Google Frightgeist

A little Halloween Fun, Google's Frightgeist will help you figure out what the most popular costumes are in your area!  Super fun 5 minute time waster :)

https://frightgeist.withgoogle.com/

Google's Cultural Institute

Google's Cultural Institute is an amazing site dedicated to discovering exhibits and collections from museums around the world.  

• Looking for information and photos about The Women at the Revolution of 32? They have it.  
• Looking for copies of the art of Vincent Van Gogh? They have it!
• Can't take your kids to Mongolia, but you want to show them what Mongolia looks like?  They have that too!

Sally Ride EarthKAM

The Sally Ride Earth Kam is an online learning adventure that allow students to capture and view their own photos of the earth.  There are tons of activities surrounding the project that will allow your students to learn more about earth....from space!  Sign up now if you're interested as you must be in the system prior to 11/10 to participate fully.  Click here to get started: https://www.earthkam.org/home

Farming Spotlight: Where does our Food Come from?

Discovery Education is featuring a learning area on farming from Together Counts.  It claims it is relevant only to K-8 but I believe a lot of it could reach to the high school level quite well.  If you are teaching any of the following, this might be worth looking into:

• Farming
• Chickens
• Genetics
• Soil
• Photosynthesis
• Sustainability
• Eggs

Go to the Farming Spotlight site now!

GoNoodle Halloween Week

A great K-5 Resource for making movement in the classroom AND getting ready for Halloween!  Check out these resources I am sharing directly from the GoNoodle Newsletter!

Bones! Bones! Bones! by Awesome Sauce Go Bananas by Moose Tube Cat Party by Koo Koo Kanga Roo Make Some Noise by The KIDZ BOP Kids 400M Sprint with Run With US

60 Ways to Use the Chromebook in the Classrom

Over at Alice Keeler's Blog, she has shared "60 Ways Math Teachers Can Use Google Classroom", although I think most of the suggestions here can be used with ANY teacher.  Go over and check it out: Alice Keeler's Blog

Kahoot!

Have you tried Kahoot lately?  This resource allows you to do quizzes, surveys and discussions in a fun way, using chromebooks, phones or other devices!  Like a game show, students can see questions being posed on the projected screen and follow along on their own device.  This is a great tool, be sure to check it out!  
For Teachers: Getkahoot.com
For student access: kahoot.it

GoNoodle! Learn with movement!!

A great resource for K-5, GoNoodle has great dancing, singing and other motion based activities and videos to get your class learning while moving.  Free sign up, easy to use and fun to play!  Students can also have their own logins but for the time being, will be blocked on some videos due to youtube. 
Visit GoNoodle 

Halloween Math Activities for K-5

Have you seen Gynzy?  Gynzy is a great tool that shares lots of fun interactive lessons for the whiteboard.  In this post, I'm sharing great Math Activities that are themed for Halloween!  

Click on the links or images below to see the lessons.  (You will need to create a gynzy account but don't worry, it's Free and Simple!)

K-2 Counting and Sorting

3-5  Halloween Candy Math Lesson

Candy Count and Sort

Discovery Ed Board Builder

When you or your students login to Discovery Education (In Stanly County, use google.discoveryeducation.com), across the top in the grey button bar, you will see an option for builder tools.  On selecting that menu, then click on Board Builder.

Think of Board Builder as an online, interactive poster.  You or your students can add videos, pictures, text or even documents to demonstrate a topic.  Teachers can use it as a teaching tool to organize all of the items you might use in a lesson.  Students can use it to create boards demonstrating what they have learned (or will learn) on a classroom topic!

K-12 Classroom Discipline Tools

Many Elementary teachers are already using Classroom Dojo as a discipline tool, but for those that haven't explored it yet, take a peek today.  With fun characters and positive as well as negative reinforcement, students and teachers both will love it!  Try Classroom Dojo

Same idea, but for Middle and High School, Classcraft brings gaming into the classroom and helps monitor student behavior at the same time.   

Try Classcraft

K-2 Learn Letters, Numbers and the Keyboard!!

Literacy Center is a great place to take your K-2 students to in the lab to practice their letters, numbers and even learn the keyboard!  Just click on any button to get started and note at the top of each tool, there are levels you can click on depending on where the students are in their learning journey!

Get started! Click here!

Read Alouds Made Easy!

Do you have students that need their tests to be read aloud or students that are struggling with their reading and need a little help?  There is a great extension called "Select and Speak" that can be found in the Google Chrome Store.  It allows students to highlight words that they need help reading and it will read to them!  Check it out! 

Learn to Type!

An Education World article on Keyboarding Education details that 4th grade is about the best time to start teaching students proper keyboarding skills.  Being in a 1:1 environment really allows us to spend a little time each day practicing these skills.

I have several teachers at various levels using Typing Club.  I just revisited it again for the first time in a while and I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the structure of the lessons.  This program teaches you how to sit and allows a lot of practice in a game-type atmosphere.  Check it out!

Go to Typing Club now

Read, Write, Think

Read, Write, Think is an awesome resource that typically gets overlooked.  There are many things available for teachers and students on this site but the one that I want to point out today is the student interactives section.  For those of you with Chromebooks, these tools can be a great accompaniment to projects, a fun way to introduce a lesson, or a fun activity to enhance any lesson!  They're almost all customizable to what you are teaching and there is something here for everyone!!! 

Click here to get started at readwritethink.org

A few interactives I'd like to point out:
BioCube: 
This works for just about any lesson.  There are Biography Cubes, Mystery Cubes, Story Cubes and Create Your Own Cubes.  This is a printable so when the students are finished, they'll have a cube to assemble with information about their topic.  

The Letter Generator: 
This resource walks students through writing a friendly or business letter.  For all ages, this is an important skill and a great way to practice writing too!

Literary Graffiti: 
Literary Graffiti allows students to explore comprehension through drawing and writing.  This is built for high school students, but there is a lower grade version of the same called Doodle Splash: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/doodle-splash-30022.html

Trading Card Creator: 
A great tool for creating cards of Authors, Historical figures, Heroes, Classmates, and more!  This is just a really fun way to share information in a quick way.  

Google Classroom: Adding a Second Teacher

Are you working with another teacher on a project?  Consider creating a separate "Google Classroom" just for that project, especially if it is a long term project.  Then, you can also invite that teacher so that both of you can create assignments, answer student questions and participate in project discussions as needed.  It's super easy to do so!  View the video below for help
Can't see the video, Click Here

Google Classroom Assignments: Make a copy for all students

Google Classroom is an amazing tool!  You can create an assignment in Google Docs complete with instructions, then assign a copy to each student.  This is great when you need answers/information from each student rather than allowing them to just "view" the assignment.
In this scenerio, the students each get a copy of the document you created with their name already in the title of the document.  This is great when you're assigning written papers, journals, open ended questions, labs, etc.
The video below will help you find out how to set an assignment and create a copy for each student.
Can't see the video? Click Here