Using Blendpsace in your Classroom

I'm linking up with Techie Turtle for Tech Tip Tuesday!

This post is all about how to use blendspace in your digital classroom!

One of my favorite tech tools in my digital classroom is the website Blendspace. I use this website to organize activities for my kids to complete during math workshop. My favorite things about this website are:

• It's web based so you can use it with any device.
• It's visually pleasing.
• It helps kids stay focused on the tasks by ordering them.
• You can input a variety of media types.
• It's free!

I created a youtube video showing how to use the website in your classroom. You can check it out here.

When you create a *Free* account with blendspace, your home screen will look like this:

You can browse the gallery for lessons that have already been created.

When you find a lesson you like, you can make a copy. You'll be able to edit the lesson, so it's okay if you only like part of it. 

You can also create original lessons by clicking on "New Lesson" from the home screen. 

You can add lots of different things to your blendspace. My favorites are youtube videos, practice problems or games from different websites, google docs with instructions and pictures for foldables or hands-on activities, and quizzes. 

Once you're finished, you click share and you'll have a link that you can send to your students. 

Have you used Blendspace in your classroom? If so, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Check out my FREEBIE on Teachers Pay Teachers that includes the resources and a link to a blendspace I used in my classroom on Comparing Decimals.

Vegas!

I had the amazing opportunity to go to the Teachers Pay Teachers Conference in Vegas this year. I'm a fairly new seller with a small store and going to the conference alone was WAY outside my comfort zone. 

I'm linking up with The Elementary Entourage to share my top 5 take aways from the conference. 

Teachers Pay Teachers is made up a team of good people who put education first. I was amazed to find out that every TPT staff member spends several full days a year in classrooms helping teachers. This site is truly about transforming education across the world. Here's my "birthday buddy" Amy from TPT. I found out we share the same birthday!

The successful sellers on TPT work really hard to be successful. I was in awe at how willing they are to pay it forward. This is not a "get rich quick" scheme. The successful sellers are successful because they put long hours in creating high quality products that help teachers. I was excited to meet the infamous Deanna Jump who was incredibly sweet and took the time to meet all the "star-struck" teachers. 

Collaboration is key. Whether you're thinking about it from the perspective of a teacher-author on TPT or as a teacher in the classroom, we really do go further when we work together. I loved meeting teachers from all over the country and swapping ideas. Hearing other teachers' ideas always gets me fired up for my own classroom. 

It's good to get out of your comfort zone. I've been a seller on TPT for less than a year and my store is teeny tiny. I'm an outgoing introvert. I can be outgoing once I get to know you, but putting me in a room full of strangers makes my insides shaky. So how about a room full of 1,000 strangers? Talk about being outside of my comfort zone! It felt really good to conquer that fear and come out on the other side with new friendships and a lot of new knowledge. Here's a picture from the giant blogger meet-up. 

I've had a serious George Clooney crush since the ER days. It's a long running joke with my husband that George is my other dream man. So when I toured Madame Toussaud's with some new TPT friends, I had to share this picture with the hubby. Turns out wax George Clooney is almost as good as the real thing : )

Head on over to Elementary Entourage to check out some other teachers' Vegas experiences. 

Test prep can be fun!

Testing season can be extremely stressful for both the students and the teachers! This year with our new math standards I felt like there was SO much that I needed to review with my kids.

We spent 3 days playing review games to review some math skills. I tried to focus on the standards that will appear the most on the test (in Texas, we have readiness standards) and on skills that lend themselves well to a game.

I put the kids into mixed ability groups and they rotated through 6 different stations. They did 2 stations each day. I walked around and helped kids/took note of who needed to review with me later.

The kids did a great job with the games! I did give them a warning that if they got in trouble, they'd have to do problems out of the book instead of play the games : )

Station 1:
Multiplication Board Game

You can download it for free here

Station 2:
Decimals Board Game - reviewing addition & subtraction with decimals

Station 3:
Long Division Board Game

Station 4:
Fraction war - I have these cards that have fractions with a picture on them, so the kids like to play war to practice comparing fractions.

Station 5:
Spiral Card Game - I got this great free game from Functional Fun on TPT to help the kids practice converting mixed numbers and improper fractions

You can get it for free here

Station 6:
Computer Station - I rarely let the kids just "play" on the laptops or ipads. We have 3 laptops in the classroom, so the kids used to play some fun games on fractions.

I let them choose from any of the fraction and decimal games on math playground

Such a fun way to review some important skills! How do you help your kids review for testing? Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today for 5 for Friday from a busy, crazy week!

I started the week celebrating my wonderful hubby's birthday! I forgot to take a picture of my amazing burger at Rodeo Goat in Fort Worth - I highly recommend it if you're looking for a burger joint in Fort Worth!

