Let's go Digital! Interactive Notebooks with NO paper!

As you may have heard I'm moving up from first grade to SIXTH grade. I'll be teaching Media Literacy and Video Production. Yup. No more primary for me :(

I'm a little sad, but also a little excited! I'm sure as the school year moves closer I'll be MORE excited! So there will be lots of changes coming soon. Here is a sneak peek:

Stay tuned for the middle of July!

For the time being, I'm going to share with you an activity I've been working on. I LOVE interactive notebooks. However, they take up a lot of time and a lot of paper and a lot of glue. I've got to spend lots of days training my firsties on how to properly cut and paste the activities in their notebooks.

This activity is one that I've had in my paper interactive notebooks for awhile, but I've moved it to a digital platform!

Check it out: 

There are letter tiles off to the side that the students click and drag to build short a words. After building a word, they type the word in the table, drag the letters back, and do it again. When they are finished, I've included instructions on how to share the activity with me. 

I've spent a few weeks at the beginning of the school year training my students on how to use Google. How to sign in, how to create docs or slides or drawings, how to share things with me, etc. We've practiced dragging, clicking, typing, inserting, etc. 

Now, your students won't necessarily need to share the finished activity with you or maybe they all have their own Google accounts or you are using Google Classroom. That's great! They can all get their own copy through Classroom or you can email to their account and they can save their file in their Drive. If not, just have them log in under your Gmail and type their name on their own copy. 

I've got short a, e, i, o, and u slides. The kids have an interactive experience, practice a skill, and have fun while doing it! The best part? I didn't have to make copies or clean up a mess!

All you need is a computer, Internet access, and a free Google account. 

You can grab your own copy of this activity {HERE}. It will prompt you to make a copy first. Sometimes on Macs, you may have to go to File>Make a Copy afterwards. I'm not sure of this kink, but I am sure that Google is most likely working on it. 

What do you think? I'm working on some more digital interactive notebooks which will be in my TpT store sometime this summer. 

Here is a peek: 

Let me know what you think!

Five for Friday {November 27, 2015}

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving filled with food, family, and fun! 

I am happy to be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! It's been awhile but I'm thinking the time is right to join this linky party again! 

I've had an eventful Thanksgiving break, from the flu, to product planning, to Black Friday shopping, to tree decorating - it has been full! 

Thanksgiving was so great! We had lots of fantastic food and family time. I love this time of year because I do live two hours away from my family and it's hard to find time to drive in during the school year so every holiday I try to make a trip to Alexandria to see everyone.  

FOOD WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!! The best part about Thanksgiving? Leftovers!! 

My sister and I had fun working with her Cricut and some glitter vinyl making our 2015 Black Friday shirts for us! 

It was a lot of work so this isn't something we will be doing a lot of!! But aren't we just adorable?!?!

Got lots of good deals last night and early this morning! 

Carly found this Captain America hoodie and looks great in it. 

And in honor of Black Friday, I'm having a 20% off sale in my TpT Store! 

All 30 lessons inspired by Journeys for first grade is only $15 - originally $30 but worth $60!! Go get it! 

December themed math centers are only $3!! Grab them now! 

I was diagnosed with the FLU last Thursday (blah) and couldn't attend the last two days of school before break! So I was bedridden, struck down with influenza B!! It wasn't fun! But I did accomplish a lot of product planning, in between my medicine induced naps. 

Most importantly, I've finished the first unit of Second Grade interactive notebook inspired by Journeys! Take a look. 

It's got blank templates included for you to program your own words! It's half off today as part of my Black Friday TpT sale! 

For a chance to WIN the ENTIRE BUNDLE LESSONS 1-30 please click {HERE} and fill out the form! 

