This, that, and I miss you!

Dear Bloggy Friends,

I have missed you. Things have been extremely busy at school, with college, and in personal life. Here is one of the college assignments that has kept me away from my favorite hobby (blogging :)):

http://followdirections.wikispaces.com/ 

It is an interactive multimedia map skills lesson that a partner and I had to create.  It is geared towards 5th graders, but there are parts any grade level can use.  Of course I used the cutesy clip art from Digi Web Studios to create graphics!

I am working on an Eric Carle Unit so I will have something good (hopefully) to share soon! 

My hearts and prayers go out to everyone who has been effected by the recent storms.  I hope all my bloggy friends are safe and loving on their families!

Missing you all,

 :) Jena

Math Monday Linky Party

Hey folks, if you haven't checked out the Monday Math Linky party at love2learn2day, you should right now!  I just added my stained glass window activity, and there are TONS of great ideas.

I hope everyone had a magnificent Monday!

Area of a Stained Glass Window

Don't you just love beautiful stained glass windows?


 This video was uploaded to YouTube by ArtmagicK.  This is not my original video! :)


A few years ago, I started doing stained glass windows with my students for area.  We've always just done them on plain paper, and they are super adorable in the hallway for a display.  This year I am going to run off the stained glass templates on transparencies, and we will hang them in our windows.   Just a side note, I have plenty of transparencies leftover from when we only had the old school overhead projectors.  I think this is a perfect way to use those transparencies! 

A Little Something for Earth Day

I am joining Ash's Earth Day Linky Party from Teaching Happily Ever After. 

href="http://www.teachinghappilyeverafter.blogspot.com">
Click on her button and join the party!

I don't know if I have ever shared this with you, but one of my favorite books is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  Every time I read it, I cry.   "And the tree was happy...but not really," just gets me every time!

 Anyway, I like to use this book for Earth Day.  This year we are going to "Give Back to the Giving Tree" with this little cooperative learning activity (I quickly put together :)). Students will "reuse" papers from their desk to create a tree.  There is a detailed explanation on the second page if you like the idea!

 

It's Official!

I am a teaching blog addict!



If you have not checked out the fabulous new site go do it now!

On a side note, dear Bloggy friends, I am so sorry that I haven't posted any ideas in over a week! I feel so lame. :( I have two major projects that are due for MY school , plus everything that has to be done at work/school. Anyway, I miss you! :)
I hope to be back an posting for real very soon.

Give-A-Way and Giving Back

Mrs. Saylor is giving away a $25 gift card to Amazon.com in honor of reaching 100 followers. She has a fantastic blog, so go check it out right after you read the next part of my post! :)



A few weeks ago I asked my principal about doing a fundraiser for Japan.   We are calling it "Jingle for Japan."  Students and teachers bring spare change to donate to the cause.  Each teacher was given one of these cups to keep in their classroom. 

When their cup is filled, there is a large red bucket (sorry forgot to take a picture) that is kept in the office where they can dump their change and start over.

What we collect will go to the American Red Cross Japan Relief Efforts.  I encourage everyone to take this idea and use it!



Now don't forget to go to Mrs. Saylor's Log and enter her contest!

Top Technology Tools Linky Party

      First off, I LOVE finding new technology tools to use with my kiddos. I am 2 classes and an field study away from having a Master's in Instructional Technology. Soooo excited about that!!!
     One of my favorite Bloggy Friends and fellow Texan, Mrs. Saylor, has some of the coolest ideas of different techy tools to use in the classroom. She has a wonderful teacher blog and classroom blog. So long story short, Mrs. Saylor is my inspiration for my first Linky Party.  I'm hoping this Linky Party will bring some Fabulous ideas for end of the year projects! :)


Here is what you do to join the par-tay:

Name your favorite techy thing (hardware (SMARTBoard, iPad), software, programs, websites, etc.) you use with your students and how you use it.

Here is mine:

Photo Story-  Student made, classroom books are fabulous!  Thanks to programs like Photo Story and MovieMaker (Photo Story is more 1st grade friendly) student made books can easily be turned into digital stories.  You can find two that we have done this year here:  Brown Eggs and Peace and Celebrating America.

I also like to use Photostory when teaching animal classification.  The students search Google Images to find and save pics of the type of animal (mammal, brid, reptile, and so on) they want to write about.  We haven't done it yet this year, but here is one from last year.  It is completely student created.  He found the pictures, typed in the text, and pressed the record button.  This video had a title slide with the video name and by:  "student's name" but I cut that out for internet purposes.  :)

Now it's your turn.  Post about the techy thing you love for your kiddos to use and then come back here and link up!!