New MakerSpace in Our Media Center

If you follow me on Instagram, you may remember that I was awarded a Bright Ideas Grant back in October.

Before we left for the break, the items I ordered with the grant began trickling in.  It was so exciting!

Many of the items were new to me, although I had seen them on other blogs and at conferences, but I had not used them myself.  So I was super excited to play with them over the break as the last of the items I ordered with the grant came in right before we left for the break.  My seven year old was more than happy to be the guinea pig to try out all of the new gadgets.

To get the students excited about what we will be doing in the Media Center this semester, I set up a display of all the new MakerSpace items that have come in.  The students oohed and ahhed as they came in to check out books.  They wanted to know how they could "win those cool prizes."  =D  They were a little sad that I wasn't giving them away, but were happy to know that they would get to use them in the media center.

So what all do we now have in our MakerSpace?

• 2 Spheros
• 1 Sphero Sprk
• 1 Ollie

• 3 Ozobots
• 2 littleBits Synth Kits
• 2 littleBits Base Kits

  

• 1 Classroom Kit of Osmos which includes
•    4 stands
•    4 Tangrams tiles
•    4 Numbers tiles
•    4 Words tiles
•    Container to store the classroom set

I love how small the storage boxes are for the tangrams, words, and numbers tiles.

• 5 Osmo coding sets (1 I purchased on my own)

I purchased the following with Scholastic Dollars through the Scholastic Catalog:

• 3 MakeyMakey kits
• 2 MakeyMakey travel kits
• 1 Dino robot
• 1 Robot
• 3 Google Cardboard (I got these free from Virizon last year when they were promoting the new Star Wars movie)

I purchased the following on my own with either Book Fair money or TpT earnings:

• 1 single Osmo set which includes
•     1 Tangram tile
•     1 Numbers tile
•     1 Words tile
•     1 Osmo stand

• 1 Osmo Monster set which includes a stand 
• 1 Osmo Pizza 
• 1 Code & Go Robot Mouse
• 1 SnapCircuit Kit
• 1 Little Engineer Kit (similar to Osmo Coding)

I found these guys at 5 Below for only $5!

• 4 VR headsets

I spent the last few days of my break trying to plan new lessons around all the new MakerSpace items we have.  I am so excited about this new venture!

Do you have a MakerSpace in our library media center?  What items should I try to add to our MakerSpace?

The Reading Tent

I hope everyone's year has started off great.  We've had some fun already and have only been back for eight days.

I kept the Reading Tent up for the first two days back since the students came back on a Thursday.

 The kids were sad to see the tent come down, but I promised them it would be back next year.

I was glad I got to keep it up for longer this year because it is a lot of work to put it up, even if it is only made of paper. If you'd like to see how I did it, check out my time lapse video.  I wish it really took only a minute and half to put up.  =)


So that is just a little bit of what we've been up to in January. What about you?

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a fantastic start to their New Year.  I always offer my kiddos new bookmarks when they get back for the New Year.  They snatch them up like they are gold.

You can snatch up your own free New Year's bookmarks in my Teacher's Dojo store.  Just click HERE to get them.

I also have a larger pack of 24 bookmarks which includes 12 colored bookmarks and 12 black and white bookmarks for your students to color. You can purchase this New Year's bookmark pack HERE in my Teacher's Dojo store.

Over the break, I also made a new New Year's freebie...a story starter about New Year's.  It may be too late for you to use it this year, but you can always download it and save it for next year.  You can get it HERE in my Teacher's Dojo store.

If you download any of the freebies, I'd love to hear what you think of them.

Here's to a fabulous New Year! Thanks for reading, my friends.  =)

Christmas Freebies and Center Ideas

Ho! Ho! Ho!  It's been awhile, but I am back with a few quick freebies for you.

I love reading How Santa Got His Job by Stephen Krensky with my littles. It's fun to make the voices of Santa and the elves in the story.  After reading the story, we talk about the story elements of character and plot.

I have posted this freebie before on my blog, but I have recently updated some of the clipart on this freebie and you can now find it in my TpT store.  Just click HERE to snag it now.

While your looking for Christmas books, you might want to set up some Christmas book displays.  Here are some free signs to help you with your displays.  Just click HERE to download them from my Teacher's Dojo store.  If you download them, I'd love to have your feedback on them.  =)

And what Christmas would be complete without some fun Christmas bookmarks?

You can download this set of 4 free bookmarks from my Teacher's Dojo store by clicking HERE.

And if you like those and want more, you can purchase a larger pack of 24 Christmas bookmarks HERE.  This set includes 16 colored book marks and 8 black and white bookmarks for your kiddos to color.

Red and White Shelf Order Center

And if you are looking for some center ideas, these red and white call number sorting center and shelf order center might be just what you are looking for. With the red and white decor, they could also work for Read Across America.  You can find them in my TpT store.  Just click on the pictures to go straight to that product.

Red and White Call Number Sorting Center

If you prefer, there is also a snowman/winter version of each of these:

Winter Shelf Order Center

Winter Call Number Sorting Center

Hope you enjoy!

Fun Fall Fiction and Non-fiction Freebies

I like to focus on the difference between fiction and non-fiction at this time of the year with my kinders and firsties which is great because there are so many great fall and Halloween books to read.

To go along with first grade's apple unit I use these 2 books to talk about fiction and non-fiction...

The Mouse and the Apple by Stephen Butler

The Zieglers and Their Apple Orchard by Alice Flanagan

Using these books, we also begin to talk about character, setting, and plot.

For fun, I use these fun fiction books about fall and Halloween with my kinders...

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams

Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds

These books are also great to use to talk about character, setting and plot.

I have made activity sheets to go along with each of these books and have bundled all of these into one fun freebie for you.  You can download it HERE.  Let me know what you think.

Happy Fall!

New Fall Bookmarks

If you follow my blog at all, you know how much my kiddos LOOOOOOOOVE bookmarks.  I try to make new bookmarks each month, holiday, or season, but I realized I didn't really have any just basic fall bookmarks.  So....

New fall bookmarks are here!

I created a set of 4 free bookmarks which includes 2 color and 2 black and white bookmarks for your kiddos to color.  You can download this FREEBIE  HERE.  Please let me know what you think.

I also created a set of 24 bookmarks which includes 12 colored bookmarks and 12 black and white bookmarks for your students to color.  You  can purchase this pack HERE for $2.00 in my TpT store.

Hope you enjoy!

Where Did September Go?

It's already October.  I feel like I totally missed all of September.  It is such a blur.  I had to leave during the end of August, right before the start of our book fair for a family emergency.  I had to leave so quickly, I didn't even get a picture of the final set up before the fair started. However, I felt very blessed to have some wonderful co-workers and some great volunteers who ran the fair while I was out.   I was out for 6 days and it seems like it took me forever to get back to a routine.

Just as I thought I was about to catch up, the annual West Georgia RESA Technology Conference was upon me and I was out another two days with that.  It was a good conference.  I got to talk with my friend Shannon Miller and I even won a Keurig, although I don't drink coffee. But it's all good because the hubs does drink coffee and his birthday is coming up.

So I thought my luck was changing, but the next week I got two flat tires...in less than 12 hours!  But PTO brought cupcakes that day (my favorite!) and I got an email confirmation that I am registered for my favorite tech conference in November. That made the situation a little less stressful.

The awful back luck continued last week when a nasty viral infection struck me down on Tuesday afternoon. Hard.  I started feeling bad and within an hour I was down for the count.  Although it wasn't the flu, I can't imagine that the flu would have felt much worse.  Everything hurt and then came the sore throat, runny nose, cough, nausea.  I was a walking bedridden Nyquil commercial. I am starting to feel better today, which is good because I really do not need to miss any more work.

In between all the bad luck, I did manage to teach some classes including

Kindergarten and First Grade First Checkouts of the Year

Second Grade Library Centers

You can purchase a copy of the library centers I use HERE in my TpT store.

Third Grade Dictionary Skills

You can read about the Dictionary Dudes and download a free copy HERE.

Fourth and Fifth Grade Fiction Book Hunt with Aurasma

You can read more about the Aurasma book hunt HERE.
NOTE:  Aurasma is now HP Reveal. 

Fourth Grade Non-fiction QR Code Hunt

You can read more about the QR Code Dewey Hunt HERE.

So that was my September.  I really hope that October is less eventful.