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I've decided to start a new weekly tradition... a "Technology Tip Thursday" post!  So many of you leave me such wonderful comments on my Technology Tuesday posts and I just love that! I keep thinking that I have so many little tech tips that don't really warrant adding to the poll or writing a long tutorial on, so I thought it would be fun to post these little tips every Thursday in addition to my Technology Tuesday tutorial! Most of the tips will be for Microsoft PowerPoint and Word... though some of them will work in other programs as well... just give it a try! So... here's the first little trick! Try it out and let me know how you like it! 

In my previous post about classroom jobs , I mentioned the Action Cup that I use in my class.  Many of you were curious about it, so I'm writing up a whole post about it! I use the action cup in so many ways!  I have an "Action Cup Helper" as a job.  Each time we transition from one activity to the next, or from our carpet seats to our chairs, the action up helper picks a student to choose an action, then the entire class does that action while they move to the next activity I also use the action cup to work on counting and skip counting daily during morning meeting.  The morning helper brings the cup to all of the boys or all of the girls to pick various actions to do while they count aloud. I start off the year with only a handful of actions in the cup, then add more throughout the year.  Every once in a while, I have the class pick new actions to add to the cup.  Here are the actions that were in my cup at the end of the year: brush your teeth clap your hands cry lik

It's Tuesday again, and we are finally getting around to the long awaited tutorial... how to browse YouTube Safely in the Classroom! This has been a close contender in the poll for weeks, but this week it finally beat out the other options! Now... I have to tell you when I first stumbled across this website, I had a "duh" moment!  I wonder if you'll have the same experience when you see the title of the website: The website does have a disclaimer that it filters videos as much as it can, but that it might not catch 100% of them.  That being said, I've never had any issues while browsing it!  The site is pretty self-explanatory, but I typed out a quick tutorial for you anyway! You can download this tutorial as a PDF by clicking this picture! Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Docs.  To save it from there, just open the file and click File > Download to save onto your computer!   For those of you interested in saving the videos from YouTube onto your comput

I'm going to do a "meet a character from Watersong" post, along with a giveaway of some of the character's favorite things. It's just a quick questionnaire that introduces the characters, as well as a pictures of actors that resemble how I imagined them. Ellen Page is how I pictured Marcy, but more montone Full Name : Marcy Dayton Baker Birthday : November 13 Age : 25 Zodiac :Scorpio Boy or Girl : Girl High School :Capri High School College : Some Job : I work at the Capri Public Library Hair Color :Black Eye Color : Brown Height : 5'5" Piercing/Tattoos : One on my hip. Boyfriend/Girlfriend :Yeah, right. Best Friend :Harper, I guess. Last person you talked to :Harper Last person you texted :Harper Last song you listened to : B-52s - "Rock Lobster" Favorite Movie : Plan-9 From Outerspace Favorite Bands : Carly Simon or Bats for Lashes Favorite Books : Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak or Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker Favorite Food :B

Today was my first day setting up my classroom and I am wiped out!  I'm loving it so far, and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures to post when I'm done!  In the meantime a lovely follower had a great idea... we all have our labels for our math manipulatives... but what about all of our literacy manipulatives? The magnetic letters, letter stamps, flash cards, etc. I decided to create cute literacy manipulative labels that coordinate with my math labels... click the picture below to check them out! Here are the math labels that coordinate with them:

I'm home again! Both my online book tour, and the real life book tour across the country are over now. It was great meeting everyone, and thank you to everyone that came out and made Wake 's release so great. I plan on doing a longer post later about the tour with more detail, but right now, I'm just going to end with a picture of what I came home to: Elroy and Sophie

I'm starting to go through my plans for the beginning of the year and I found a bunch of things that I want to add to my blog... and many of them I'll be adding as freebies!  Soo... here's the first freebie!  Years ago I learned the first verse of this song from a preschool teacher at my previous job.  So, my first year teaching Kindergarten, I obviously used it a LOT with my kiddos.  I was absolutely amazed when my students added new verses to the song!  That's right... my students wrote the second and third verses of this song !  I absolutely love how creative they were and I use all three verses with my students nowadays!  I added this file to TPT as a PowerPoint file so you can insert your own name into it, and I even embedded the font into the document so it should load up on your computer perfectly.  I haven't actually done the embedding before so I hope it works! Click the picture below to download the song! How do you get your kiddos to remember to write the

