Common Core Standards? There's an App for that!

If you find yourself searching through pages and pages of documents or websites looking for the right Common Core Standard to plug into your lesson plan book, there's an App for that....better yet...it's FREE!! Click on over to the Apple iTunes store to check it out. I have used it often and LOVE IT!! No need to carry extra papers around, just open your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch and you literally have the standards at your fingertips!

Click image to go to iTunes

Books on Coins

I've added books about introducing coins to young learners in my Teachers Notebook Shop.
The first set, Intro to Coins Books has 3 books in one packet. Depending on what your students need,  you can present the books to your students over time or all at once.

The second item is  Say & Stamp Coins. This book shows the student a picture of the coin and the student uses stamps to spell out the name of the coin. There is a WORD BANK provided if students need a little help.

All books contain high resolution images of coins to help with proper identification. They make a great addition to your Math Center or Stations.
Step over into my Teachers Notebook Shop to see more and get them for your students.

Sight Word Cover Up

As we wind down the dog days of summer and prepare to return to school, you may be looking for a fun and easy game for your students to play. Sight Word Cover Up gives students practice with common sight words in a fun format. The set includes 34 sight words, (in 5 fonts including a traceable font), 10 game boards that can be used year round, and best of all, because the students choose the words on their game boards, they can play time after time and never play it the same way twice! Step over into my Teachers Notebook shop to learn more and get a copy for your students to enjoy!

County Fair Freebie

If you enjoy going to the County Fair, then you just might enjoy this freebie as well. Using a County Fair theme, this pack has activities for graphing, gathering information, and word work. Step into my shop at Teachers Notebook and download your copy.
While you're there, check out a few of my other packets for sale!

Anatomy of a Student

My students always seem to enjoy labeling parts of things. This activity provides plenty of practice labeling parts of "students" (including themselves). The packet contains images of 6 different/diverse "students". Each has a Word Bank labeling parts of their body/clothing. There are worksheets for your students that allow practice cutting and gluing on the label, or filling in the blank where the initial sound has been provided, or they could use a regular fill in the blank sheet. Each "student" also has a Write to Describe page. You can choose between sentence strips to ease young writers along, or blank lines for your more confident writers.
Lastly there are blank pages for your students to draw themselves, label the parts and write to describe the picture they drew. A word bank is provided to assist students with labeling and writing. The word bank can be cut apart to provide young writers with the words to label their parts. There are spaces to add new words if needed. I think these self-portrait pages would make a GREAT class book for students to read over and over again!
This is a great back to school activity that takes into account various learning levels.
To learn more and get a copy for your class, head on over to my Teachers Notebook Shop!

Renaming Files: A Quick Tutorial

Yesterday I shared how to use PowerPoint with pictures of your students to put in the pocketchart in your classroom. In the video, I mentioned "renaming the picture files". It came to my attention that there are a few folks who could use a little help with renaming the files. So this quick "Tech in a Sec" tutorial does just that:

Renaming Files from Cindy Blakely on Vimeo.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you need a little more help with something!

Pictures for PocketCharts 2

I got an email from a follower (Laura) who was looking for my tutorial on making pictures for the pocket chart. I am sad to say that the hosting site for my video has locked down the account because I exceeded my bandwith...whatever that really means. All I know is my videos can't be viewed at this time...So I decided to do a RE-POST using another service, we'll see how this one works.

OK...so in my original post I was saying that in my classroom I have a pocket chart with all the pictures of the students (myself as well). They use these photos to write messages to one another, play sorting games, etc. I am sure you have something similar in your classroom. But often teachers spend HOURS writing by hand all the names under the pictures. This tutorial shows you how you can literally do a hundred photos in a minute or two (at the most). You may want to re-name the photos ahead of time by removing that long numeral your digital camera places on the photo. Replace that with the name of the student in the photo. Then you are ready to follow these simple steps to create your Pocketchart pictures!
*Note: this is an OLD version of PowerPoint, the newer ones have the same features, but they are probably easier to find! ;-)

Photo chart Pictures from Cindy Blakley on Vimeo.