Creating Posters

I am obsessed with Poster My Wall! We were given this web link for my Ed Tech class, and I've already made 4 posters that can be used for my classroom someday. Here are some Halloween themed posters, because I love decorating for holidays:

I decided to make one year-round poster as well, and I'm happy with how it turned out:

This site is so easy to use! I browsed through background templates, then I added the quotes. *Special shout out goes to my friend, Alyssa, for supplying me with the "trick or treat" idea!) There were several different font options, so I just played around with them until I found one I liked. I figured out that you need to go one line at a time. For example, when I made my chalk board poster, I started with the words "Actions speak louder," I arranged that where I wanted it, then I entered the next line. If you enter all of the words at one time, you are left with a very small, very LONG line of text. When you click to get the free download of your poster, it downloads in a file type that isn't recognized, so I used Jing to take a screen shot. Easy-peasy!

Tis the season! For Halloween, that is.

Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays. I loved trick-or-treating as a kid, and to this day, I still look for reasons to dress up. My freshman year of college, a good friend of mine and I dressed up as characters from one of our favorite tv shows: Sheldon and Leonard from Big Bang Theory. I thought our costumes looked pretty accurate.

You be the judge as you compare us to a picture from the show:

 Not bad, huh? My friend and I found out that Savers is the best place to look for odd-ball costume parts.




Anyway, since Halloween is coming up, we designed our own Halloween decoration in my Ed Tech class. We downloaded a template into Photoshop, then we decorated it the way we wanted. This is what I ended up with:

No one in class really understood what the white boxes were for, so I would probably Photoshop them out if I was planning on using this template for something in my classroom. It was cool to learn how to use technology to help holiday decorating in the classroom. I'm so excited to have a room of my own to decorate somday!

Magazine Cover

To show our proficiency in Photoshop in my Ed Tech class, we had to create our own magazine cover. I thought I was going to struggle with it, since Photoshop has never been a strength for me, but it went surprisingly well! I thought I would share my final product, since it gives me a chance to brag up my awesome cat, Eddie.

He's pretty cute, huh? :)

The "Pet Talk" title was a background template that we were given in class, and we were also given the barcode to make it look more authentic. I made up the rest of the text on my own, and I put each group of words on a new layer in Photoshop. The "Cat of the Year!" box just a shape I inserted, and I messed with the settings to make it look like it was popping out at the reader.

If I wanted to incorporate this into my classroom, it would probably be best with an older group of students. They could have many weeks of learning how to use Photoshop, then this could be a final project. The magazine cover could be about themselves, their family, or a hobby they enjoy doing. I think this would make a pretty awesome project to hang on the fridge at home!

A great day to be an elementary ed. major!

I can't even begin to explain how wonderful today was. Math started my morning off great with learning how to multiply using the lattice method. For those of you who are like me and had no experience with this method in grade school, here's an example:

It's actually pretty fun! I wish we would have had this option around when I was in grade school. Anyway, after math, we watched an amazing movie in Intro to Education. If you've never seen Waiting for "Superman," I would highly recommend going out to rent it.

Finally, I ended my day in Educational Technology. We used the whole class to do some various craft projects that can be implemented in our future classrooms. First, our professor bought everyone in the class a little hand sanitizer spray pen. She wanted us to keep it to use with our future students. If I see them sneeze into their hands, I can whip out my handy-dandy antibacterial spray and have a bit more peace of mind. Everyone in the class had to designed a new cover for our spay bottles, so they look cute for when we use them later. Here's how mine turned out:

After that, we moved on to picture tiles. These are tiny little tiles that come together in a sheet from Home Depot. First, we mod podged a picture of our choosing onto a tile and glued a magnet to the back. I chose my favorite picture of my mom and me.

We were also given pictures that were an example of a classroom management tool. When taking the lunch order in the morning, kids can move the right food item to their name on a magnetic board. You could also put a picture of each child on a tile and have them move their tile to either "Hot Lunch" or "Cold Lunch." It's also a great way to take attendance. I plan on implementing some sort of a system like this in my own classroom someday.

