All About Mo Willems!

This past week we have been learning all about "Mo".  Mo Willems' books have quickly become a favourite choice for my students.  Therefore, I thought the students would love doing an Author Study on Mo.  We began our author study by getting our hands on as many Mo Willems' books as we could.  Luckily, our school library and I had a lot of Mo Willems' books.   Day 1 I began the unit with a review lesson on making text...

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Does Technology = A Great Teacher?

What makes a teacher great?   Is using technology ever been in the definition of a great teacher? Obviously no.  My definition of a great teacher, is a person who inspires their students.  That knows their students' interests and their learning needs.  A great teacher establishes accountably and continually makes sure their students are gaining the knowledge needed.  A great teacher fosters a rich learning climate in their classroom that celebrates successes and mistakes.  I strive to be a great teacher everyday. Has...

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Stop The Excuses, Your Students Could Be Blogging!

I had to share what happened in my class the other day.  I have been really encouraging my students to use the Kidblog App on the iPads for making their learning visible and for increasing the type of content that is on their blogs.  (My students are using their blogs as digital portfolios this year.)  This past week, I had kids wanting to take pictures of the books they wanted at the school book fair and wrote about why they wanted...

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More iPad Math Stations

Due to the overwhelming response to an earlier post on iPad Math Stations.  I have decided to share a couple more stations the students are currently working on. 1. Candy Math Station Do you have left over Halloween candy in your house that you want to get rid of?  Are you tired of sneaking the good treats for yourself, when your children are in bed?  If so, this is the Math Station for you!  I am Canadian, so we had an abundance of Smarties (like M&M's for my American Friends).  I decided to do a sorting and graphing...

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Cultures and Traditions

Today we started talking about traditions, cultures and celebrations.  We would like YOU to connect with us in the month of December! If you would like to participate in this project please sign up here, leave a comment or contact us on Twitter @mrswideen....

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Using iPads During Math Stations

I am continually trying to think of ways to use the iPads in a producing or student creation way, rather than a "lets play a game" kind of way.  I am also trying to be as paperless as possible this year, so using the iPads is a win, win situation.  I share the 20 iPads with another teacher so in all honesty, I only have 10 during math and I usually use 4 with my guided math groups, which leaves me 6 for math stations.  My students...

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Why Blog With 6 And 7 Year Olds?

I wanted to share some great things my students are doing on their kidblogs this year and why I feel so strongly about incorporating blogging into your classrooms.   Blogging is not a new thing in my classroom, I show my students my own blog quite regularly, we look at other grade 1 and 2 blogs, and the students in my class have learned how to leave a quality comment on other blogs.  Here is our anchor chart, "How To Leave A Good Blog Comment."...

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