I have a new store on Teacher’s Notebook, and I am featuring two new products on it, in addition to my Easter Creative Thinking Packet. There is a packet for primary students (1-3) to do research on a country using Dr. Sandra Kaplan’s Depth and Complexity. There is also a Spring Creative Thinking Packet. I still have my store on Teachers Pay Teachers, and the items offered will be identical and at the same price. However, I will make a 100% profit on Teacher’s Notebook, so that is why I have changed the button on this blog.
Category: Uncategorized
Random Acts of Kindness Week
February 13-19 has been designated as Random Acts of Kindness Week. The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has many resources, including: monthly calendars, posters, and cards. They also offer bookmarks, videos, and other links on their RAK Week page. For another twist on an activity for next week, you can also check out my Random Acts of Kindness QR Codes.
Brain Games
One of my colleagues, Ginny Daniels, mentioned this fascinating show on National Geographic, and I had to look it up for myself. Apparently, I missed the airing of the episodes, but National Geographic has video clips available online, as well as some games and other resources to challenge your own perceptions. One of the fascinating episodes has a clip involving “fooling your brain” using a rubber hand. If nothing else, this site shows how important it is for us to think about our thinking.
Interactive Bulletin Board
Inspired by a post that I referenced last November regarding transliterate QR codes, I decided to experiment with the idea myself. My GT 4th graders were working on poetry, and they are always glad to incorporate art into their projects. They created pictures to represent their poems, and I recorded them narrating their poetry. After posting the narrations on my website, I created a QR code for the unique URL for each narration. On our hallway bulletin board, I posted their art and poetry. However, I did not match them together. I challenged viewers to try to figure out which art accompanied each poem. They could then check their answers by scanning the QR codes in the corner of each artwork to hear the correct poem being narrated. In addition, I created two online polls, which also had QR codes posted on the board, so participants could vote on their favorite artwork and poetry.
As not every classroom has a device for scanning QR codes, I invited the other teachers in my wing to borrow our iPads so their students could participate. Today was the first day, and the students seemed to be enthusiastically scanning the board. My 4th graders are excited that others are taking such note of their work, and can’t wait to find out the results of the polls.
The one glitch we have encountered so far is that a teacher was using a community area for testing, and the noise of the narrations was distracting. A quick addition of headphones to the iPad fixed that, though.
I have many other ideas for extending this that I hope to try out during the rest of the school year. I will report back periodically with our progress.
My Favorite Vocabulary Building Websites
I thought this might be a good time of year to summarize and emphasize some of the most valuable resources I have reviewed so far. Today’s list is the last of my “Favorites” posts for 2011. Here are my Favorite Vocabulary Building Websites:
#3: Vocab Ahead – This site includes videos and a feature for teachers to create personalized lists and embed them on their websites or blogs. This site is primarily for upper level students, as it hits pretty hard on SAT vocabulary.
#2: Word Sort – You have to figure out the secret rule for classifying the words. I love that this simple game involves logical reasoning, as well as building vocabulary.
#1: VocabularySpelling City – This site allows teachers to build their own lists, offers lists that have already been created, and encourages practice on the students’ parts by playing a variety of games with the words.
Here are the links to my posts on each of these sites: Vocab Ahead, Word Sort, VocabularySpelling City
My Favorite Inspirational Videos for Students
UPDATE (6/23/15): You can find an updated version of this post with additional video suggestions here.
I thought this might be a good time of year to summarize and emphasize some of the most valuable resources I have reviewed so far. Today, I am offering a list of my Favorite Inspirational Videos for Students:
#3: The Power of Words – I also mentioned this in yesterday’s post of Inspirational Videos for Teachers. It is good for everyone, in my opinion, to be more thoughtful about what we say. If our communication is not having the effect we desire, we should reconsider the way we are choosing to deliver our message.
#2: The Kindness Boomerang – I have never done a post on this one. I read about it recently on Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day, and knew right away that I would like to add it to my blog. Although it is somewhat simplistic, it does show how our actions can effect many more people than we will ever know.
#1: Times of India Tree Ad – This is a powerful video that shows how important one person can be in effecting change. It says a lot – without any words.
Here are links to my original posts on #3 and #1: The Power of Words and Times of India Tree Ad.
Also, you might want to visit my Pinterest board of Inspirational Videos for Students here.
