Jeans!

Ok, so it’s not actually a real scientific fact.  

But I know a lot of teachers who could vouch for the validity of the above statement. LOL

I work at a school whose dress code does not allow for blue jeans to be worn…except on the last Friday of every month…and a few days in between when my principal is feeling generous.   

Jeans are a BIG DEAL at my school.  We may or may not beg to wear jeans quite often. 

100% faculty attendance…..how about a jeans day tomorrow?

Valentine’s Day…..you know what goes great with a red shirt?

No one got sick in the cafeteria today…..a celebratory jeans day would be wonderful!

Can you wear jeans where you teach?  Is it a big deal to get to wear them? 

Truth be told, jeans ARE comfortable, they match everything, and they can stand up to the messes of the classroom pretty well.  But I honestly think the main reason we WANT to wear jeans so much---

is because we’re told we CAN’T. 

New diet says no sugar.  All you can think about is sugar.

Christmas present under the tree.  All you want to do is open that present.

No jeans at school……by golly that’s ALL you want to wear right??

Ha!  I feel your pain.  J

Sometimes I wonder though…if khakis were suddenly off limits and were deemed inappropriate for school….would that be the one thing we want to wear most?  LOL

Make it a great day friends.  (whether you’re wearing jeans or not!!)

Alternative Classroom Seating

What kind of seating do you have in your classroom? 

I stumbled upon a great seating solution and wanted to share with you how it is working in my classroom!

Ta-Da!!!!  Have you seen these before??  They are totally funny looking, right? 

These are Stabili-T-Stools and my kids and I love them!

I teach special education resource classes, which means I see several groups of students ranging from Kindergarten to Third Grade.  My students are struggling in math and/or reading and come to me for about 45 minutes per day. 

I noticed that many of my students were having a hard time sitting still during our classes.  They would wiggle in their seats, rock in their chairs, or even completely fall out of their chairs from sitting incorrectly.  Needless to say, it's super hard to work when you can't sit still.  

So I did a little research and started looking for an alternative seating solution.  I had tried exercise balls in the past, but honestly I got tired of them rolling around the room.  

Enter the Stabili-T-Stool.  Funny name.  Funny looking.  But oh-so-effective!!!

I purchased mine from Abilitations. Stabili-T-Stools are made of hard plastic.  One end is flat and the other end is rounded. They come with a circular rubber spot to place underneath.  This is important, because otherwise the stool could slip out from under the student.  

The awesome thing about the stools is that they allow the students to move while they are working.  These Stabili-T-Stools are great for strengthening students' cores and helping them to perfect their balance and coordination.  Some of my students were able to sit on the stool and get to work right away.  For others, it took a little bit of time for them to get used to balancing and working at the same time.  It was interesting to see how different students adjusted differently.  

In my classroom, the stools are an option.  I give students a choice of sitting in a regular chair or using one of the stools.  Most of the time, they choose the stools. 

Have you tried any alternative seating in your classroom?  How did it work out and what has been your favorite option so far?

Augmented Reality App for Increasing Math Fluency!

Hi everyone!  It's Debbie from K is for Kinderrific! :-)

I recently stumbled upon a great little app that is lots of fun and great for practicing math fact fluency!  And it uses Augmented Reality which is one of my new favorite things!!

The app is called Fetch! Lunch Rush and it's made by PBS Kids!  It's FREE!

First, you'll need to download the app onto your iPhone. I was able to download the app onto my iPad, however it did NOT work correctly.  I guess this is one of those apps that can only be used on the iPhone.  The app is based on Fetch, who is a PBS kids character!  He needs to complete orders for sushi and it's your job to help him by completing basic addition and subtraction problems!

Next, print out the game pieces from the PBS Kids site here.  

The game pieces are available in color or B&W.  

Each card has a different number on it.  

The app suggests spreading the number cards out all over the room.....taping some up high and some down low.....  However, since the students were going to be using MY iPhone to play...I decided that simply spreading them out on the table was good enough!

Once you have the number cards spread out, open the app and get ready to play!  

It's awesome because up to 4 players are able to play each game.  

The fun factor of this app comes because it uses augmented reality to make items from the app basically spring to "life" right in front of you!  Students are shown an equation and then have to find the card with the correct answer on it.  The app utilities the camera on the iPhone (or iPod) so all the student has to do is hold the iPhone in front of the number card and look what happens....

In the picture below, the student wanted to choose the answer 3.  So he held the phone over the number 3 card and 3 pieces of sushi "magically" appeared!  To finalize the selection, all the student does is tap the screen and the sushi flies away and another problem is given.

I used this app with groups of 1st and 2nd graders.  My students LOVED playing this game. They truly didn't want to stop.  Between the fun sounds, the 3D sushi pieces coming to life, and the cute character....they probably didn't even know they were practicing math facts! LOL  

One of the things that I really love about the app, is the feedback that it gives students.  If a student chooses an incorrect answer, the app will tell him if that answer is too little or too much.....which gives them a little hint in the right direction.  

If you are looking for a FREE, SIMPLE, and QUICK way to get your students practicing simple addition and subtraction, I highly recommend that you check out this app.  I bet your students will enjoy it as much as mine did!!

        

Plickers! Technology Awesomeness!

Hi guys!  It's Debbie from over at K is for Kinderrific.   

I'm so excited about today's post and can't wait to share with you some technology awesomeness!!

Last week, the awesome tech person at my school (big shout-out to Mrs. Tibbs!!) introduced us to something called plickers. Yes, Plickers.   

Let me tell you what plickers are.  And what they do.  And how they will change your life. I'm not exaggerating.  #thisissofreakingcool

So have you seen the student response systems?  The ones that use clickers so students can input their answers???  They're awesome cool and students love them.  But they can be expensive.  And they're breakable.  They need batteries and they're sometimes hard to set up and manage.

Plickers are all the opposite.  

Plickers are like clickers. But affordable (free), unbreakable (paper), and simple to use!!

From the Plickers website....here's how it works:

-----Each student gets a unique barcode---a paper clicker!

-----Students answer questions by showing their barcodes to the teacher's smartphone.  

-----The teacher gets a real-time bar graph and the data is stored individually by student.  

Here's what a plicker looks like: 

Literally all you do is log on to their site and print a plicker off for each student.  Plickers are numbered which makes it easy to assign one to each student in your class.  Easy Peasy, right?

There is a Plickers app for iPhone and Droid.  It was very easy to set up.  You create questions in the app and choose the correct answer for each one.  Each question can have up to 4 answer choices A, B, C, or D.  

Notice that there are letters on each side of the Plicker.  After hearing a question, if students want to choose answer A, they hold their plicker up with the letter A on the top.  To choose B, they would hold it up with letter B on top.  

Once students have their answers up, all you have to do is open the app and scan the room.  You do NOT have to go from student to student scanning each individual's plicker.  In fact, it works better if you stand back a bit and scan the whole room at one time. 

It looks as if you are looking through your camera....and as your move your phone across the room, the app reads the student responses.  You can tell when the app has registered each response, because a little icon pops up right above the student's plicker.  So in real time you will be able to see the student's number and his or her answer selection (a, b, c, or d).    This whole process takes about 10 seconds to do!!!

But wait......There's MORE!!

The students' answers are automatically transformed into a real time bar graph or grid.  You can see who has answered and who has answered correctly or incorrectly.  

You can see this info right on your phone!

And also on your computer screen!  

As you can see in the photo above, student number 10 chose answer D, while all the other students chose answer B.  

(You can choose to not show student answers on the screen, so that only you can see who answered incorrectly.)

Is your mind blown????  Do you see all the possibilities this has?

Really!!! How cool is this!?

Students could easily keep their plickers in their desk all the time, and pull them out to review a few skills or even play a quick game!  

You definitely need to head over to the Plickers website and sign up!  It's FREE.  And easy.  And fun.

It'll be fun for you too, I promise!!

Happy 2014!

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's Eve.  

I am excited about the year ahead and I hope you are too!

I’m Debbie from K is for Kinderrific and I’m so glad you’ve stopped by our new blog adventure!  I know we are already going strong in the New Year, but I wanted to share a cute story that happened over Christmas break! 

I have a sweet nephew who is in Kindergarten this year.  He's absolutely precious.  Seriously.  It’s not just because I’m his aunt.  LOL

Being just like other kids his age, he wrote a letter to Santa and asked for the usual:  race cars, superhero costumes, and an American flag. 

Yep, that’s right.  He wrote a letter to Santa and requested that Santa bring him an American flag!!!!  I mean, how cute is that???

But wait, it gets better. 

The reason he asked for the flag is going to melt your heart.  He wanted it so he could do The Pledge of Allegiance at home.  He told his mom that he loved doing the Pledge at school, so he wanted to be able to do it at home, too!  Awwwwww. 

Here are a couple pics of him with his brand new American flag!

Seeing my nephew so excited about a “school” activity really made me think about how much influence we really have on our students.   I think we all realize how much our students learn the basics from us….like Reading, Math, Science, etc.  But sometimes I know I’ve been guilty of forgetting that they pretty much learn EVERYTHING from us.  

When my sister set the flag up for my nephew, he hugged it 

and said "I love this flag.  It's an awesome flag."  

In honor of my nephew and of course, that "awesome flag", I created a fun forever FREEBIE that you can use with your own special students....or even with that special person in your life who might want to do the Pledge at home.

I hope you'll visit our blog again.  Don't forget there will be a new blog post each and every day of 2014!  Make sure you're following along so you don't miss anything!