Welcome back everyone! I hope you have an awesome first day meeting your new cherubs. I have put together an email to update you on the changes of some of the programs the district pays for and some of the free ones that we use. I also created it as an article on my blog if you prefer to view it in a more friendly form. (Article Link) As always, let me know if you need help implementing these or any technology tools in your classroom.
Mystery Science - Paid for by Curriculum. Please click on the link and create an account if you don't already have one. There is a brand new Mystery for Back to School geared towards any grade level. For your convenience Mystery Science has added a tab for all mini lessons as well. They come out weekly.
BrainPopJr and BrainPop - Paid for by Technology. Students and teachers can access all short educational clips plus other features 24/7. Please shoot me an email if you don't know the login password. You can also use the code if you want to set up a class and track your student quiz scores.
Freckle (Formerly Front Row) - Paid for by Curriculum. Since there are many new features, I have pasted the link to explanations for each of the new features.
Here's what's new:
- A new look for the teacher dashboard
- New fiction stories in ELA Skills Practice
- Sharing and transferring students is easier than ever
- New ELA skills domain for Claims and Evidence
- New state standards alignment
- ELA articles are grouped by category for students
- Answer keys for Inquiry Based Lessons
- Spanish audio support is rolling out into the math domains
- Teachers can update a student’s coin balance
- Middle school constructed response questions
- ELA standards page
- ELA Groups Report now includes standards
- Simplified K-2 student screens
- Freckle Text Levels
Seesaw - Free! Awesome for student digital portfolios, sharing student work with families, and communicating with parents. Seesaw has a crazy amount of activities for you to use with your students now.
Epic! Books for Kids - Free! Bring thousands of books to your classroom without taking up precious classroom space. If you don't have an account already, sign up for a free educator account here.
Ideas for using Epic! via their website...
10 Creative Ways to use Epic! in the Classroom
1. Use Epic! for the "Listening" portion of Daily 5 using Read-to-Me and Audiobooks
2. Project Epic! on your interactive whiteboard to teach a specific skill or strategy
3. Use non-fiction books for research projects, such as reports on animals
4. Students create a "wish list" of books and then partner up to explain that list
5. Epic! is perfect for Read Aloud, Shared Reading & Independent Reading Time
6. Students create book reviews and recommend favorites to classmates
7. Expose students to different expressions and intonations using Read-to-Me books
8. Perform experiments using ideas in Epics!'s STEM books
9. Create book commercials using multimedia tools such as iMovie, Telestory, or Chatterpix
10. Compare two books by the same author
(I would like to add to number 9 some more tools like GreenScreen, Spark Video, Book Creator, or Draw & Tell.)
Let me know if you would like me to sit with you to discuss any of these tools or model a lesson in your classroom.
