Prezi

My new fave technology tool!!!

 I love to use Powerpoints and have quite a few that I've used every year, but now that has changed! While attending a teacher training, I HAD to ask the instructor a question.....unfortunately for him it had nothing to do with his presentation. I wanted to know about the cool bubbly map-type slideshow he had just shown...His face dropped a lil but he told me it was created using Prezi, and then added that I could find his presentstion there.....yeah sure I'll look for that later..... Well I went home to Google it and there it was. There is a free account and an account you pay for that keeps your slideshows private (as I've said before I don't believe in keeping teacher ideas secret or make a profit, we're all in it for the same idea of helping kids right?). To get started, I created a new branches of government Powerpoint to embed in the program...there are other ways to use Prezi, this was just how I decided to start..... Introducing the 3 branches is a SS standard and my school celebrates Constitution Day (Sept 17) so I had created a long drawn out Powerpoint that was great but boring now going into the 7th year. Thus the new creation of the government slideshow! I'm still working out the kinks, but was too excited not to share, more than likely I will go back and edit or change, but as the first day of school is approaching for many of us I decided to share right away....Enjoy!

Prezi link

I'm thinking I will have fill in the blank notes for the students to follow along in their SS journal.

FB page my way

So I LOVED the idea of doing a Facebook page activiy on the first day of school because I implement Edmodo (Facebook for the classroom) when enough students have access to computers at home and this would be cute to jumpstart, but I just could not wrap my head around paying for it!....I'm cheap by any means neccessary...So that only left one solution: create it myself! Of course it doesn't look excatly like the one floating around or your exact FB page but I left room open for students to get creative if they wished. I think I'm going to have students start it in class and take it home to finish......I have them take home their dolls to create so I figured this would be easy enough. Below I've left my Scribd link (really starting to love that website)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/101009736

Classroom jobs

In the past (and this year also) I do a whole year economic project where the students are paid and pay rent. Well with this type of project I didn't like the typical classroom job names, so I made them a little more......realistic sounding. Not everyone has a job (although they can earn their money other ways) and jobs are rotated every 4-5 weeks depending on what's going on. I do teach the students how to fill out a job application.....I know it's old fashion with paper and pencil, but same ideas and I have yet to figure out how to have students fill out an application online.........and after applications are filled out, they interview. We discuss what to wear to an interview, eye contact, and .........for lack of better words how to sell themselves. Let's be honest that's what an interview is! You're hyping the boss up why you are the best. The kids actually do really well interviewing and its a few minutes I get to know the kids without talking about an assignment...............Below I have attached my job descriptions and application

http://www.scribd.com/doc/100667299

Feel free to ask questions OR give me ideas of how you handle jobs in your rooms!
And I have done some Googling but have yet to figure out this whole picture thing

Spelling contracts

I'm very BIG into contracts for homework......math ones to be uploaded later...... The last few years completion of HW has dropped significantly, but once I implemented contracts, something new and fresh for them, the rate of completion went up. (don't get me wrong I still have some students that rarely do any!) When it comes to spelling, I follow the Harcourt Trophies spelling words (although I do teach novels more than all the stories in the series). The worksheets I tend to do in class as Independent or Partner work..........I also give my spelling test Monday. My mentor always had and I thought that was just weird, but I noticed a difference in her scores so I decided to give it a shot. (now I understand she also teaches different and their are numerous factors for her scores but I'm always down to try something!) Below is the link : (only bad part is you can't see the font of the title  which is Scrabble letters, again I downloaded it from www.fontgardens.com )

http://www.scribd.com/doc/100289839/Spelling-Contract

Still don't know how to link documents easily. Going to have to do some asking!

Words With Winder

A little play on Words With Friends. One day as I was feeding my addiction (searching on Pinterest) I saw another teacher had made a Words With Friends (or let's be honest Scrabble) board to play in the classroom. I loved the idea and was off running to the workroom. I took two poster boards, the yard stick , and a marker and was off and running. The squares are about 2 by 2 ............ok I can't remember I made it back in January and was just creating off the top of my head.......after creating the board 15 by 15 I laminated it. Now here is where I would have changed my board, all the special places I taped on AFTER laminating instead of before. Now the placement of the special squares ( double letter, double word, triple letter, triple word) I just sat with my Words app open and a Scrabble board next to me. To create the letters I took card stock and ruler and created 2 by 2 squares....or at least I think they were 2 by 2........ To know how many of each letter and value, I just Googled Scrabble squares. (I laminated these pieces as well. Then I bought velcro squares and got to sticking on the back of the letter pieces and the board. As you will notice in the board I ran out of velcro so we used tape until I made it back to the store (i.e. payday)...... The kids had a basic idea of how to play and actually took to it rather well and quickly, they did have problems scoring at times, but they always asked what to do.....The students played in groups of 3 whenever they had Independent time and we used a sign to signal who's turn it was. I will be implementing it again this year (along with Boogle) since I'm going for a board game theme this year. Hope this helps and would love suggestions or ideas for other "board game" type games.........Homeworkopoly is in the works

Frustrated

A little frustrated at how many things I left in my classroom that would be so nice to post here.....I know it's a lil over a month before I report back (August 22nd) and I will then be in a blogging frenzy , or at least that's what I tell myself, but after traveling from blog to blog I feel my page is a little .........empty.......bare.........boring! :( However, I will figure out this blogging world and hopefully have a few followers and share ideas while getting even more............Also thought about changing the name of this to Winder's Wonderful World, but that just seemed too self-absorbed, and let's be honest kinda lame to.......well that's enough of my scatterbrain thoughts....

Birthday cards

I have to admit at how bad I was last year with the students' birthdays. We no longer are allowed to celebrate in the classroom so I unfortunately let it fall by the waste side. To help correct this problem, I decided to premake cards ready to go, only having to sign them and give with a pencil.................but before I post this, I just thought about the font! The font may not come through because I used fonts I downloaded from www.fontgarden.com . Still I hope it helps someone!

Click here

I printed these on Avery Business Cards 8371

Soooooooo

I'm new to this and don't know how well I'll do, but I'm giving it a shot. I also started this because after sampling so many awesome ideas from others, I felt it was only right to balance the teaching world and share some of my ideas........that's assuming anyone even comes to my page and read this. ;)