Finally, we used scrap-booking paper, ribbon, glue, and two thin pieces of cardboard to make this adorable little flip book! We made some of our photos into photo-strips last week using photoshop (Oh, how I STRUGGLED), so we put our leftover photos in our books. I love how it turned out, and I'm thinking it will make a nice, cheap gift idea for later. 

Well, that pretty much sums it up! It was definitely a day that affirmed my choice of major! :)

Critical Thinking Reflection # 3

Critical Reflection #3

            On the Google Apps website, there is a list of the “Top 10 reasons to use Google Apps.”  The number one reason listed was that students love it, and I would have to agree. Google has become a huge part of today’s culture. What happens when the answer to a question is unknown? It is “Googled,” and 3 seconds later, and answer is found. Kids know how to use Google, and they like using it. Getting kids using Google Apps will make them excited to use their computer to learn.

            The next reason to use Google Apps in the school is that it will “free up your IT.” Instead of the IT employees having to keep the school’s web system up and running, the job is passed off to Google. It is a safe and reliable email system to give to students, and as was said previously, they often already know how to use it or have their own account.

            The final reason was very important to me as a future educator. Google says that their apps are as secure and safe to use as “…well, Google.” Google says that they use their apps to run their own company, so they are confident in the fact that your information will be safe online, and privacy will be protected. This is incredibly important when children are going to be online. Safety is the biggest priority. 

40-hour Practicum

So far, my practicum experience has been great! I'm in a 5th grade classroom at Horace Elementary school, and I'm really enjoying this age group. I always thought I would end up teaching a 1st or 2nd grade class, but maybe I'll find out that 4th-6th is a better fit.

I've already learned so much from my practicum teacher. She has some really great ideas for classroom management, for example. She has a two jars of marbles sitting on her desk. One jar says "supply" and the other says "reward." When the kids get too chatty, she simply walks over to her desk, takes marbles from the reward, and moves it back to the supply. I'm not sure what the "reward" is, but the thought of losing it is enough to silence the whole class.

The teacher also taught me an amazing idea for my future spelling lessons. She has her students take their spelling test twice a week - once on Monday and a second time on Friday. If a student gets a 100% on Monday, they take the second test for more practice. There's a catch, however. Each Friday, she has something new for the kids to try. When I was there last Friday, the students who had already achieved 100% had to take the test again using their non-dominant hand! I sat in the back of the room and struggled to write their spelling words with my left hand.

Here's my attempt at writing with my left hand. And yes, I did spell "conquered" incorrectly. I'm slightly embarrassed.

Some days they have to spell the words backwards, and other days she makes them write each letter backwards. I thought this was just to make it more fun for the students, but she has a reason for making her students switch it up. She said that it's great practice for the students to use other parts of their brain. Also, she encouraged me to keep practicing writing with my left hand. When I have future students that write with their left hand, I will better understand how to help them hold their pencil and form letters. Great idea, huh?

Snow in October

It's October 4th, everyone. I'm reminding you just in case the snow this morning made you forget. I don't hate snow. I do, however, hate when my Fall is cut short! When I opened my shades this morning and saw a big white mess, I was sad to see that winter had already made an appearance.

As I was trudging through the slush to my first class, I was reminded of October snow storms from my childhood. As a kid, snow in October meant one thing: snow gear on Halloween. I remember countless fights with my mom about having to wear boots and my winter jacket with my costume. One year, I had to wear a turtle neck and long john pants with my beautiful, pink princess dress. "Princesses do NOT wear long johns!" I cried. Fortunately for my health, my mom did not budge, and I was forced to wear warm clothes. My mom always said, "They just don't make Halloween costumes for Midwest weather." She was definitely right.

Thankfully, some of the fall leaves are still left on the trees after this morning's unwanted weather.  I also heard that next week will be in the 60's again, so i guess it's just a classic case of North Dakota weather confusion. I'm happy to know that I have a little bit of time left to enjoy my favorite season! :)