Web Tools 2.0

There will be times that I will need worksheet ideas for my students. I am thinking ahead to the future to when I have students who may need extra guidance and assistance when learning new ideas. Maybe I will have a parent request extra practice sheets for his or her child. There may even be times that I have a parent that is wanting to have a list of handy websites for his or her child for those long holiday and summer breaks.

Enter ABCteach. ABCteach is an excellent resource to have on hand for spelling, math, handwriting, and more. Below is my worksheet that I used for my future students.

I also have an answer key for my worksheet that I can pass along to any parent that requests it.


Another fun learning resource for students is creating a crossword puzzle for my students. I remember using crossword puzzles as a way to study when I was back in school. EclipseCrossword.com allows you to put in clues, and then create a crossword with the answers. Crosswords are a fun way for students to learn, but they don't feel like it is tedious homework. It can also be used for class parties as a way to fill the time.

How many times have you tried to study for an exam only to not know which study method works best for you? Enter Quizlet. With Quizlet a student (or teacher) can create a way that works for them to study. I created a multiple choice test to study. I found this method to be one of my favorites; especially with so much learning being online now. Technology is improving daily and I feel like this will be beneficial to our future students.

Why Be Boring?

There have been many times that I have visited an office, a classroom, or even a home, where the decor is a little less eye-catching. As a future teacher it is extremely important to me to have a classroom that my students want to come into every day. I want colors that make them feel safe, I want ideas posted on my walls to make them feel inspired, and I want learning centers that make them feel the need to learn.

A project that fits all of these descriptions is from the website, Wordle. This website has a variety of ways for a teacher to inspire his or her students by creating pictures with words.

For this project I had my main topic be adjectives. Wordle made that word all capital letters. I then came up with a list of adjectives to surround my main topic. I love this topic for this project for many reasons. The first being that I can print this and frame it at any size in my classroom. If I am teaching my students about adjectives, what better way to inspire them than to have a creative picture showcasing different adjectives. Writing doesn't come naturally for all students; I want to have the ability to inspire them even when I am not there talking to them. Wordle has made that possible. 

I would like to do other parts of a sentence for a future Wordle project. Nouns, verbs, and adverbs would all be a lot of fun to create, print, and hang up on a wall of inspiration for my students. 

New Title: Movie Producer

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to make my own movie. In my mind I would be sitting in a director's chair yelling out, "Cut!" and rewriting scenes as we went. I recently got the chance to make my own movie, and let me tell you, it was an incredible experience. Okay, it wasn't quite the movie producing dream that I have had my sights set on, but it was a fun experience and one that will be a great skill to have and use in my classroom.

My movie was based on my family. I have a husband and four children, and my husband was deployed for two of the four pregnancies. To say my life has been blessed is an understatement. I loved going back in time to those moments that I realized I was pregnant, and to those sacred moments after my babies were born.

The movie was created in Movie Maker. This program allowed me to 100% customize my film, from the photos, music, font, colors, to the transitions and speed of each slide. The final copy blew my mind, and I'm not going to lie, it made me tear up.

All in all, this was a great project to use and there are many ways that I can incorporate this into my future classrooms.

Concept Maps: What a Concept!

Concept maps; we have all heard about them, but how do we use one in the classroom? I created one for language arts in the 2nd grade. If you haven't noticed by now, I am a book nerd. I have one laying in the chair next to me in class, just in case I get done early and have a little time to sneak in a page or two or three.

My love of literature is what I am known for in my family. My parents, my siblings, my husband, and my children are aware of my obsession with reading. I took this obsession and turned it into a project to use for my future students.

My main idea of the map was 'Books for Second Graders'. I then made branches off of that main topic for my subtopics. My subtopics were: 'Girl Main Characters', 'Boy Main Characters', 'Fantasy', 'Animal Characters', and 'Mysteries'. From each subtopic I gave two book ideas for each one of the categories. Some of my book choices were more recent, while others were classics that I grew up with.

Teachers can use concept maps for any subject. Kidspiration.com offers a great app as well as a free trial for teachers to try it out before they purchase it. Once there, the realm of possibilities is endless. After the map is created there is an opportunity to write notes on a separate screen. This would be great for a teacher to jot down key main points that he or she would like to discuss with her students.

Taking the Guesswork Out of a Rubric

By a show of hands, how many of you have painstakingly created a rubric by scratch? No templates, no websites, you straight up made yourself a rubric and loved it? I did, too, until I was introduced to RubiStar.

This website is a must for all teachers, whether you are an old pro, or you are a student learning about teaching. You simply visit http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php and then get started. On the homepage there is a list of different subjects into which you want to create a rubric for. I chose Reading for my subject. From there it will list different subareas for your subject.

RubiStar offered already created rubrics, create your own rubrics, as well as an option to add onto an already created rubric. Below is a picture of my created rubric that I chose. I love how it turned out! One of the hardest things with grading is figuring out how you will grade, how to deduct points, what makes a project worth a perfect score, etc. RubiStar took out a lot of the guess work for me.

Originality is Best

I recently had an opportunity to play around with Turnitin. If you are unsure of what Turnitin is, it is an incredible tool to assist teachers in flagging plagiarized work. The student uploads their paper within this program. Turnitin then processes and gives the student a percentage of what is plagiarized.  Most teachers will have a percentage for the student to keep their plagiarized number under. For example, my class had to keep ours under twenty-five percent for the specific assignment.

This assignment was two-fold. The first being to plagiarize a report to see what it means to plagiarize. After my submission I received a 98%! That is NOT a good number.

For the second part, my assignment had to be under twenty-five percent. I received a 2%. So much better than that prior 98%, wouldn't you say?

When I went through high school in the 90s there was no Turnitin software loaded on my school's computer system. Everything was turned in by hand, by a typewriter. I cannot imagine how hard it was for professors to flag plagiarism. Now teachers use Turnitin and this helps catch students who cheat as well as it helps students get a feel for what true plagiarism really is.

Reflecting Back to My Concept Map

Books for Second Graders

I recently had an opportunity to create a concept map for a grade and subject of my choosing. Me, being a lover of all things English and Literature Arts, chose 2nd grade Language Arts. My map created an easy-to-follow diagram of books for second grade students, both boys and girls. 

I had five different categories: Mysteries, Animal Characters, Boy Main Characters, Girl Main Characters, and Fantasy. I didn't want to label any category 'books for girls' or 'books for boys'. I never want one of my students to feel as if because they like books with an opposite sex main character that that is a bad thing. 

With each main topic I chose two different books that fit into the specific genre that I came up with. I had a lot of fun browsing books that sounded like great reads, and that had interesting main characters. Many of these books were older books being published before my year of birth (1979), and others were newer releases. I included the book titles and authors for my students to write down and have an easy access to finding these books at the library.

Off of my fantasy main topic I had a book called Journey. This book is truly incredible. I bought it for my own children and they adore it. The great thing about Journey is that there are no words! Each student has their own journey that they create in their mind as they read. I branched off of Journey to add two more thought bubbles. In these thought bubbles I created what the book is about and why I love this book so much so that I recommend it to my students.

I loved making a concept map and can see it being used in a variety of different ways for my classroom. It isn't as easy as it looks to create. You need to have colors that will capture your students' eyes, but you don't want the colors so obnoxious that it makes it difficult to read or distracting.