Spring Fever......

I guess I have spring fever and so my first graders did this really cute math fact family bunny today. I got this cute idea of pintrest which was linked into Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits Blog. You can get your free copy there also.

IPAD & QR Code in Action.....

Today I put my new techy find into action with a QR code short vowel rhyming activity.
The kids had soooooo much fun and scanning and coming up with rhyming words.

    
I made just a short read and write activity which you can get a free copy here ~  QR Code

River Life .....

So living on the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York is always beautiful!! The river froze over this winter (doesn't always happen every winter) but the ice just went out last week. So.....today I was standing in the kitchen and heard a ship horn blowing. So went down a block to the river and this is what I found..... One of two Canadian Ships coming up river to head out onto Lake Ontario. Spring is here now officially. YES !!!!!!!

Children's E Books.....

I found this cool app through my google education account but, I also found out it is available in apple version too. It is a children's E-Book app which comes with several pre-loaded books already.

                         
                                                  MeeGenius

Where is Spring????

It has been a busy time in First Grade and my classroom said good bye to our fabulous student teacher, Mrs. Gleason this week. I am not sure who is going to miss her more ......Me or the students?? :0(
She did a great job and will be a very successful teacher and be an asset to any school district.

But while I had some extra time I was able to search and develop some really neat ideas for my first graders. I am inspired everyday by Katie King and her Queen Of The First Grade Jungle Blog! I love her Techy Tuesday Link Party and get so many great ideas for my tech savoy classroom. Please check out her latest tech idea of QR Codes in the classroom. I literally made a short vowel rhyming center in 15 minutes tech style.

                        
                                                        QR Codes

And a side note the covers are here for my classroom ipads and hopefully will get the rest of the details ironed out very soon so I can get these great devices in the hands of my patiently waiting first graders.

They have been still doing an amazing job sharing the one ipad we have in our classroom currently. They were yearbook photographers this week as they went around they school with the ipad capturing candid shots of students and staff.
They LOVED it !!!!

Flip Your Classroom

In my district we did some staff training on flipping your classroom so students can continue to learn at home by utilizing teacher web pages. I created a huge interactive penguin unit that my students do blogging and message boarding through my webpage. My first graders love learning about penguins :0)
Feel free to visit my web page if you are teaching a penguin unit there is a ton of neat activites linked in!!

 

                                                              Mrs. Smith's Penguin Unit

I find soooo many great ideas on Katie King's First Grade Blog and I am loving her Techy Tuesday posts :0)


                                         
                                                      http://queenofthefirstgradejungle.blogspot.com/

IPAD in the Classroom

We are soooo close to having a pilot program within our classroom. I'm not sure who is more exccited me or the first graders???? We have been using one ipad daily in the classroom while we transition over to a more techy room. I have been following Katie King's Techy Tuesday posts and have gotten so many neat ideas for my classroom. I started out with using the ipad as an extention to my listening center. I started having the students listening to an interactive children's story on the ipad as buddies.

I usw Ocean House Media to get great children's stories for the ipads.