How I got a $4,000 Smart Board from Donors Choose!      

Have you started an account at www.donorschoose.com  ??  Over the school year I got 8 Chromebooks and a full class set of headphones. Just this summer I got a $4,000 Smart Board! Donors Choose is a site where teachers select items they want and write a short description about your class and what the items will be used for. Donors can choose classrooms to support and if your project is fully funded within 4 months the items are shipped to your school! Be warned: once you get a project funded it becomes addicting. I'm relatively new to this so I know I have a lot to still learn, but here are some suggestions that I have picked up. My biggest secrets first. #1, look for the "Funding Opportunities" when you go to projects in your account. Businesses and even Anonymous donors often have things that they will match $ to $ for and sometimes even pay everything until only $100 is left. Google offered half funding for projects that serviced special needs and Craigslist paid $900 of a $1,000 Chromebook project because some of the students I teach have families in the military. Recently I was able to get a $4,000 Smart Board funded by getting half from a funding opportunity from an anonymous donor and then asking my technology director to pay the remaining half! It doesn't hurt to ask! Here are some of the other more basic suggestions that I have picked up. The site says that projects under $400 are easier to get funded so I started my first under this amount. I have learned that it helps to donate a small amount to my project first so that it doesn't look like it hasn't received any funding. You can do this anonymously and everything you donate is tax deductible so it's a win, win. A friend had a co-worker and her husband do the same so it already looks like she has 3-4 donors as soon as her project is posted. This seems to really help with motivating strangers to donate too. Her principal even posts her page on their school's Facebook page and that has helped her get parents to donate. I like to send a flier home explaining the project. I work in a poor district, but every donation helps and this has worked well for my 6th grade classroom. I have also learned to search the Internet for "Donors Choose coupon codes." Burlington paid half last Christmas time with a code I found that way! It looks like Thanksgiving-Christmas time is the time a lot of funding opportunities come out so if you don't see any now don't give up.  Try it! I have over $6000 of materials with very little effort! The teacher I told this to already got $4,000 worth of funding in 2 months! 

Setting up a Responsive Classroom and Morning Meetings

FREE RESOURCES

I was introduced to the concept of Morning Meetings by a fellow teacher and I immediately fell in love with it's 4 step process.  I have ordered the book The Morning Meeting Book by Roxann Kriete and can't wait to explore it.  What I really wanted to share today are some of the amazing free resources that I have found for both The Morning Meeting and the other two parts of The Responsive Classroom: Teacher Language and Logical Consequences.  I have posted the free resources that I have found so far that I plan to use in my class on my Freebies Page (see Freebie Topic #1).  I'm dedicating this post however to the amazing resources that I found today at the following link: 

http://effectiveclassroom.sfinstructionalresources.wikispaces.net/Morning+Meeting

The image to the left is a screenshot of some of the resources available for free download!  This saved me so much money in buying resources for more ideas for morning greetings and activities!  We're talking about a 60 page book of games and activities (GamesActivitiesBook - 204KB) and a 35 page book of morning greetings (GreetingsBook - 171KB).  The Greetings List (64KB) and the Activities List (328KB) have even more activities.  There is also a Morning Meeting Template that sets up a 5day grid layout to plan for the 4 parts to the Morning Meeting.  While you're checking this link click on the Rules and Logical Consequences and Teacher Language hyperlinks on the left side bar for even more resources for these parts of The Responsive Classroom!!  I have just started looking at these, but what a treasure!  I've been looking into classroom management ideas to help improve my class and even school climate.  I definitely think The Responsive Classroom and Morning Meetings will help with this  :-)   I look forward to sharing some of my experiences and hopefully successes in implementing these tools this school year! Thank you Sioux Falls School District for posting these resources!! (Don't forget to check out and follow my Freebies Page to see other freebies that I find related to this and other topics.  Please share your own amazing freebie finds!!)

It Worked! I Made a Ledger Size Standing Flip Chart Out of Two Binders!!

I so excited! I don't have a ton of room in my class for several anchor charts, but I really want to have ready access to them for morning meetings, brain breaks, and other activities.  Here's what I did.  I made an extra long flip chart binder by cutting the cover off of one binder and duct taping it to extend the length of the cover of another (see the pictures to the right).  Now I can put ledger size paper in it and use it as an 11 by 17 inch flip chart that stands on a table!  I can't wait to use this!




I love duct tape! :-)

                   

Have You Seen this Book Creating App?

Creative Book Builder App

I recently received 6 iPods and 1 iPad mini to use in my classroom and have been on the pursuit this summer to learn how to set them up and what all I can do with them.  The answer to that last part is IT'S ENDLESS (I know I just shouted, but it's true!).  I started a page in this blog for tech and apps that I plan to post all of the apps and things that I discover about this and other technology that I use in my classroom.  Most apps I'm using are free, but this one is worth the $4.99 - trust me!  It's called Creative Book Builder.  This app can be used professionally and by the students.  I plan to use it with my 4th grade class.  It does everything!  I created a template of a book I want students to work on in small groups for our matter unit.   did this by setting up the chapter titles specific to the content we will be learning and making a glossary of words for students to define (I like to have students rewrite meanings and include examples by "writing it for a first grader to understand").  The app will allow students to do pretty much anything and then save it as an EPUB or PDF format. The app will upload it to Dropbox or other cloud drives, email it, and even send a copy to your iBooks app so that their book truly becomes an e-book.  As I said, students will be able to include all types of content.  Text, pictures, videos (they run within the book), even record their voice (they can make it highlight words in their story as they read it or have the page automatically say a message about a page when the reader turns to it.  Students can draw pictures, make charts and graphs within the app, make actual interactive quizzes that give the reader the answers upon completion, and include music or sounds from their device to play within the book as background or upon a given page.  And that's after I just used it a few days! A great web page I found that offers pictures, a video, and great detail about how to use is called "Using Creative Book Builder at Every Level of Bloom's" at http://www.appsinclass.com/creative-book-builder.html. My goal this year is to get an Apple TV so that everything we do on any device can be viewed wirelessly on the Smart Board. I plan to go to our PTO and beg for their assistance!  If fact my tech page will help me show them everything that the class can do :)  I would love to hear from anyone that uses iPods or iPads in the classroom regarding cool apps that you use!

Ok, this is my first blog entry!  Why start now?  Well, for one my husband is tired of listening to me.  I need a sounding board.  I love my job, but teaching can truly make you feel like you're in your own world or universe.  When the kids go to bed (4 and 8) I get out my work or computer and I'm off entering my "Teacheropolis" world.  Sometimes I wish that I had a desk job, where my feet didn't hurt and everything I did was appreciated.  Then a kid gives me a drawing with me as "the best teacher ever" or the kid that never answers a question actually volunteers and is correct and I'm back to feeling like I am where I belong.

I would like to use this blog to post both sides to my Teacheropolis world: the parts that make me frustrated and crazy, and the parts that keep me grounded and appreciative of what I have and what I do.  Unless you're a teacher it's hard to understand how rewarding and challenging our job can be.  There are times I'm in love with it and times I think I want a different job (often during the same hour).  There are times when I believe my being a teacher was a definite calling and times I think I should have taken a different call.  Feel free to add your own comments and entries whether they're warm and fuzzy or a sign that you would be better beating your head into a wall.