I've been doing so much stuff with QR Codes! They are so versatile and lots of activities and skills can be practiced. I'm working on a blog post for our collaborative blog, The Primary Punchbowl, on December 1st with a tutorial on creating QR Codes with images. But until then, here is a little freebie for you: 

Now yes, it is using the words from Lesson 13 in Journeys for first grade, but the words are sh, ph, and wh digraphs and some common sight words

ship, shop, fish, whip, which, when, down, goes, fall, green, new, grow, open, yellow

It's a good practice and review activity for your kiddos!

They scan the code on the card and then do what it says with the word that shows up. I made it Christmas themed! 

Click {HERE} for your freebie :)

And speaking of Tech Tutorials, fill out the form below on any ideas you might have and want tutorials on. I'm taking any and all suggestions! 

And that's it for this Friday! Have a great weekend!

Talking Tech Tutorial: GIF for Your TpT Store!

Hi friends! Have you seen the latest trend on TpT? Rotating Quote pictures? They are popping up everywhere! Thought I would share with you how I made mine!

I'm starting a new series on my blog for the school year: Talking Tech with Pride and Primary! 

I'm hoping to post every other Saturday with a new Tech tutorial or a new tech software or platform to share with you and your classroom or personal life!

So let's get started! First you have to make your designs. I use PowerPoint, but you can design in whatever program you are most comfortable with, as long as the finished dimensions are correct (about 600 pixels in width, height between 100-260 pixels). 

Open PowerPoint.

Insert a rectangle that is 7” x 3.5”.

You will need to fill the rectangle with the same color as the quote section on TpT. To do that, go to the Format tab, then to Shape Fill, and click on More Colors.

On the custom tab, make the fill color R 241 G 241 B 241. Click OK. 

 

Clear the outline on the rectangle by clicking on the Format Tab, the Shape Outline, then click on No Outline.

Make your design inside the rectangle.  

Group (select all items and the rectangle) and save your design as a picture.

Right click on grouped design and click Save as Picture. Name your file and save it to a location you can easily find. The desktop is usually a good spot.  

Now we have to resize and skew to the correct dimensions. 

Open in Paint. You can also use Photoshop or another similar program.

Do you have extra space? We can get rid of that! But first, let's resize it. 

Click Resize on the Home tab. 

Click the Pixels circle. Change the Horizontal size to 600. The vertical size will change automatically to something around 240-270ish. Click OK.

Now get rid of the white space. 

Then save the picture! I press ctrl+S. It’s the easiest way to save it under the same file name and same location, just a different size.

Repeat for the rest of your pictures. I made 4 pictures. You can make as many as you would like.

It’s ready to upload to GIF maker. Go to http://gifmaker.me/ Click on Upload Images. 

Find your pictures you made and saved. Upload.

Then Download the GIF, again to a place that is easily found. 

Then you will need to upload the GIF to a file/picture hosting service. Photobucket, PicMonkey, etc. You will need the URL.

I use my blog: Open a new blog post, upload the GIF. 

Then, click on the GIF and click Original Size. 

Then right click and “Copy Image URL”

Once you have the long URL, shorten it using a URL shortener. I prefer Google but bit.do, bit.ly also work well. 

Copy that shortened URL you see highlighted. 

You don’t have to worry about that blog post your uploaded the gif to- just click close, not publish and don't delete it.

Then you need html code:

<a href=“url of the product/page you want linked”><img src=“shortened url of GIF”></a>

So mine would look like:

<a href="http://www.prideandprimary.com"><img src="https://goo.gl/74nGwr"></a>

I want my GIF to link to my blog, so I put the URL link to my blog. If you want the GIF linked to a product or somewhere else, just put that URL link instead. You may need to shorten it also, since the quote section only allows 120 characters.

And that’s it!

Just go to your account section on TpT. 

Click My Account. 

Click on Store Profile. 

Click on EDIT. 

And in the Personal Quote section, put that code you just made. 

Save and BAM. 

You’re awesome.


If you update your store, send me an email at prideandprimaryblog@gmail.com so I can come and heap praises on your storefront!!

If you post on social media, use the #proudclassroom so I can check it out! Thanks!