Hey everyone!! I can't wait to tell you what I am using this year (and let me start out by saying this is not an infomercial!! I swear I'm writing this on my own free will to help you!)

As we all know our world is changing and calling or sending home a flier to every parent each night to tell them about something special occuring just isn't happening... that's where this dandy little app and website come in handy!!

It's called Remind101

Long story short you invite parents to join by text or email (I just found this out too!! It keeps getting better!) and what the app allows you to do is shoot a quick text/email through their server to your subscribers!! This way you don't have to give out your cell number or anything!! It works just like any major companies text services... You know those text food to 90210 deals to receive updates about blahblahblah?? Well this is it!

Forget to send a flier home or remind parents about picture day? ~ simply shoot them in a text message ~ without giving out your cell phone number.

Below is a flier or an email that you can send to your parents.

After they send the message to the correct number: they will see the message below......

You can set up different classes.. incase you need to send different message to different groups of students (thought of you 4th and 5th grade)..

Parents can respond by email too, so by having the app on my phone if I want to shoot my parents a message that picture day is in the morning. I can simply type it in the message on my app and it will send it to all text and email subscribers.

And JUST found out that you can schedule messages for later!! Have folders due each Friday? Why not shoot a text reminding parents Thursday night to sign and return them in the morning??

And Best of all it is FREE!!!!!

The only downfall is they can not respond back to the text. But overall I think that is very minor! I have been adding my email at the end of the text so that if they want to respond they can :)

I was very excited about finding out about this....and think it can be very helpful in my parent communication and I hope that you are too!

Techno Tuesday

Check out this cool program.  You can do it from your computer or there is an app on the iPhone.  It would be great for student work pieces. Students could upload a piece of work and then talk about it. I am excited about using this in my classroom this year! We are creating our own businessess with our services and goods and I can't wait to upload each student's picture and have them talk about it! :) How better to show the parents what we are doing! :)

WORDY Wednesday

Who loves to play words with friends on their iPhone? I do!
 I found a flipchart that the students love that is a spin off of the popular game. 

We adapted the flipchart somewhat to meet the needs of our lesson, but it was still a very fun lesson and the students beg to play every day during RTI time. 

Technology Tuesday

This is a really cool noise level monitor that I ran across that my students really LOVE!

Bouncy Balls

I put it up on my Promethean Board (come check out my cool orange drop cord if you haven't seen it :), but you could put on your tv, or even just on your laptop. Be sure and hit the microphone button in the top left hand corner.  It monitors the noise level in your classroom.  The more noise there is the higher the balls bounce.  I usually keep background music playing in my classroom, and I have found that it works best without the music playing when using bouncy balls.  If you try it out please comment and let us know how it went!

Monday Made It!

Partner Games Anyone?

These are some math games that I felt could be adapted and used in most grades.  They are great partner games to help reinforce many different skills,especially for those early finishers.   Check out Serenade to Second Grade for more information on how she uses the math games and how you can set them up. 
Below are the game cards for each game! Hopefully these can be of use to you in your classroom!

WELCOME

Welcome to my blog! I am hoping that this will be a place where we can all share ideas and help each other out! I have been following fellow teacher blogs for a while now and it has been something I have wanted to do for a while.....but could never find a spare moment.
  Well, I haven't found the spare time.... but as a member of Leadership Academy II completing a project that goes along with our school improvement plan is part of my requirements.  I am hoping through this blog I will be able to share some technology ideas with our staff that you can easily implement into your classroom without having to sit through a meeting or watch a video to implement.  I also would like to feature teachers that are doing awesome things in the classroom! I am hoping to post at least two to three times weekly ~ maybe more!!  I would really love to hear your feedback with your comments and let me know if you try something out and how you and/or your students liked it...Thanks in advance for your help and support in making this a successful project that also will hopefully help improve our use and comfort with technology!