New Packet and another GREAT App!

I've been SOOOOO caught up in the Olympics that I kind-of forgot about my blog.

 I'm LOVIN all the excitement of 'goin for the GOLD'!!! 

Anyhow, I found a cool app for the iPad a few weeks ago that my kiddos LOVE. I think it has become their favorite. 

And what I like is it's by my alma mater- BYU!

It has fun, up-beat music and great activities for 6 short vowel, word families. Plus it's FREE. Just search Hideout by BYU in the App Store to find it. 

I'm just hoping they will continue to keep adding more word families.

I downloaded a new packet to my shops. It's a fun little SCOOT activity for missing addends. Easy prep too! I needed a little something to get my firsties up and moving.

Check it out by clicking on my sidebar shop buttons.

Well, I'm off to watch more of the Olympics. 

I sure LOVE the DVR! Hate commercials!

Vocabulary Spelling City

Welcome to 2014! I just know it's going to be a GREAT Year! I can feel it in 'me bones'. (Even as old and achy as they are :)

I have fallen in LOVE with VocabularySpellingCity! I really feel behind the times with this one. I've seen several posts out there on it and kind of passed over them. Because a few years ago, I checked it out, saw that it was expensive but there were a few free things you could do. So I  told my parents to go there and have the kids play games with their spelling words and that was that. But over the break I checked it out again and WOW am I missing out by not using it. I either missed all the cool things it can do for FREE or it has really updated.

Go here to check it out for yourself: Spelling City

The Premium Membership is $49.99 with lots of cool extras. But if you are a poor district and/or poor teacher like me, the FREE version has a lot to offer. 

What I didn't know was that teachers can set up a homepage for FREE. Then you can create your own spelling and vocabulary lists for your kiddos to use. And did I mention it is FREE!!!

I can assign a list with activities for homework or use it in the classroom. It can be used on computers or you can get the app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices. I'm always looking for more ways to use my Kindles and iPad in the classroom and this is a GREAT one.

Here is what my firsties see when they go to my homepage and click on my teacher list.

I've created my list for week 19 with our 4 popcorn words and 8 word family words (4 each). I customized the definitions and sentences for each word which makes it great for my firsties. 

Now my kids can choose 'Teach Me' where they will learn each word one by one. 

Then they can choose 'Play a Game' where they can pick a game to play using these words only. They can play: Hang Mouse, Word Search, Word Unscramble, Word Match, Missing Letter, Read-A-Word, Alphabetize, Sentence Unscramble (my sentences that I customized), or print a Handwriting sheet. And finally they can click 'Spelling Test' where the computer will give them a practice test. 

There are lots of Teaching Resources for teachers too. The lesson ideas, videos, and printable worksheets look fun. There are also great articles and other word list.

I have a few little ones that are struggling with some sight words. So I can make a list just for them. Then they can do the activities with their words for extra practice.

If you are one of the those bloggers that has posted about Spelling City before, I am soooo sorry I didn't read your post sooner! This is a WONDERFUL FREE Tool for teachers. I hope you won't be like me and ignore it because you thought it was too expensive. Did I mention that it's FREE!!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great finish to your holiday break!

Book Crawler

Oh man! I'm so excited! I found a great app to catalog my hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books!
When I was a little girl, I would play school. I'd line up my dolls and stuffed animals and play for hours. I even created a library with my 30 or so books by putting check out cards in each book and organizing them alphabetical. (crazy childhood huh?) Well, years later I AM a teacher with a lot more than 30 books. I've always wanted to somehow catalog all my personal books that I use at school but I had never found an easy way to do it- until NOW. My daughter (who also LOVES books and has a ton of them) shared this app she just found. She tried out the free lite version and LOVED it.

It's called Book Crawler.

What makes this app so great is the many different ways you can add books. My favorite is the ISBN scanner. You just focus on the book's ISBN bar and the app finds the book and all of its information. Then you just click save. Of course, you can enter each book in manually too. It also has tons of ways to tag, filter, sort, categorize and flag your books. So if you use a certain book for teaching Compare and Contrast, you'll tag it and be able to find it easily. Here is a great review about Book Crawler that explains the app much better than I can with all its cool features:

  http://www.148apps.com/reviews/book-crawler-review/

The best part is the price. You can try out the free lite version. But it only holds 25 books. See if you like it then upgrade to the whole app for only $1.99!! Another great feature is you can sync it to your other devices and save it to your Dropbox.

Now I won't buy a book I already have or spend hours looking for a book I thought I had but is still in my Amazon cart waiting to be purchased. 

This is a wonderful find for teachers that LOVE books and want to keep them organized!

Linking up with Simply Kinder for a blog round-up. Check it out!

Early Christmas Present

My class got an early Christmas present yesterday.

5 Mini iPads! 

 This cute little firstie's dad's company donated them to us.

 I purchased this cool power dock to keep them charged. Along with some nice cases to protect them. My kiddos are EXCITED to start using them! Only problem is, I'm still trying to find apps and ideas. How do I use just 5 iPad with 28 kids? I'm going to use them in centers of course but I'd like to find more ways. If any one has suggestions, I'd LOVE to hear how you are using them in your room. 

Kimberly over on Funky First Grade Fun does a Technology Tuesday and has some great ideas I'm going to be trying for sure. She does a class journal on a free app called Kids Journal. It sounds like a great idea. So I've downloaded that one and I'm in the process of figuring it out. 

I tried this app yesterday and my kiddos love it. It's called Visual Timer. There are several timer apps out there. Some are free. This one cost $2.99. 

It's kind of like the quiet game while they are working. I set the timer while my kids were working at there desks. If they could work quietly without getting 3 strikes before the timer is up then they got a little reward. The cool thing about this timer is it reveals a picture as the clock counts down. I projected it onto my Smart board so everyone could see it. It was a good visual reminder. To do that, I have airplay on my computer which lets me connect the iPad to my computer. I wrote a post about it HERE.

If you have any suggestions for me, I'd LOVE for you to comment. I'm off to search more blogs and the app store for ideas.

Have a great weekend!

More Number Lines with a FREEBIE

I know I've written a few posts about number lines before. So I'm sorry to bore you again and I'll keep it short. But I think they are important and lots of fun. You can find my other posts about them HERE and HERE.

I'm teaching them this week and made a fun little game to go along with it.

You can grab a FREE copy HERE.

I also found a FREE fun little app for the iPad.

You can watch a video about it HERE.

I have an AirPlay by AirServer on my Mac so I can send my app on my iPad to my computer and then show it on my projector. Pretty cool huh! This explains it better than I can.

You can check it out HERE.

I hope that's short enough!
Have a great weekend!