Making Friends With Myon

Sorry, I'm a bad blogger but between my grad school class, after school clubs, and actually teaching first grade I've been a little busy!

Just before Christmas our district purchased a program called Myon for us to use on our iPads, and I was
NOT a fan. I already have Raz-Kids, and the way Myon was presented it just seemed like a less user friendly version of Raz-Kids so I didn't really bother getting to know it (it's not very user friendly or intuitive). However I don't like to be beaten by technology so awhile ago I decided that I needed to conquer the Myon monster and make it my own. Here is what I discovered... as an independent reading tool it doesn't even come close to being as good as Raz- Kids because you have very little control over what kids can and can't read. You also can't assign entire levels of books  a student (sigh)! With that in mind I don't use it at all like it was presented. I use it mainly for three things...

1. Social studies and science- There are so many great books that coincide with our social studies and science curriculum that is amazing. We use them during class,and it almost makes social studies and science like an extra shared reading lesson! Then the kids can download the same books to read or listen to later.

Here we are reading a book about the American flag.

Then they downloaded the book and listened to it, and a few others about the same topic while they worked on an American flag hundreds chart during math!

2. Guided reading- I've also started using Myon during guided reading. It took forever to get a lot of books leveled for use with DRA2  (I'm still working on it) but it's great because my class had a real gift for losing guided books!!! They never loose these, and there are always enough copies!

3. Shared reading- I can project the books with Air Server, or Splashtop, and the kids can all have their own copy for read to self or listen to reading... enough said!

Disclaimer- My bunch is NOT allowed to download any book they want! They can have one "just for fun" book of their choice. The rest of the books they download have to be ones that I picked for shared, guided, or content. If I find other books I delete them! If they picked their own they would ALL be listening books...NOT reading books!

Mixing it up in Math

Thought for today... necessity is the mother of invention  finding very odd and specific apps. Every Friday we mix it up a little during math when our amigos from the dual immersion class come and join us for math games. This week I found a really fun, and engaging math game at Teacher's Pay Teachers  Color By Sum: Winter Version

To play this game each pair of students needs three dice, but I have a love hate relationship with dice because they... are loud, can be thrown at other people, roll away and need to be chased, tend to end up at the bottom of a tub or drawer where I can never find them when I need them, and throwing dice is a little boring! I also don't have enough for 19+10= 29 kiddos to use at once. So I decided to hunt up an app for rolling dice, and I found a great one Dice Roll Free! We just love it, because you can roll from 1-6 dice at a time, it doesn't add the dice up for you, AND you have to shake the iPad to roll the dice! It's simple, fun, and just right for us!

First you shake,shake,shake the iPad (the kids loved this part)!

(Just a side note... these two picked each other as partners. She speaks mostly Russian, he speaks mostly Spanish. LOVE it)

                                                                                      Then, you add up all three dice.

 Next you color in the section on your paper with the answer in it (if you have it).

Whoever colors in all their sections first wins.

They could have played this game for hours. I doubt we'll ever use regular dice again! They were so much more engaged then they normally are with dice games!

New year... New iPad Magic

Hello boggy friends :) I've decided to write shorter more frequent posts. These long weekly ones are going to drive me crazy. Here we go...

Today was our first day back and the kiddos were so excited to have our little family back together. All the iPads came back in one piece(kudos to my kiddos and parents for taking such good care of them). Their little minds were ready for something new so we jumped right in to Schoology. Let me say that I LOVE SCHOOLOGY, and so do my kiddos. I had to force them to go to lunch and recess because they just wanted to stay and post in Schoology some more.

It took us awhile to get the app downloaded and everyone logged in because it's a new log in combo, but I showed a couple people how, and before long everybody was logged in. 

 All logged in and ready to go

Pipgeek in action

My right hand girl  "Miss. H" showed our new friend (first day with her iPad)  how to download apps. She also got her all set up and logged into Schoology.  What would I do without my Pipgeeks???

Earlier this week I set up a group for us in Schoology and added all my kiddos. Then I posted a  fun question on the main page for them to answer, and a  reader's response question on our discussion board.The question was "Who do you like better, Jack or Annie? Tell why! (We have a slight obsession going with the Magic Tree House books)

They jumped right in to posting, and simply fell in love with it. I have never, never seen them this excited about ANY  kind of writing! 