Using toothpicks to create different types of lines and angles as part of a Geometry Menu Board

My first attempt making a mini book for my students was a success! They filled the inside with examples of quadrilaterals and triangles. 

We used the app "Geoboards" to create different 2-Dimensional figures. Much easier than pulling out all the rubber bands and actual geoboards! The kids loved it.

And now on a less fun note, I ended the week getting the room ready for our big state writing test next week. We have to cover everything that has writing on our walls - I hate the way the room looks! I also close the blinds so the sun isn't glaring on any students and they're not distracted staring out the window. Do you have to get your rooms covered for testing at your school?

Elapsed Time

We spent a couple of days this week on elapsed time - a skill that always proves to be tricky for students. I'm also noticing that my 4th graders aren't as good at telling time as they should be, but they never have to read analog clocks in real life! They get much less practice at telling time than my students used to.

As I've mentioned before in posts about math workshop, I use blendspace to organize the workshop activities for the kids. I also record the lessons and they watch it on their ipad at the beginning of workshop. This really helps with their attention and also gives me more time to pull small groups.

Feel free to check out the blendspace I created on elapsed time here

So their first tasks were to watch the videos. For this skill I made 2 videos, each one teaching a different strategy for elapsed time. Once they were done with the videos, they worked at their own pace through the different activities over the course of 2-3 days.

I had made some QR code task cards and put at a set in each table group's bucket. (Each table has a bucket where I put any supplies they will need for math workshop that day). I also put some clock manipulatives. I am fortunate to have a TON of hands-on math tools at my school, so I had enough for each student to get their own clock.

They solved the problem on the task cards using their clock, used the QR code to check their answer, and then took a picture of the problem and the clock showing the answer. When they were done, they put their pictures into pic collage.

I did this activity in small groups with students who I thought may struggle.

The QR task cards are part of my Elapsed Time Lesson Pack, available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store - check it out here.

After the QR task cards, they did versatiles. I had never heard of these until I came to  my current campus last year and they had a set in each room, but now I love them! Ours are a little out dated, but whenever I find a page that correlates with our current skill, I love to use them. Find out more about them here.

Then I had another set of task cards taped around the room that they answered. Some students were still using their clock to help them, while others were relying more on strategies such as t-charts or number lines. When they finished these task cards, they had to come check in with me before they could move on.

The last 2 activities were intended to be more of an extension - if you got to it, great! If not, no worries. One was to plan your dream day and to outline the schedule. They also had to write down how much time they spent on each activity.

The last activity in the blendspace was to do some practice problems on IXL. Our school doesn't have a membership, but kids can do 20 free problems in a day. I like the repetitiveness of IXL, so I typically include some type of this practice each week.

Stem-and-Leaf Plots

When we got our new curriculum this year, stem-and-leaf plots were one of the "scary" new additions. I mean, really, who uses a stem-and-leaf plot?! I was a little nervous about finding a meaningful way to teach these to my kids, but as always, the kids did great!

We were able to tie these lessons in with our science unit on the weather. Each table group was given a region of the US. Within the groups, students chose a city and looked up the 10 day weather forecast for that city.

They had to record the weather conditions and the high temperature for each day in the forecast. Then the students in each group combined their data.

They made a dot plot to represent the weather conditions and a stem-and-leaf plot to represent the high temperatures for their region.

It took us a couple of days and lots of mini-lessons and checking in with groups, but they turned out great!

When most of the groups were done with their plots, we worked on writing questions for them. I modeled some questions using the example plots I had made during mini-lessons. I also gave the class some question stems that they needed to include. For example:

How many...

What is the difference between...

How many more _____ than _____

Then each group wrote and answered at least 5 questions for their plots. Some questions went with the dot plot and some with the stem-and-leaf plot. When they were all done we wrote the questions and answers on paper and hung them in the hallway with their plots. I forgot to take a picture of this! I'll have to add it later.

Any other Texas teachers struggling with real-world connections for stem-and-leaf plots?

Five for Friday - my first linky party!

I'm making my first attempt at participating in a linky party! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Five for Friday (yes I know it's Monday...)

We finished up our unit on data analysis. At the beginning of the year this is what I was most nervous about teaching with our new math standards. It went great though! The kids made stem-and-leaf plots and dot plots using a 10 day weather forecast (which tied in great to our science unit on weather!)

We moved into our house last year. I finally got around to decorating the guest room/my office. I now have a lovely, motivating space to work. I love how it turned out!

We started off our measurement unit with perimeter and area. Here are a couple of glances into the notes we put in our math journals:

We got another snow day Thursday. It doesn't take much in Texas to get a snow day, but this was real fluffy snow - not the normal sleet we get down here. Of course my husband and I had to build a snowman. 

It's hard to believe that it's spring break! I'm looking forward to a week full of relaxation and catching up on things. My 2 kitties couldn't be happier to have me home for a week!