Tech and Teachability: Back to School

Showing posts with label Back to School. Show all posts

Summer is over! And it's so sad.

I've been unbelievably busy this week. Teachers started back to school and we've been busily preparing for the kids to return on Monday. As you are well aware, there's a lot to do to prepare for the first day of school. Tons of just logistical stuff - modes of transportation, school to home communication platform, contact information updates, carpool tags, bus cards, scheduling, website updating, professional developing, trainings, and the lists goes on and on even before lesson planning!

Thankfully, at my school, the leadership team takes the responsibility of many of these things off the teachers' plates.

But it makes for messy offices ad multi-tasking 😂😂😂 Here I am in the middle of Safe Schools online training as well as checking my email and eating a snack.

I also made login cards this week to give out to the students. They use their Clever badge to log in to Chromebooks which makes logging in much faster for the littles.

You can grab this template HERE.

I use Autocrat, a Google Sheets Add on to help me merge all the tagged information on the cards. You can read all about how to do this on my blog at this LINK! It is SUCH a time saver. Once you have everything in the spreadsheet, it's so simple to merge them to all the cards. I don't currently have a tutorial for the <<Clever Badge>> image since it's a little more involved but I'm working on it.

The rest of the week was more of the same - working on a computer doing something that needed to be done. But here's a quick rundown of behind the scenes!

I started the week with meal prepping.

Lilo was underfoot at all times, as she always is.

It was Chip's birthday! He turned 11 years young. Here he is mad at me because I wanted to take a picture before he ate his cookie cake, that I made and decorated!

It was also my friend Annabel's dog's birthday, Milly, so I made her a cookie cake, too!

I took video of how I made these cookies for the doggos, and I'll be making an Instagram Reel soon!

I started 80 Day Obsession (for some unknown reason) on Monday and it's been a killer. I wake up at 5:15 to workout, and I've been doing it!! Today was Day 6 and it was Cardio Flow and I swear I thought I wasn't going to make it through the whole zoo. But I did! Ready for that rest day tomorrow.

Ready for Week 2 and the First Day of School! Have a great weekend!

Jessica

Happy August my friends! I'm so excited to get back to a normal routine and see all the kiddos around school. I was hoping that it would be a much normal BTS season this year as compared to last year, but here we are. Still in the middle of a global pandemic. Still experiencing daily mask wearing and social distancing. Still sanitizing like crazy.

However, we are professionals and roll with the punches. We will get the job done regardless of the mandates and protocols because we are TEACHER ROCKSTARS.

And to that end, I've got some freebies for you!!

Back to School Unit

MANY years ago I created this Pete the Cat activity for Rocking in My School Shoes. I thought I'd reshare it with all of you!

There's so much included in this.

I've got a craftivity where students build their own Pete and write about how they rocked their first day.

There's also two mystery pictures using letter and number recognition.

Students can also practice labeling Pete.

And what better activity to start off a school year than with predictions!

Read the book and make predictions using pictures and inferencing about where Pete is going or what he is doing. Make an anchor chart with the included pictures.

Then play a game!

I've included multiple pictures for use with students as either learning centers (great way to incorporate group work/team building) or whole group work together activity.

There's also some activities for sorting nouns and verbs and practice with addition to 10.

Writing about their day at school is a great way to end the first day or even first week.

And can't forget about graphing and data! Have the kiddos color a picture of the way they get home, and then create a pictograph whole group. Count how many of each way students get home.

Also included in the FREEBIE folder are two other units with Pete:

Click HERE for the Folder!

Happy Teaching!

Jessica

I have been making friends and family first day of school signs for years! They are actually really easy to do, and I've created a template and tutorial here for you!

Just for fun, I made Carly one for College!!

Here is your chance to get your very own personalized sign for the first day of school!

Just click on the link below and download. Open it in PowerPoint and BAM! (There's also a Google Slides version!)

You can use any fonts you would like!

So let's get started. Here's how it works:
Open the file.

Click in a Text Box and highlight the text you want to change.

The font will automatically adjust to fill the size of your words.

Or you can resize the text box yourself, by clicking and dragging the handles around the edge of the text box.

You can change the color, font, and style:

You can't change the font size because I've used word art boxes to automatically adjust the size of your text.

I have included a page without any clipart in case you want to add a picture of your own.
Just click on the Insert tab and choose Insert Pictures. Navigate to find your own pics.

And that's it! My sister uploaded her signs to Walgreens and had an 8 x 10 printed for around $4 bucks I believe.

For Carly's Eighth grade year I printed the file as a poster on my home printer. Yep, a lot of ink and a lot bigger than I had intended, but hey, it worked!!

Some printers will allow for poster printing. I understand that many printers are different, but it should be something similar to the instructions below.

Go to print the file and click on Printer Properties.

You get this pop up menu. Click on the Layout tab at the top. Click enable under Poster Printing.

You can opt to print on 4 pages or 9 pages or 16 pages. See where it says 2x2? Use drop down arrow to choose. I used 2x2 and then taped the pages together. Click the "on" box next to Add Crop Marks to make it easier to cut out and tape together.

Your printer may say something different but a quick Google search using your printer's name and how to print a poster.

{HERE} is the link for the signs. It's a zip file - download and extract.

Here is a Google Drive link for the file in Slides, if you prefer to work right in your browser with all Google!

Thanks for reading!

Jessica

On Carly's first day of eighth grade, I made her a first day of school sign! I also made her one for ninth grade but I didn't get to print it out because my printer was on the fritz and I couldn't :( But here is what it would have looked like had I gotten it printed!

Jessica

Hi yall! It's been a BUSY week over here in Louisiana. Not to mention HOT - upwards to 100. Can't wait til September. But first of August means back to school :)

I just wanted to share with you how my first week back went! I made cookies for everyone!

{HERE} is my fantastic recipe.

Teachers reported on Tuesday where we got to sit in on all that really fun and exciting review of policies and handbooks and all that jazz. But my principal is so awesome that she makes those mandatory PowerPoint presentations into fun games.

We did a Quiz-Quiz-Trade and a Tarsia puzzle. Have you used this before? It's amazing!

District Policy Awareness

Our fourth grade teachers use it with the kids to review facts and help to study. One side of the triangles has the answer and the another side has the questions. You read the questions and try to find the answers. And then the puzzles come together as diamonds, triangles, hexagons, etc. Pretty cool!

That night was back to school Open House/Meet the Teacher night.

Trace hands, stick on label.

We had a fabulous night! I met 19 of my amazing families and we gave out a lot of information.
We always set up the desks every Open House with things families will find extremely helpful over the first couple of weeks of school.

The next day, all 6,000+ EBR Teachers came together for One District, One Mission and to meet our new Superintendent.

Each child had a personal letter from me and my associate.

They can take it home and color the pics!

You can grab an editable copy for yourself {HERE}.

The Back to School Flipbook containing all pertinent information about our classroom looked GREAT right on top of the stack of papers!

This booklet is FREE in my TpT Store. Click the pic :)

Next, I placed the media release form for use of pictures on my blog and social media accounts.

This letter is free {HERE}.

Then we have our Show and Tell Schedule. I firmly believe in the power of Show and Tell at any age. It is so very important that children learn to speak and listen properly at any age. In my classroom, each student is given 1 minute to show and tell something they bring from home or just a little story.

We talk about the importance of eye contact, using a speaker's voice, showing so everyone can see, etc. and also the behavior of an audience member such as listening while others speak and looking at the speaker. We've got to hit those Speaking and Listening standards!!

You can read more about my show and tell {HERE}.

Next up is our Mayfair Lab First Grade Tour Guide.

We are partnered with the Lab School at LSU and the superintendent over there came up with this idea as a road map for incoming parents. We list out everything we teach for the year. And our CRLGs.

The full guide can be accessed by clicking {HERE}.

Also had the Helping Hands on the Board and the Parent Wishes Jar.

This idea was from Funky First Grade Fun along with the freebie forms there. Go check it out and read all about it!

So the first day!!!!!!!!! It was such fun! All my little firsties were ready to learn!

Of course we did Brain Breaks! Love Go Noodle!

And from my SUPER Back to School Unit, we wrote out our wishes for what we want to learn in First Grade on our Super Hero Capes!

How to Read Chapter Books, Count to 200, the Senses, Field Trips

Science Experiments, Science, Field Trips

Count to 200, Science Experiments

Count to 300, Add to 100, Read books, Time

How to Count, Field Trips

We always read Chrysanthemum and talk about how sometimes our words can hurt others so we should also take care of what we say. Every time one of Chrysanthemum's classmates makes fun of her name, we crumple the heart. And every time her parents make her feel better, we try to smooth it out. But we know that once we say something mean and hurtful, it always leaves a little wrinkle.