Flocab free trial

A few weeks ago I blogged about one of my favorite ed-tech sites, Flocab. They are educational raps with accompanying videos. Most even have activities and quizzers. My kids LOVE when it's flocab time! A few of the videos are free, but a subscription is required to view most of them. From now until February 28th, you can sign up for a SCHOOL or DISTRICT wide free trial for 90 days! It's definitely worth a shot, especially with state testing coming up. They have a great test prep video (I blogged about here) and the videos can be sorted by standard so you can address the needs of your kids. 

Sign up for the school or district wide trial here.  If you miss out, don't worry! Teachers can get a 14 day free trial any time by clicking here. 

If you want to see my full post about flocab you can find it here. 

Happy Thursday!

Blogs by Grade & Sunday Scoop

Have you added your link to the Blogs by Grade link up?

If you haven't, you should check it out! It's a directory of teacher blogs, sorted by grade level. I love being able to see all the teachers that are at the same grade level as I am! I read blogs from all grade levels because I often find ideas I can adapt to work for my kiddos, but it's especially nice to see what others are doing with their fifthies.  I had a couple requests, so I just added High School Blogger today.

So, if you haven't, link on up!

Since it's Sunday, I'm linking up for my favorite fun Sunday linky party, The Sunday Scoop with the Teaching Trio.

Happy Sunday, friends- enjoy your week!

You Oughta Know

I'm super pumped to be linking up with Jasmine over at Buzzing with Mrs. McClain for the You Oughta Know blog hop! I love the premise of this blog hop- just share something that you think other teachers should know about. I chose to share my favorite website to help students study- cram.

Cram is a digital and mobile flashcard system to help students study. You can create your own flashcards, or choose ones that others have created and published as "public."

Seriously, it couldn't be easier to search for flashcards, and there are A TON of them available. As I'm writing this there are 96,734,555 flash card sets available to search through.  I did a quick search for "multiplication facts" and come up with 1,073 results.

That isn't to say they were all high quality, some were seriously below my students ability (think ones and twos tables) and some where just plain wrong (5 x 12 will never be 48), but I like the variety available.

I generally use the "create a flashcard the most in my classroom. When we have an upcoming test, I load important terms into Cram. If my students were older, I would ask them to create their own flashcards, but we are still learning to study in addition to learning the information.

In the "description" section I put in my last name in addition to the subject matter to make it easier for the students to find when they search. Once they find the flashcards, they have tons of choices for how to study.

The first way just to use them as traditional flashcards. See the card, check your answer on the back. You can cycle through them over and over again in the order you entered them or in alphabetical order. This isn't the most efficient way to study, in my opinion. Going over the ones you have learned already over and over again isn't the best use of time. 

The "memorize" tab is the one I find most useful. As you go through flashcards, you mark each one as right or wrong as you check your answer. Once you complete the first round, you go through the ones you got wrong again. After you complete that, you are back to going over the ones you got wrong again, and so on. This helps the kids focus on the information they are struggling with and not waste time on things they already know. 

There is also a "test" section, but I am not crazy about it. You have to match the front of the cards to the back of the cards, and it can be seriously confusing. I don't use this option very much. There is a game section, too, but I only let my student use that at home or if they have mastered the current flashcards. For really tough topics, there is also an option to add a hint for the answer. I love that! It gives one more chance to have the information come from the student.

Finally, the app. I love a good app! You can do everything you can do on the website, but on the go. This is where I use them in my own classroom- through our iPads. It's a great way to allow some independent studying. I sometimes use them as a station during classroom learning, as well. 

Best part of all, Cram is free to use. There is an upgrade option if you would like an ad-free experience with image enhanced flashcards, but I have not had a need for it. The ads do get annoying, but not enough that I feel the need to pay to get rid of them. 

Head on over to the rest of the blogs on the blog hop to check out some fun new ideas!

An InLinkz Link-up

Snow days turn into snow weeks... Currently February

You guys, I'm going a bit crazy. I've had four snow days off in a row! We had a pretty crazy blizzard with over 30 inches of snow. In our congested city, that means huge snow piles everywhere, very limited parking, and entire lanes cut out of the street. Terrible! Now it's the weekend, and I am so ready to go back to school on Monday. Just one minor detail- there is another storm heading our way for tomorrow night, and it is going to drop another 10 - 12 inches on us. Nooooooo.....

