heard of before. Easy class is a simple version of Black Board that is very easy to use. I thought that this tool was awesome because we as college students use Black Board almost every day to look at assignments, review for tests, and discuss with classmates. It would be useful in becoming more diverse with technology.

  •          Ashley – Next I visited Ashley’s blog and commented on her post about using animated movies through technology as a teaching tool. I thought that this post was very informative and a fun way to keep kids interacted through technology. It tells how to use it step by step.

  •        Megan- Lastly I visited Megan's blog and she had posted a snowy day project. I commented on it because it is such a great activity for kids to do on a snowy day.  Going into elementary education I always love ideas that have to do with crafts. As a kid snow is a very exciting event in their lives, and this craft allows them to enjoy all the wonders of snow without actually going out into the cold.


Everyone in our EDT class did a wonderful job connecting what they had researched on Feedly and other sites to their future classroom. Although I only talked about the first three blogs I visited and commented on, I did view others as well and saw that they were all very informative and awesome. Keep up the good work!

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Alphabet Organizer

 Alphabet Organizer is a great tool from "Read Write Think" that students can use to create alphabet and books. The idea behind Alphabet Organizer is to help students make visual connections between letters of the alphabet and the first letter of a common word (great for K-1). This is accomplished by having students choose a letter of the alphabet, write a word that begins with that letter, then upload a picture that is representative of that word.

For example, I chose "D", wrote "dog", and uploaded a picture of a dog.


Alphabet Organizer allows students to create charts or booklets from words and pictures they've uploaded. Completed works can be saved as PDFs, printed, or emailed. 


Applications for Education
Read Write Think offers a bunch of lesson plans based around the use of Alphabet Organizer. Some of those lesson plans include alphabetizing with original stories, creating ABC books as assessment, and learning about the alphabet book genre. 

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Spelling City

Spelling City is a free website that helps build vocabulary and spelling skills! Whenever you need to make a spelling list it is as simple as clicking a button. The teacher creates spelling lists under the teacher page and the students can visit the website during computer lab, or at home.

The website includes games that early elementary students may enjoy such as:


Applications for Education:
There are several fun and free games/activities for your students to use with a weekly spelling or vocabulary list. Registering for an account and upgrading to a Premium Membership is easy and includes more activities and games however there are many free resources available now. So check it out, you can explore other teacher's spelling city pages,  find new games, and so much more at spellingcity.com!

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Free Worksheets for Elementary Classrooms!

Education.com is a website designed to help parents, teachers, and students find learning activities, study tips, advice, and general education reference materials. Education.com has a search for independent learning activity worksheets for elementary school classrooms! Education.com has reproducible worksheets designed for preschool through 5th grade students. The worksheets can be searched by grade level or by topic. Each worksheet is available in pdf format for FREE!

Applications for Education
This website has thousands of fun and educational activities, printables, and workbooks for teachers to use. (some holiday themed!) They can access tens of thousands of current, credible, and easy to read articles. This website is also useful in cutting down the number of worksheet books an elementary school teacher needs to purchase.