A Little Tech and a Freebie!

It's Tuesday and I am thinking of how thankful I am for all of the technology we have!  I can't imagine life without it!  When it is working as planned it is truly wonderful!  When it is on the fritz, oh my! 

My latest app I love is very simple, but so helpful!  As I was grading papers and realized I had left my old school easy grader sliding cardboard thing at school.  So I was figuring out each percent with the calculator when I thought "there has to be an app for that!"  Sure enough there is and it is free!  

It isn't a complex fancy app; it is very simple and gets the job done.  It doesn't take much to make me happy! 

As I continue with my 1 year blog birthday week celebration, I have another freebie for you.  This is a sheet I have used for daily practice.  I copy it two sided and cut in half.  On the board, I post the two signs and have a word and number of the day.  The word is one of our high-frequency words and the number of the day is the date or can be the number of days in school.  They complete this first thing in the morning and we review it.  As the year goes on, we learn to do the same thing in our composition books to save copies.  Click here to grab it if you like.

Thanks for coming by this week!  I am very excited about reaching over 200 followers and having so many people view and pin from my page.  Many have taken advantage of my 1 week $1 sale in my stores.  (The uncovering numbers to 120 is a great deal!)  Also don't forget to enter the giveaway if you haven't.  

I am also planning a Spring blog hop of freebies for next week with some great blogging friends!  More information to come soon.

This is a Great App Thursday!

Thankful it is Thursday and ecstatic tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!!  Today I rediscovered the power of a scratch-n-sniff sticker.  Since coming back from break, my kids are slacking when it comes to turning in homework.  This morning I put a scratch-n-sniff sticker on the kids homework and you would have thought I gave them brand-new Furby's!  I remember being a little kid and how much I loved them.  I guess scratch-n-sniff never goes out of style!  I can't wait to see how many kids turn in homework tomorrow.  I will have to pick up a few more packs next time I am at the $1 spot.

Today I have two great apps I love for "This is a Great App Thursday."  Even better, both apps are FREE!

Watching Dr. Oz, I heard about the app "Breath2Relax".  It is an app that helps you breath by giving you a time out of sorts.  You pick a picture calming to you (I picked the beach) and it has relaxing music.  Then you select how many inhale/exhale cycles you want and the length of inhale/exhale that is right for you (or your students).  I use the app for myself when I need help dealing with stress and only have a few minutes.  I even let my students see me do it and you know I got all kinds of questions!  This was the opportunity I shared with a way to cope with stress.  I even have a few students who will use my iPad and this app to help them.  It really does help, and I will admit I was skeptical.

The other app I love is the Class Dojo app.  I love www.classdojo.com and use all throughout my day to track student behavior and reward students.  You enter your class and positive and negative behaviors you want to use.  It works like a point system.  If you don't know about this great site, you have to check it out!  It graphs the students' individual behavior, parents can have access, it is super easy to use and FREE!  Go to their website to sign-up and enter your class.  It is a great program with the computer only, but the app makes it even better.  I have the app on my iPad and iPhone.  Anywhere I am with the class I can track their behavior.

Here is a fun PowerPoint I use to review sight words with my kids.  Download it and try it with your kids.

"This is a Great App" Thursday

I am having fun discovering new-to-me ways to use my iPad in the classroom.  I thought I was pretty good learning all about it and using it until my 11-year old daughter got hers for her class.  (She is in a paperless 6th grade class and they use their iPads from the school for everything.)  The things she can do are amazing!  Our teacher-student relationship has made a 360 and she is now the teacher.  The app she uses the most is Notability.  This is an incredible app I am just beginning to learn and realize all of the possible uses.  It has helped her become so organized, I am trying to use it to help me now!  I will hopefully share my knowledge about this app and how it helps me in a future post!  There are so many fantastic apps out there, and I have enjoyed learning about them blog-stalking, I think I will try and pick one to talk about weekly.  (This is just coming to me now as I blog so I don't have it all thought out.)  So today I am starting "This is a Great App" Thursday,  I figure I can pick an app a week to blog about.  It should help me focus a little and hopefully be something you can look forward to.

So for the first app I can't live without.... Splashtop.  This is a remote desktop app.

So how do I use it?  I connect to my laptop that is hooked up to my smartboard/ projector.  I can control everything from the iPad.  So I am not stuck to my laptop or the smartboard.  When I first used it the students were amazed at my magic abilities!  I can walk around the room.  The students can write or work directly with my iPad or the smartboard.  It has changed the way I teach!  I am able walk around the room and not lose the class by stopping the instruction.

OK I can hear people saying, well this sounds great, but I don't have an iPad for class.  (This was me last year and the beginning of this year!)  Great news!  This app is available on all kinds of tablets.  Even the nook or Kindle Fire.  You have to pay for the app (it is like $4.99, a great bargain!) and then the software download for the computer is free.  It works with Mac and PC's.  Give it a try, it will change how you teach and interact with your class.

Let me know what app you can't live without.  Is there an app you would like more information on?  What do you think about "This is a Great App" Thursdays?

Now to continue with my "share more freebies resolution" a 2D Shapes Freebie.