School Lunch Lady Superhero Day!

Jarrett J. Krosoczka is honoring lunch ladies around the nation on May 3, 2013.  Cafeteria workers play an important role in our children's lives and rarely get recognition for their hard work.  Take this opportunity to say, "Thank You!" to your school lunch lady.  For great ideas and free printables visit a special website Krosoczka created just for this event School Lunch Lady Superhero Day!  At our high school, each lunch lady will receive an apron that students, staff, and administrators have signed to show their appreciation.    Let's all show our cafeteria workers that they ROCK!!!

Poem In Your Pocket Day!

April is national poetry month! Let's celebrate with a poem in your pocket on April 18th. My students and I are busy creating gigantic pockets for every language arts classroom. We are going to to stuff the pockets with favorite poems.  The students loved going through the poetry books and picking out great poems to use. They chose poems by Langston Hughes, Gary Soto, Shel Silverstein, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Edna St. Vincent Millay just to name a few.  We are also going to give every teacher on campus a poem pertaining their interests or subject they teach along with some sweets! Our language arts teachers are excited to get their pockets and share great poems with the students. For extra information and poems ready to print check out http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406 

Ready for an App Smackdown?

 

 

On Tech Tuesdays and Thursdays, I share tech tools with the teachers and staff at our high school. Yesterday, was our app smackdown. Have you ever thought there are so many great educational apps, but I have so little time to spend researching them?  I created a list.ly to share our apps.  It is a great site to curate information.   I am always amazed at the great apps that are FREE.  Our science teachers love the Virtual Heart and 3D Cell Stain.  Have you viewed The Raven iPad app? It is well worth your time.  One of our teachers stated that he would have nightmares after seeing it!   The California Science Academy has a virtual Penguins app. It allows you to view their penguin habitat in real time.  TinkerBox is a physics app that allows viewers to use levers  and pulleys to create new inventions. Do you want to control your students' iPads and tablet screens as they view your presentation?  Idea Flight and Xavier allow teachers to show a presentation to students and control the slides at the same time. We have used these apps in an English class, and they worked perfectly. Students could not rush ahead or lag behind.  Need Social Studies apps? National Geographic Today, European Exploration, The Presidency, and History Line are just a few of my favorite apps at the moment. Need math help? Try Algebra Touch and Quick Graph. Next, I have to mention Chirp. Instantly share pictures and links just by putting your device close to another and chirping!  I would be remiss if I did not mention Aurasma as well.  This augmented reality app is extremely cool.  Tag images and have them appear virtually!  There are too many great apps to mention them all here in this short post so please go to my app smackdown list and explore!

ReadBox

Instead of RedBox, how about a ReadBox?  No charge for rental of books!  You can keep them for two weeks, and then you have an option to renew them.  We have the latest bestsellers.  Want to hear a summary of the book or view the booktrailer? Just scan the qr code for the book you are interested in reading!  We have free in library pick up and delivery. Did I mention we have free checkout?  Our books can improve your vocabulary, reading comprehension and creativity. Stop by the library today!

The students have enjoyed scanning the codes and viewing booktrailers. We also recorded students reading summaries of books using Vocaroo. We created a qr code from the link and posted it on the ReadBox beside the corresponding book. Have you tried Vocaroo?  It is so easy to use! Need something new? Make a ReadBox for your school!