Giveaway and THE Board

I’m happy to be taking part in an awesome giveaway with two of my favorite bloggers. Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching and Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper have each reached 1,000 followers.



To help with their giveaway, I’ve contributed two of my favorite products.

and

This are both task cards with self-checking QR codes. I LOVE using QR codes to provide instant feedback. I’ve blogged about it here and here.

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In other news, I have spent hours this week on my bulletin board display. I had it in my head that all 400 students should contribute to it. It has been a big headache!

This was the fall board:
Each student painted an old book page and I put it together.


I spent my teacher work day gluing down out funky Florida snowflakes. There were no kids around, so I put You’ve Got Mail on the SMARTboard while I worked.



It is almost ready to hang. It takes about four people and a staple gun to get this in the glass cabinet.



Fun times! I’ll post pictures when it is finally posted!

Sundaes on Sunday

I was planning a giveaway for my one year blog birthday. Tuesday was the big day, but it was also my wedding anniversary. Last year I was working summer school on the big day and decided to try my hand at blogging. It has been a great journey. I’m looking forward to the future!

I decided Monday night to wait for the weekend for the celebration. I was still teaching last year, but this year I’m on vacation and I wanted to spend time with my family instead.

I’d created an ice cream themed QR code game to use as a flash freebie. Then I discovered that today is actually National Ice Cream Day. It seemed a natural fit!



I am loving this clip art from JC Sweetpea Designs. I made a big purchase during the teacher appreciation sale, and I have lots to work with now! I’m also a big fan of QR codes for self checking games/task cards.

In honor of my blog birthday and National Ice Cream Day, I’m offering these two products as flash freebies today only.

I plan on creating more of these later this summer. Subtraction, two digit addition/subtraction, harder multiplication, and eventually two step equations should eventually round out the set. These two files will be free today only, so please be sure to get them while you can! I only ask that you leave me some feedback love if you join the ice cream party.

Enjoy!

QR Codes in the Elementary Classroom

I posted a flash freebie last weekend with QR codes and I had a few questions about how to use the cards. While this isn’t new to a lot of people, I wanted to share how I’ve used QR codes in my classroom.

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When I first saw QR codes I was intrigued. I found some freebies on TpT that were worth trying. I’ve since become a big fan! Here are a some of the ways I’ve used them in the classroom.

Giving Praise

I found 75 Ways to Say Good Job on Teachers Pay Teachers. I downloaded this awesome freebie. I mounted the cards on construction paper, cut it out, and laminated it.



This isn’t the best picture, but you can see my QR Tag Folder on the left under Celebrating Success. I will send a student over to scan a tag to celebrate positive behavior.

There are so many free and paid files like this. Once you get started it is easy to create your own!

Self Checking Centers
I have purchased and created several sets of task cards with QR codes built in. The students love them.



Better yet, the cards provide instant feedback. I love the fact that students can check their answers without me standing right there.

This has become my favorite way to use QR codes. I’m working on a QR game for classifying triangles now.

Creating Our Own
Last year I had my students create word problems with the answer embedded in a QR code. There are multiple free websites for creating QR Codes. It was a project done at home, so most of my students created their codes at home. Those without access to a computer and printer could create and print the code at school.

I wasn’t blogging last year when we wrote our own, so I do not have pictures. We will be doing it again after our state testing.

How Do I Get Started?
To read QR codes, all you need is a smart phone/iPad/tablet with a camera and an app for reading QR Codes. There are many free apps for this! We have downloaded several on our school iPads.

For generating your own QR codes, I’ve been using http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ though there are many other websites. There are many options – try a few sites and see what you like best!

Some people may say QR codes are dying out, but they are still a great tool for an elementary classroom!

Want to try it out? 

I’m planning a 100 follower giveaway next week, but I wanted to try out the technology first. As a trial run giving away these two files from my TpT store.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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I’m linking up: