Labor Day Book and Activities Labor Day is coming up. Your social studies standards require you teach national holidays as well as different workers and the jobs they do. However,    ELA programs have a required sequence topics. Your day is full and you have time for a 0 minute lesson for Social Studies. How do you fit it all in? This resource gives you everything you need to teach the standard: Identify national holidays and describe the people and/or events celebrated. With a nonfiction book and supporting activities, it can be done in one   What’s included:   * Nonfiction book with the history of the Labor Day holiday in age appropriate explanation. There are 12 different jobs with a brief description about what workers do. It included pages to show how the holiday is celebrated today. * Hat Template * Writing prompt page- Draw or write something you learned about Labor Day. * Matching activity- Six jobs are represented with a worker, students will draw a line to the tools they us...
Students using too much soap?  Students using too many paper towels? Students forgetting to flush the toilet? Students putting the toilet paper in the trashcan?  All typical and normal the first week of school. The bathroom at school looks a little different from the one at home, or even preschool. Teaching students the procedures for keeping the restroom clean are just as important as all other classroom routines.  These simple signs provide visuals you can put up to remind the students how to keep the restroom clean. Includes:     Toilet Paper in the Trash     Remember to Flush      Wash Your Hands     1 pump of Soap  or  2 Pumps of Soap     1 Paper Towel    or    2 Paper Towels     Paper Towels in the Trash They are available in a variety of styles:      Heros     Patterns   Check out these and my elephant themed room decor set. ...
 Aw, back to school time. The joy of meeting your students for the first time!  Learning names Making new friends Excited students Creating a school family Practicing routines and procedures Then reality sets in.... Labeling all the supplies Putting away all the supplies Getting to lunch on time Remember to go to Related Arts (Specials) Assessing all the students, usually one on one OH MY!  How do I get it all done while keeping the students engaged and on task?  The activities you do that first week should be review work so the students can complete it independently. My Digital Counting Puzzles review counting skills including 1 to 5, 1 to 10, and 1 to 20 using common school photos as the finished puzzle. Assign via Google Classroom of your learning management system. Students will complete the puzzles by dragging and dropping the numbers in the correct order.  Check out this and other Back to School resources in my TpT store. ...
 I have needed to be creative for a while now. I just couldn't get motivated.  Today, I just went for it. Well, sort of... After changing my mind on a topic multiple times. Then searching for clip art, deciding on a color palette, picking fonts, creating, deleting, finally decidig to go for it.....  Here is the final piece. ...
It is coding time in the library. Don’t get me wrong, coding sites, activities, and robots are available all year long. The Learning Resources mice and Botley are great to teach beginning coding. The simple commands and grid like movements mean all students are successful.   Last year I found the Qubo robot. The puzzle cards make it possible for all students to code. i have classes for three day s in a row; I teach the students to use the free play mode after they have used the puzzle pieces. It is just that in the spring I bring out the big guy, DASH. The variety of apps provide students with different learning experiences. I focus on using the Wonder app. However, the students have to use the Free Play or the ??? option. I tell them we have other options for simple coding and DASH is not a remote control. You must code!   The free play is perfect for all my learners. The image icons and simple arrow for connecting the code mean that no reading skills are required. Once again, creatin...
Number Path Games We had a parent workshop last week. Our math coach presented number paths to the parents. Since I have been in the media center for four years, that was a new term for me. I did what I do  best, I learned about it.  Here’s what I learned: I realized that I was using number paths when I taught kindergarten and first grade, I just needed to learn the phrase Number Path. They are a counting tool and help students recognize numbers, one-to-one correspondence, and more.  I  created them using Carson Dellosa accent pieces or sticky notes. I had file folder games with a path of numbers for counting. I taught math with games when possible.  As an educator I am always learning new things. I enjoy this part of my job, so much that I will learn about Math, even when I am in the library right now. :)  For more information check out The National Association for the Education of Young Children article....
 I prefer to learn a new software program or technical skill by watching a video or having instructions with images. This way I know what to expect the screen to look like, where on the screen to find the information, what button to push, and what action might happen.  When I am training, I use the same technique. I like to make presentations for the learners with visuals and step by step instructions. Here is a sample I made for my students. I have done this for trainings I have done with other teachers. ...
  During remote and hybrid learning I got asked questions about our educational software by parents and teachers. I found the best way to provide the answer was through a quick screencast. This allowed the person to see exactly the steps I was taking, buttons to push, etc. ...
As a member of the district Digital Learning Team I designed and presented professional development to teachers on a variety of educational software. One was ActivInspire. I was trained on many of the resources within Inspire and led a year-long cohort with 10 teachers.  Click on the folder image to go to the folder with examples from the cohort. The original documents were ActivInpsire files and had interactive elements to show teachers. ...
I have collaborated with administration to create the rotation schedule for the related arts classes, music, PE, computers, science lab, and library, for 3 years. This is the schedule for this year. As you can see there are multiple classes that must be scheduled each day. I also keep track of the school calendar and match up the correct rotation day so teachers have a reference chart to track the changing schedule. Check out the schedules by clicking on the images below.   ...
Rural life   I’ve read several articles about the return to office, continuing remote work, or hybrid situations. I have heard several reasons why people don't want to return to the office. But the discussions leave out another segment of the population. Rural employees. I know, I am one. We are rural, not because we escaped the city, because we needed to move closer to help out family, etc.  We live in rural areas because someone in our family has a profession that can only be done by living in the country. Until recently, those of us who live the rural life were limited with our career possibilities; teaching, retail work, medical/dental work, and possibly a few other businesses in the area. But thanks to working remote, we can apply for anything. We can be coders, trainers, customer success managers, recruiters, and more. I could list the plethora of corporate job titles but you see my point. These jobs were not always available to us because we are 100s of miles from the corpor...