With that, it's time to link up with Farley for Currently February!

Listening to my son's favorite cartoon, Peg + Cat. It happens to be my favorite, too! It's a great PBS cartoon about a girl and her cat and their mathematical adventures. They are seriously adorable and do a really great job teaching little ones about counting, shapes, and categories. 

Loving my new reading log conference from Blair Turner's paper shop. It's seriously useful! I won a couple of packs of sheets during a giveaway a few weeks ago. It looks like her shop is down for maintenance now, but when it opens back up you should definitely check it out. 

I'm thinking a lot about the upcoming week and my plans- or lack thereof. I am seriously ready to get back to school, but I am also making plans for our inevitable snow day tomorrow. I have a pre-planned personal day on Tuesday as well because my daycare provider will not be able to watch my son. Like it or not, it seems as though I am out of school until Wednesday. I'll be making an early morning trip in on Tuesday, though, to get things organized and printed- which is fun for no one! 

I am all about going back to school.... and so done with being trapped in the house... hence my wanting to go back! :)

I need to organize my office at home. It's kind of a mess! I chose to spend my time organizing my closets and storage on my days off, to the detriment of my office. I will be spending some time in there tonight getting stuff organized.  Sigh.

So, my pageant title would be... Queen Crazy Cat Lady! I seriously love cats, to a deep extent. Like, wear at least one shirt or accessory with cats on it each week. I'm not even ashamed of my cat lady status, either! :) My cat is my first son, and he is definitely part of our family.

Is anyone else out there NOT a football fan? I am so watching the puppy bowl today, but that's about it. It's hard for many people around here in Patriot Nation to understand. I don't want them to lose or anything, but I am just so disinterested in football. When I was younger, I used to go to superbowl parties just to eat snacks and talk to my friends. Now, I don't even bother with that! This buzzfeed article really summed me up well.

Off to try to get this house a little organized and cleaned up.... I hope you all are buried under less snow than we are!

Sunday Scoop!

Linking up with the Teaching Trio for the Sunday Scoop!

I love this linky, I have to admit. It's so much fun to take part in!

Have to do:

I am last minute Lucy this weekend. I haven't made an anchor chart I need for tomorrow's writing lesson! Eek. I always get to work an hour or so before the day begins AND I have prep first period, so it should be ok.. but I hate this last minute feeling.

I need to grade the writing prompts from our practice PARCC test tomorrow. I've been putting it off a new days because I'm just not sure what they are looking for! There is a rubric, but no exemplars. I really don't like the thought of not having something to compare against. I am also a bit frustrated with the fact that there is no PBA practice test released for math, and yet we are taking the test in 5 weeks.... Arg.

I make all my little guy's baby food, and he is getting low. I have to whip up another batch. I love doing it! I cook a couple weeks worth of food in one afternoon. It's actually way easier than I thought it would be- I buy the produce, steam it, puree it, and then freeze it. I put the food that is "to go" with him during the day in 4 oz glass mason jars, and the food that we feed at home in silicone baby food trays. We are trying sweet peas this week!

Hope to do:

I need a new homework chart! My current one is a pocket chart with little slips of paper with names on it. It's falling apart! I am doing something with ribbons and popsicle sticks. Super not creative, but I am crunched for time lately.

My classroom library is super dusty. Well, if I'm honest most of my classroom is. Anyone else have this problem? I feel like my classroom is always so dusty and gross! Yuck. I'd like to empty the bins out and really clean them. We'll see if I get there!

Happy to do:

Although it's not official, I am sure we will have a snow day on Tuesday. The news stations are calling for 2 - 3 feet of snow. I am looking forward to a snow day with my guy! We had a small storm yesterday (6 or so inches) and I took him sledding for the first time. It was so much fun. :)

Happy Sunday- enjoy your week!

Writing with Colors

This year, my standardized test scores were pretty good. I had some seriously high growth, especially in ELA. My kids all totally kicked BUTT on the open response questions, which I think made a huge difference. How'd they do it? Well- I really think it was a professional development course I went to last year called writing with colors.  The concept is simple- color code your writing to make sure that you have hit all the important points! Here is the quick and dirty of what we learned about.