The number one way I have found to stop kids from fidgeting in class is to let them get all of their energy out another way! I make it a point sporadically throughout the day to do exercise songs in class!  It makes a MAJOR difference it getting kids to sit still the rest of the time! I have a lot of exercise activities that I do with them that are academic in nature, but sometimes we just need a brain break!  I found a ton of songs on YouTube that are just perfect for this! I used my little YouTube trick below to save these videos into a folder on my computer so I can pull them up easily on the Smart Board.  Before you say it... I will: " When am I supposed to have time to do this in class!?  My day is already full! " Most of these songs are 2-3 minutes long... and I know that when my kids fidget I sometimes spend more than 2-3 minutes to get them back on task... so you're not taking extra time to do this, you're just re-purposing your time! Anyway... here are my f

I'm getting geared up for the beginning of the year and I decided to make some cutesy Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Handwriting pages!  You can click the picture below to grab it at TPT! Each of the pages has directions to help the kids write the letters.  I can't wait to do it with my kiddos, I think it will be a cute little booklet for them to keep! I'm so ready for the first week (even though it's not for a few more weeks)... even if I'm not ready for waking up at 5am!  Is everyone else getting ready for back to school or are you back in school already?  I find it so bizarre that across the U.S. we're all on different school schedules, but I guess it all works out somehow!  Even if it means we get to watch people talking about "5 days left" on their blog while we've still got 2 months left!  Right!?

It's Tuesday again, so obviously it's time for another technology tutorial!  This one is definitely one of my favorite... how to make a collage of pictures in any shape you want! This poll won by a pretty large margin, but there were definitely some other contenders... it'll be interesting to see what wins next week! Now, onto the tutorial!  This tutorial uses the program Shape Collage , which you can download by clicking that link.  You can download this tutorial as a PDF by clicking this picture! Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Docs.  To save it from there, just open the file and click File > Download to save onto your computer! I have so many ideas for how I want to use this program in the classroom this year!  Primarily, I want to make a collage of photos of my students in the shape of the Cat in the Hat's hat... but I think it has tons of other uses as well! My students always seem to struggle with the "Which one does not belong?" questions on

I am absolutely in love with these new cootie catches that I made!  I've been meaning to make this for a while, and I finally knocked it off my to do list!  Click the picture below to grab all of the Dolch Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, and 3rd Grade words!  This document has 71 pages and is available in black and white! This set addresses the common core standards CCS:K.RF.3c, CCS:K.RF.3d, CCS:1.RF.3g, CCS:2.RF.3F, and CCS:3.RF.3d!  Click the picture below to download it at TPT! Also, as a request from Erin I'm adding the frame for your own use!  You're more than welcome to use this frame for personal use or in your TPT paid/free items, just be sure to give credit to me for creating it!  Enjoy! To save the file, just click the image to get to the higher quality picture, then right click (or Mac: Ctrl + Click) to save the image onto your computer!  Let me know what you think!

I added a flash giveaway to the bottom of my post from yesterday!  Thanks to everyone who entered!  The book(s) I'm currently reading is the Hunger Games Trilogy!  I finished the first one in two days and I'm on the second one now.  I was so nervous that they'd be gory but they're not at all! Congrats to Tanya at First Grade is Fantabulous ! and Deneise McGowan for being the first two people to guess correctly!  I'll be sending you the file soon!

