Wednesday, June 18, 2014

A JUST BECAUSE SALE!!

I have had a long school year due to lovely snow days ago in honor of summer finally being here I'M THROWING A SALE!  Everything is 20% off in my store through tomorrow :-)!  Reflect and get something for next year!  My Leader in Me Meets the Clip Chart is my best seller, check it out!!  :-)

Happy shopping!

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Plickers...ever heard of them?

Plickers...are the next best thing to clickers in a classroom and they are free!  I think the free margin makes them better then clickers actually, but that could be easily argued.

Plickers are basically paper clickers using a qr code.  They are numbered so that student responses register to a given name or number (you decide).  You must sign-up online, but then you can download the app (either android or ios) for FREE!  You pose a question or enter a question online or on your tablet and the students hold up their given plicker based on the answer that they want to give you.  The plicker is labeled with a, b, c, and d for choices.  The student holds their plicker up toward you with the correct answer label held toward the top.  When students have chosen their answers you scan the room with your tablet and the camera will read the qr codes of each student and organize it into a bar graph or a grid where each student is represented.  It is that easy!  The only difference between clickers and plickers I have found so far is that the clickers usually come with a computer program that will allow the students responses to a few questions to be averaged to make a grade.  The plickers program does not have that quite YET, but the site says it is coming.

Anyways go to www.plickers.com to sign up for your very own FREE class and get a set of plickers to get started.

I plan to utilize plickers the most in my classroom during pretest and exit slips.  I love the fact that it saves the information for the given questions so that you can go back to each question and see how the entire class or individual students answered.

An easy way to begin was as an agree or disagree question and I also asked the students to reflect on how they felt about the unit we just finished in math.  If they had a great grasp on fractions they showed me the letter A, if they needed help they showed me the letter B.  The result immediately showed me 15 students were comfortable and 5 students felt they still needed help.

Go ahead try it!!  Let me know how it goes!

Dana  :)


Sunday, February 2, 2014

SALE SALE SUPERBOWL SALE

Good morning!  It is sale time in my TPT store.  I even added a new item (Inspiring  Leaders Project)just in time.  I'm offering 20% off of everything and TPT is offering an additional 10% so let's go it's time to shop, shop, shop!!! 

Just click on the link on my page
Live learn teach for life

Go Broncos!  Happy shopping!!

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Sale! Everything is on sale!!

Happy SNOW day again!!  We have been a little snowed in here so I thought I would throw a sale and bring a little brightness to the day!  Enjoy!  Click the link below!  EVERYTHING IN MY TPT IS ON SALE!!!!

Leadership Binders

We are in our first year as a Leader in Me school and it has been a great learning experience!!  I have created a Leadership Binder (Data Notebook) set of printables for my own students and I figured I would love to share them with you if you were interested.  Data tracking can be overwhelming and time consuming.  Believe me I have thought about dropping it a few times but I come back to it because the research stands behind it clear and strong.

I just keep thinking that I will adapt and adapt until I get it perfect for my students and for me.  After thinking about this I wanted to make sure that my documents that I offered to you were also  customizable to you and your students.  Due to this I went back and made sure that my TPT Data Notebook files were editable for you to personalize.

I would love to know how you are using these in your classroom and how data tracking is going for you!

For the love of teaching...have a great night
Dana

Friday, January 17, 2014

Some things work...some things don't

What works...

  • Whole Brain Teaching
  • Leader in Me
  • Positive reinforcement
  • Vocabulary focus
  • Higher Order Thinking questions
What doesn't work...or what I need help with

  • best way to teach reading so that everyone is accounted for
  • how to keep everyone accountable
  • discussion leaders
  • using edmodo with only 4 classroom computers
Any suggestions!