To start off, the topic sentence of your writing is pink. It seems simple, but so many of my kiddos simply didn't understand the concept of a topic sentence. They thought saying "I am going to tell you about polar bears" was acceptable. Um, no. Turning the question into a statement or PQA (put the question in the answer) is an easy way for all kids to be able to succeed in this area. Equally as often, they just jump into the meat of it and forget to include it at all.  To make sure they don't forget it, they highlight the topic sentence in pink.

Is it just me, or does anyone else have kiddos that love to ramble? No sequence or transition words, they just go, and go, and go.... 

Starting to get into the meat of it! Quotes or other paraphrased text evidence are highlighted in green. You also use this color while reading the text to highlight the information you plan to use for the open response. Keeping one uniform color for the text highlighting is helpful to see how accurately the kids are highlighting, too. Once the kiddos are writing the response, the text they quote directly is highlighted in green as well. 

Explanations of the quotes are BLUE. This color is also used in annotating the text, but is a little bit tricky. After you highlight the text in green, you write WHY you chose to include a quote in the margin of the text. Why is it important? What makes this bit of text relevant? After it's written, you highlight it in blue. Once you are on to the open response writing, you highlight the explanations in blue as well. 

This one is my favorite! The magic color is for whatever "magic" you want the kids to focus on. For me, I don't change mine up. It's always the SIM starters, which we use to explain text evidence. They are:
This shows that...
This is important because...
This means that...

I think this was the game changer for my kiddos. They were pretty good about selecting the text they needed to reference to prove their thinking, but they had a difficult time remembering to explain the quote. The SIM starters have been the game changer for them! The secret formula for us has been:

topic sentence
transition
SIM starter
evidence
explanation
transition
SIM starter
evidence
explanation
transition
SIM starter
evidence
explanation/conclusion


Once the response is all written, it comes out looking a bit like this...

I wish I could give you a link to a PD book or course you could take, but I couldn't find anything! All the credit goes to the Writing with Colors people (whose names I do not know) because this fabulous idea is all theirs. Enjoy!

Currently 2015!

I can't believe it is almost 2015! I think it always seems like a year has gone by quickly, but I seriously feel like life has hit fast forward since I had a baby. It's all just flying by! Linking up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for Currently.

Listening: I used to think that the best sound in the world was a sleeping baby, but now I think it is the sound of my husband cleaning the kitchen while the baby sleeps. Now this is vacation.

Loving: My quiet night at home with the family for New Year's Eve. I was out and about in Boston this afternoon taking my son to a check up at the Boston Children's Hospital (they are AMAZING) and I was seriously amazed at how packed it was already. I am happy to sit at home quietly with my hubby and son and enjoy a little family time.

Thinking: I can't believe I still have a half a week of vacation! I don't go back until Monday. This two whole weeks off has been fantastic. My house is clean, relatively organized, and I have spent so much time with my family. I have really had a fantastic vacation.

Wanting: A big bowl of ice cream! I am not going to lie, this is going to become a reality when I finish blogging.... :)

Needing: To pack up the Christmas decorations! The in-laws are coming over for Christmas tomorrow, so I felt obligated to leave them up until after that. They live pretty far away in the middle of nowhere Maine, so we usually don't see them on the actual holiday. Paired with the unpredictable weather they deal with (I always thought we got a lot of snow in Massachusetts!) and my hubby's strange work schedule, it's a challenge to find the time to get together. They are totally coming down as soon as the shin-dig is over tomorrow.

Yes: I have to be better about following a budget. I have to admit, I am a total spendaholic. My husband was watching a comedian once that said that men and women are fundamentally different because a woman will spend $2 on a $5 item she doesn't need just because it's on sale, and a man will spend $5 on a $2 item because he needs it and doesn't want to shop around. So true! I am going to tell you my dirty secret.... when my husband and I bought our current house, he had to convert a guest bedroom into a closet for all my clothes and shoes.  Seriously- I had a closet designer put together a layout for wall to wall shelving, and my husband installed it all. It's kind of amazing, actually. Now that I have a little one, I over shop for him, too. I have to get better about it!
Maybe: I want to improve my running distance. Maybe a half marathon in 2015??
I Wish: I would LOVE to go on a vacation. I am such a travel bug, and we haven't gone on a big trip in a year and a half! We have done a few weeks at the beach, but that is close and something we do every year. We usually go on a big trip every year, but we couldn't when I was pregnant and now my little one is too small to fly. Maybe this summer? If not, definitely next year!

Off to watch the ball drop... Happy New Year everyone!