I'm going to do a "meet a character from Watersong " post. It's just a quick questionnaire that introduces the characters, as well as a pictures of actors that resemble how I imagined them. This week, it's Daniel Morgan, one of the leads and love interests in Wake . Daniel Johns as "Daniel." The former-lead-singer of Silverchair may not be an actor, but he is named Daniel, so its serendipity. Also, he's foxy. And Australian. Daniel is on my favorite cover (along with Penn) Full Name : Daniel Grant Morgan Birthday : September 1st Age : 20 Zodiac :Virgo Boy or Girl : Boy High School :Capri High School College : None Job : Handyman Hair Color :Dirty blonde Eye Color : Hazel Height : 6'1" Piercing/Tattoos : I had my left ear pierced in high school, but the hole grew closed. I have a large tattoo on my back. Boyfriend/Girlfriend : I've been single for awhile now. Best Friend : I'm between best friends, I guess Last person you talked to :P

Back in April I started to make these adorable race car centers for the common core standards but I never finished them!  So today I made it my goal to finish them... and I did! There are five ELA centers: Phonics Bingo (Beginning Sounds) (CCS.K.RF.3ab, CCS:K.RF.1d) Middle Vowel Drivers (Middle Vowel Sounds in CVC words) (CCS:K.RF.2d, CCS:K.RF.3ab, CCS:1.RF.2c) Race Through a Word (Reading CVC & CVCe Words) (CCS:K.RF.2cd, CCS.K.RF.3ab, CCS:1.RF.2b, CCS:1.RF.3bc) Digraphs Keys (Beginning Digraphs sh, ch, wh, and th) (CCS:1.RF.3a) Race to Read Words (Pre-Primer, Primer, and 1st Grade Dolch Words) (CCS:K.RF.1ab CCS:K.RF.3cd, CCS:1.RF.3g) Math Centers: Race for More and Less (Comparing groups of objects to 20) (CCS:K.CC.4abc CCS:K.CC.5, CCS:K.CC.6, CCS:K.NBT.1 CCS:1.NBT.2ab) Road War (More and Less Using Numbers) (CCS.K.CC.4c, CCS:K.CC.6, CCS:K.CC.7, CCS:1.NBT.2ab, CCS:K.NBT.3 All the centers are available in color and black and white! :) Skip Counting Race (Skip Counting by 10s

While planning for Under the Seapalooza , I was trying to come up with some fun ideas for things to and asked for input. Nikki Jefford (author of Entangled and the awesome guest post & giveaway, which you should check out: here ) came up with the idea for weekly "Show & Tell" memes. Here's how it works: Unlike ongoing meme’s, this one is temporary - every Thursday throughout the month of Under the Seapalooza . Each week, I'll show off my favorite something (this week it's bookmarks), then you show off your favorite thing and enter to win a prize. This is the schedule for Show & Tell Thursdays: July 25th - Bookmarks August 2nd - eReader Skins August 9th - Journals August 16th - Book Trailers    I'll be honest - I love trailers for anything. Movies, books, TV shows, you name it, and I like it. I've seen many book trailers popping over the last couple years, and I've decided to show you a couple of my favorite. The first one is for Jenny

There are so many possibilities for classroom jobs, and the kids just love them!  I always have one job for each student in my class!  I just added a bunch more jobs to my job chart set, and I added a jungle themed job chart by request! Here's the jungle themed set... I had a blast making the textures for the jungle theme and it really made me think about making a whole jungle classroom theme! But I think I love my Dr. Seuss theme too much! Here are the jobs I use in my classroom (and a few that I don't use since I don't have enough kids for all these jobs!): Line Leader Door Holders Table Helper Easel Eraser Sanitizer Helper Messenger : To bring the attendance folder (and anything else needed) to the office). Lights Helper Smartboard Helper : To turn on/off the smartboard when we use it. Homework Helper : To stamp the homework and hand out homework folders when it's time to pack up. Librarian : To be sure that all of the books are in the right bin and are nice and neat

I am so excited to write this post because it is my 100th post on my blog and my 20th Technology Tuesday post!  I never expected to write 100 posts in the five months I've had this blog!  I really do enjoy it though! Now, onto today's post... how to save a powerpoint slide with a transparent background! This poll was a real nail biter!  I was really nervous it would end up being a tie! Luckily, it wasn't a tie!  I'm really excited to blog about this fantastic idea that Mercedes over at Surfing to Success gave to me!  She has a ton of technology tutorials on her blog also so you should definitely check it out! Now, onto the tutorial! And of course, you can have those two cute star images for free! To download this tutorial as a PDF, just click the button below.  I decided to host the files on Google Docs instead of TPT and hopefully I'll get the other posts up soon! Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Docs.  To save it from there, just open the file and click Fi