Here is a screen shot of some of their comments... remember this was their FIRST experience with this program. None of them had ever seen it before!

Their writing here has such voice and expression. I was impressed! It's just a few words each, their spelling and punctuation are't perfect, but I can tell you this... it sounds just like them. They were less than happy when it was time to go to lunch, but luckily our awesome teacher librarian, (former blog name "Mr T") Mr. Chop chop (don't even ask) joined our group, and posted a new question for them, to answer later in the day!

Click here to learn more about Schoology: https://www.schoology.com/page/15668739

For right now we will mostly be using this for reader's response, and math writing, but that is only the beginning of what we will do with it! Stay tuned to folks, thanks for joining us on our journey!

P.S. Please don't tell the kiddos that they were writing today ;) they think it's just fun, not actual school work, and I want to keep it that!

Elf on the Shelf Weeks Two and three

I sure am glad that there were only three weeks of our dear little elf friend. I had a hard time keeping up with him. Here he is ...up to his normal tricks!

Creating a zip line across the room.

Making copies of himself and posting them all over the room with messages written on them...

Sitting on top of the flag...

Ordering pizza...

Using my border box to make a slide...

Playing slide math...

And eating the candy from our gingerbread trees.

He also built a fort out of blocks, and left a note about being good for the sub, but those somehow escaped the camera...

Happy elfing...

Making Memories

I have a ton of testing to do before we head off for break, but this week I took a little time just to make memories. In twenty years my kiddos won't remember their DIBELS scores, or what DRA level they read on in first grade, but they just might remember one frigidly cold and snowy day when they arrived at school to a find a fun breakfast of snowballs (powered sugar doughnut holes) hot chocolate, and tiny candy-canes!

P.S The coloring sheets are actually math solve the problem, then color by number...

Blogging our First Year with 1:1 iPads Week Thirteen

Well week thirteen has come and gone, here is a look at what we've been up to...

My math resource wanted us drawing  what they call quick images of various 2D shapes on whiteboards with dry erase markers. I don't have enough of either, and they're messy! What's a teacher to do!?!? Easy, whip out the iPads, and open doodle buddy (our white board app). Engaging, fun, not messy, and I didn't have to hunt up boards and markers!

P.S I also didn't use the OVERHEAD TRANSPARENCIES provided by the resource!! I just used images I found in SMART thank you very much. Seriously?!?!? Transparencies!?!?! 1985 called they want their technology back!!! 

 As you can see we're learning about shapes, so I found several free tangram apps (our math calls them pattern blocks) to supplement what they do with the actual manipulatives in their workbooks.

I had them download

My First Tangrams Lite

 Pocket Tangrams

and TriZen Free

These apps are all very different, and each offers a different level of play. I have some kids who are better at these than I am, and several of them have moved on to harder versions they found on their own. I love when they can take what I give them and run with it. These iPads provide that in an amazing way.

To finish up the week I gave them some free explore time with a new app we are going to use during writing next week. They need a little more free explore time before we start, but then they will be ready to rock.

Little Story Creator

This app lets them draw and type, not just add pictures, which is what I like about it. We start drafting circle stories (like If you Give a Mouse a Cookie) on Monday! They each get to make their own book!

Oh, I forgot!! Elfie loves the iPads too, Silly Elfie iPads are for people!

See you next week!

Elf on the Shelf Week One

Since this is my first Christmas in my OWN classroom I just had to get a class elf for my kiddos. They named him Elfie... yes creative I know, but that's what they picked! He arrived in a bag along with his book when we came back from Thanksgiving break. The kids were so excited, when he moved during lunch and ended up riding our class pet, Harry Hippo, like a horse.
The next day he moved to the top of our projector...

That one kept the kids spinning, because from up there it really does look like he's watching everybody!

After that he hijacked some leftover snack, a pillow, and an iPad (left at school by mistake). He played candy crush all night long...

They were fascinated!!

Next he decided to play school with our reading buddies...

To round out his first week he had some fun with our interlocking cubes!

Stay tuned for more of Elfie's antics, and happy Elfing!