Five for Friday with Saturday Snapshots: SLANT Box Reveal Edition

I let Friday get away from me without linking up with Five for Friday, so I'm combining it with Saturday Snapshots for my SLANT Box Reveal. 3 linkys, 1 post...is that even allowed? 

This month I participated in a SLANT box exchange organized by Lessons with Coffee. If you haven't heard about it head over and read all about it. On Tuesday,  I received my SLANT box in the mail. My SLANT box sender was Nick from Sweet Rhyme & Pure Reason. I must say it arrived at just the right time!  I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and stressed about our upcoming back to school night, but after arriving home and seeing my SLANT box my mood changed. Take a look at what I received. Thanks Nick! 

1. A handmade humbug was perfect; considering I was in a bah-humbug kind of mood. 

2. The Dr. Seuss bag and package of bookmarks, AWESOME! I am a huge Dr. Seuss fan. 

3. Not sure how he knew, but felt tip pens are one of my favorites. I've never had the colored ones, the school only provides black and red, so I'm really excited about these colors. I've always wanted to try a Scentos Marker, so this is perfect. 

4. Sticky notes are perfect for writing my todo list on. Look closely; do you see the cell phone sticky notes? They are my favorite! I already know, I will be sad when they are all gone. 

5. Two hard to find items  in my classroom are: a calculator and a ruler. Just the other day I had a student ask for a ruler and I couldn't provide one, but thanks to Nick I can now. 

Lots of great stuff! Thanks again Nick. 

And there you have it Five for Friday, with Saturday Snapshots, and my SLANT Box reveal. 

*App Spotlight: Starting today, I am going to make sure I spotlight an app with every post. Today's app is Pic Collage. The two collages in this post were created using this app. I especially like the search feature of this app. I can search for photos from the Internet, and insert them directly into my collage as a photo or background. You should checkout this free app. 

Enjoy the rest of your extended weekend. 

Tried it Tuesday

A week ago today, I was exhausted from the first day of school stress and excitement. Today, I'm not as stressed, and I am linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday to share a couple of activities we've done this past week. 

If you're new to my blog let me begin by telling you I teach at a 1:1 iPad school, that houses all of the sixth graders in our district; shout out to the class of 2020! Sorry I just had to get that in. This is the second year for such a school in my district. However, this will be my third year teaching with iPads. The previous two years we had not started the school year with iPads. This year students had iPads on day one, which was nice. I always start out letting the students explore the camera, so they get it out of their system. A week or so before the school year  began Technology Tailgate posted this camera project, and I decided I would use it the first day of school. It worked out great!  

Here are a couple of students completing the activity. One of my favorites, look at that simile. 

This activity gave me the opportunity to discuss photo etiquette, mainly asking permission before taking someone's photo. To expand on this activity I would have students use Pic Collage (an app we will use throughout the year) to create a collage of their pictures. Thanks Technology Tailgate for the lesson. 

In Social Studies this year we will study Ancient Civilizations. As an introduction I explained to students that while studying ancient civilizations we will learn where they are from and what their life was like back then. I wanted to play Kenny Chesney's  song "Back Where I Come From," but had technical difficulty. Luckily, the principal walked in as I'm trying to get my speakers to work and begins singing the song, AWESOME! Students thought this was pretty cool, far better than my youtube video, I also thought it was pretty cool. In fact, I had her comeback the following day to sing it to my other Social Studies class. It would have been nice to record her, but she wouldn't let us. OK back to the lesson, after the song we discuss how we know a little about Kenny Chasney from his song. I then read my Back Where I Come From poem, I created using this template. There are several different templates available online, here is an example and another. I suggest editing it to fit the needs of your students. I crossed off some of the lines when students wrote theirs. For homework students were asked to take photos of items that go with their poem, if they could. We then used those photos to create a pic collage that matched our poems. If students could not take photos they were allowed to get them from the Internet. The final step was to place our poem into the Pic Collage. They turned out pretty nice. Here is a student's poem: 

The iPad and fireworks photos were  obtained from the Internet. All of the other photos are actual pictures taken by the student. This was a great introduction to our year, and a wonderful get to know you activity. 

We've had a great first week of school. Be sure to follow me on Bloglovin or Instagram to see what other fun and creative activities my students are up to. How have your first days of school been? 

My 3 Favorite Apps

Eberopolis, Teaching Reading & Writing With Technology is one of the newest blogs I'm following, and she just linked up with Thirsty Firsties for a linky party about ipad apps, and I'm going to follow. With this linky party you are asked to share 3 apps: your favorite FREE app that you use in the classroom; your favorite PAID app that you use in the classroom, and your favorite app for personal use. 

My favorite FREE app is Pic Collage. 

Pic Collage is a very simple app for students to use. It allows them to take a variety of pictures from their camera roll, or the internet and mesh them together. Words and symbols may be used as well. I've used this app in the classroom for vocabulary, and characterization. I've seen science teachers use it to teach or have students demonstrate life cycles. Pic Collage is an app that I also use a lot outside of the classroom.  Below is a picture of my son problem solving:)  After putting together this collage, I realized that it would be a good app for working on sequencing, especially in the younger grades.  

My favorite PAID app is Strip Design. 

For $2.99, Strip Design is an app that students use to create comic strips. Again, this is an app  I have students use for vocabulary, retelling, and so much more. The creativity that my students demonstrate when using this app amazes me. The comic strip below was created using strip design. Students were asked take a non-living object found in class and personify it. 

For PERSONAL use I like Apps Fire. 

Apps Fire is a free app that I use, a lot! It informs me of apps that may be free that day, or apps that are being offered at a discounted price for the day. I have gotten several paid apps for free using this app. I've also discovered new apps just from browsing.  I usually check for deals twice a day, as they are continuously updating. 

What are some of your favorite apps? I would like to hear about them. I'm always in need of a good app.  Don't forget link up with Thirsty Firsties.

Thirsty Firsties.

Museum Hunt

Friday, we went on our annual field trip to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. It was awesome! Students took their iPads and took lots of pictures. While at the museum students completed 3 scavenger hunts using an app called Museum Hunt. This app has pre-made scavenger hunts for museums and zoos across various cities. Luckily, our city was one of them. This kept students focused and engaged during their free time at the museum. It also allowed them to see parts of the museum that were not on our guided tour. When we returned to school students created a collage of 8 (number of school days left) pictures using the Pic Collage app.