 1. I have had some requests for sites that would make good center activities PBS has a wonderful site called Dot's Story Factory. With this site students can write and illustrate simple stories. Really cool!  2. If you are trying to get your students writing while creating a mini project, look at Read-Write-Think's Printing Press. This interactive wizard helps students create a newspaper, brochure, or a poster. These things were easy to do when we were all working on Windows that included Publisher. Chromebooks however, do not read Publisher documents. It's ok. This site helps guide students through their project and when they are done, they can email it to you. It will come to you as a PDF. Save it to Classroom in a folder you create. Or have them save it as a PDF and they can turn it in themselves through Google Classroom.  3. E-Learning for Kids has some amazing math lessons! These would be wonderful activities to put into your Google Classroom! And they have other subject areas as well as math. This is a FREE resource!   4. This week's Google resource is a freebie I found on another technology teacher's website. You can create as many slides as you need. Create one for each Dolch word or spelling work you want the students to work on. Then have them drag shades up to cover the work. They type the word, and then read the work 3 times. There is an example slide to show you what to do. Click the image to download the document. 5. Friday at the Movies - I love Ted Talks!
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 1. Gail shared this article with me, 25 Alternatives to I Can't. This would me a great image to print out as a poster and display in your classroom!!  2. The online Sharepoint has been converted to a Google folder. You can access the link from the STAFF page off the main Division website. The link to the Google folder is still under SharePoint. Click there and you will find the link to the Google folder. When Gail and I first became ITRTs not all the schools had Share Folders. After I crashed the server twice, Dr Ratliff advised the IT Supervisor to create a Share Folder for us to keep documents and files in. Later this Share Folder was relocated to a Microsoft SharePoint and all the resources were put online. This allowed us to have a central location for instructional materials which were were creating but the only way for teachers to access it was if they were on our network. Now, all these instructional resources plus more have been migrated to a Google folder. This means that you can get to all the forms and documents from home. Hallelujah!  3. The Halloween Pumpkin Poem Generator is a cute way to quickly get students writing! This would be a great center activity. See how many of their spelling or weekly vocabulary they could use in their poems.  4. This week's resource is using Forms. Forms is for so much more than a quiz or survey. I like to use it in the STEAM/computer lab with my littlest of people. I find a read aloud from YouTube or create one myself and post it to YouTube. Then I insert the video into a Google Form and have the students answer questions about the story. Here is a very simple example that I plan to use soon. 5. Friday at the Movies - A Year in the Life of a Tree I find this video fascinating! I think it would be a wonderful story starter. Beware though, prepare for some giggles. One wolf marks his scent. But that is a survival adaptation.  1. Many of you are reviewing with Kahoot but are you using Kahoot in your Google Classroom? Recently, Kahoot started allowing teachers to issue challenges to their students. Create a Kahoot and then assign it as a challenge. Copy and paste the link you are given into your Google Classroom. The student works through the Kahoot by the deadline you set and you get a customized report on how well they did. Really cool! Learn more here.  2. How cute is this! Here is a virtual birthday cake. Wouldn't it be cute to once a month have all the students come up and blow out the candles?  3. I just stumbled upon this fraction wall in the Chrome Web Store and it is absolutely free! Post this link in your Google Classroom and have your students navigate to the Chrome store and install. Now all your students have the same virtual manipulative! 4. My resources of the week are mathematical story problem sorts. You are welcome to alter these to fit the level of your students. Click on the image to open. Then go to File->Make A Copy
5. Friday At The Movies - Long but good! 1. This Google Tip is brought to you by my grandson, Ryan. Sometimes the best things I have learned are due to a child, this time my own grandson, messing something up on a computer that I need to then fix. Some how Ryan accidentally turned on the CAPS Lock on my Chromebook. Something I had been missing but didn't know how to do. So I then had to search for the solution. I discovered that if you push and hold the alt key and the search key at the same time a little arrow will appear on the bottom right notifications bar and a pop-up will alert you that Caps Lock is on. Then tap Shift to turn off Caps Lock. What is the search key? It is the magnifying glass that is in the place of where a CAPS lock would be on a windows keyboard.
 2. Lauren Kershner, from CES shared some resources with me last week. Many of us are working on Growth Mindsets with our students. Lauren pointed out that Class Dojo had some great lessons. The site is called Class Dojo Big Ideas. Check it out and thank you, Lauren!  3. The Google resource I am sharing this week is not mine but rather came from a Facebook group to which I belong. For copyright purposes, you will see the name of the original creator on the first slide. It is called Build a Jack-o-lantern. This would be great at any elementary grade level. Even older kids like a kick-back activity once in a while. Plus, I like that it asks the students to write about their creation once they are done with it. Click the image to open the document and then go to File->Make a Copy. Enjoy!  4. I hope I have not been driving you crazy with my begging to do a Breakout EDU. This week I would like to share a digital Breakout that I have put together called The Monster Mash. This is based on an unplugged version I found on the Breakout EDU site, I know that sometimes it is hard to fit a real one in the schedule. This one is designed to be done in a more timely fashion. Perfect for an inside recess or you can work on it during the day in pieces as brain breaks! 5. Friday at the Movies - My youngest grandson has become obsessed with Moana and especially this song. After reflecting I realized it is perfect for us educators. Often we see that the students feel stuck. It's an encouragement to keep going.  1. Many of us are moving to Chromebooks. This is a poster of keyboard shortcuts that you can hang up close to help students know how to better navigate their device. BTW, how many of these did you know? Some are very similar to Windows keyboard shortcuts. Click on the image to open the mini-poster.  2. This week's resource is an exit card based on emojis. Click on the image to open the resource and then go to File->Make A Copy  3. This is an amazing site with many downloadable resources! It called the Math Shed and does have a ton of math resources but it also has some other resources as well. Although it is mostly for the upper elementary grades there are some primary resources too. 4. Free Technology For Teachers shared a cool new tool that allow students to see the and interact with the code behind a webpage. The tool is called X-Ray Googles. The blog shares an amazing lesson plan which has students hacking a news story and inserting the name of a fictional character. Let me know if you want to plan a lesson around this. This would be very cool! 5. Friday at the Movies - Class Dojo has a series of videos which explains the Growth Mindset to students. Really amazing! Here is the first episode. |
Melanie LewisHi, my name is Melanie Lewis. I am an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher for Amherst County Public Schools, located in the beautiful state of Virginia. I LOVE my job! I get to work on my hobby, anything that has to do with computers. I get to work with teachers and students, and I am definitely a people person. Plus, I DO NOT have to give grades. Wonderful, huh? Let me know how I can help you better integrate technology into your classroom. Archives
March 2020
ACPS' 1st computers
I know only one thing about the technology that awaits us in the future: We will find ways to tell stories with it. ~Jason Ohler
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