Are You A Free App Addict?

My name is Kristen Wideen and I am a Free App downloading addict.  I have been sober for 8 months......  It all started when I received 20 iPads to use in my classroom 2 years ago.  I wanted the BEST apps to use and I wanted to find the apps that produced the best learning results for my first and second graders.  I downloaded apps for free and followed various Twitter accounts that tweeted out deals and details about free apps....

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Resources To Help You Start Your Own Class Twitter Account

Twitter is an invaluable tool in my classroom.  It hasn't always been.  In this post, I want to point out some of my mistakes and how I overcame them to help you and your students be successful with Twitter. #1 Classroom Twitter MistakeThe Teacher creates and publishes the tweets. When I first created my Twitter feed, my purpose was to share what we were doing in class.  I created the tweet, took the pictures, responded to tweets,...

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Teaching Money With Technology

We are just finishing up our math unit on money.  I teach grade 2 math, so the expectations were that students would be able to count coins up to one dollar.  We had to start right from the beginning with money.  Many of my students were unable to name the coins and tell me what they were worth.  In this blog post, I am going to highlight some of the activities we partook in over past couple of weeks. Small group instruction is...

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Sign Up For The January Blogging Community Session Now!

The Primary Blogging Community is currently accepting classes that blog for the January rotation.  The last rotation was a huge success with over 80 classes participating from all over the world.  I have made a few changes for this rotation.  I have changed the rotation schedule from 8 weeks to 6 weeks.  I've done this because I feel that the most important part of this community is to have students commenting on each...

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Different Ways To Generate Ideas Using Technology

After meeting with the 5/6 teachers at my school and discussing how we teach writing to our students, it got me thinking.  I have always taught writing by teaching the different forms of writing and modeling sentence structure, revising, editing etc through the forms.  The 5/6 teachers at my school first teach how to generate ideas, then how to write a great introduction sentence and so on.  This intrigued me because if you work on...

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A Very Special Skype Call From A Very Special Author, Ame Dyckman

This blog post is to give a HUGE shout out to the talented and amazing author, Ame Dyckman.  If you ever get the chance to invite her into your room through Skype, JUMP at the chance.  Her bubbly demeanor and positive outlook is contagious even while dealing with a slow internet and temporary technological issues. Our relationship began with a simple tweet I sent her on Twitter about reading her fabulous book Boy + Bot on the first day...

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Using Twitter To Extend My Math Lessons

As a primary level teacher it was my goal to have students communicate their learning from the classroom to the world while leveraging student safety and the logistics of multiple devices.  Leading my students through the creation of a learning network on Twitter was the ticket.  Twitter is a classroom tool that empowers students to develop their voice through global connections.   My students learn from others on Twitter and...

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Connecting The Curriculum to an Authentic Audience

Yesterday was a very busy day in my grade 2/3 classroom.  We had joined Jen Wagner's Pumpkin Seed Project.  If you have not visited her site, I highly suggest you do.  She hosts a variety of online projects that involve many classes from around the world and that tie into the curriculum seamlessly.  We asked parents to donate a pumpkin in the name of math, literacy and science for this project.  My teaching partner and...

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Why Introducing Young Students To Social Media Is So Important

Last year my grade 1 students were uploading videos to their personal blogs and to youtube, tweeting from our classroom Twitter feed, face timing, skyping and participating in Google Hangouts with peers, soon to be teachers, teachers, experts in a certain field, and the class down the hall.  We participated in global projects like the Global Read Aloud and created our own global projects. Why? There are many great reasons why we have embeded...

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Teaching Procedural Writing Through Art

Last week, my teaching partner Sarah and I decided that we would start our procedural writing unit.  I always love to teach procedural writing because there are so many fun lessons to do with procedural writing.  Last year students took pictures of each other eating gingerbread cookies and they had to write out how they ate their gingerbread cookie.  They completed the assignment with using the pictures that were taken and the text...

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YOU Must Try This App!

If you teach primary children you know how long it takes for a child to type in a website.  At all costs I try not to have my children do this.  Imagine, twenty 7 year olds trying to type in a 30 character  URL on their iPads all at the same time.  It is true madness, "It's not working," "I need help!" "Is that an i or a l?" and this is why the app that I am about to tell you about is pure genius. A couple of weeks ago a colleague of mine asked me to participate in "Talk Like A Pirate Day."  Of course the catch was that...

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Ready To Use Fact Family iPad Station

My students have been working on fact families the past couple of days.  To reinforce what has been taught in class, I try to incorporate a math station that practices the skill and incorporate it into our math stations the following week.  I modeled the station today and had them give it a go to make sure they would be able to do it independently next week.  I was pleasantly surprised how my grade 2 students did the station independently....

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A Classroom For Discovery And Curiosity - Part 1

One of my goals this year was to weave a wonder and curiosity theme into our classroom.  I wanted to put the choice in the students hands this year.   We will learn through inquiry and discovery.  We will question and be information seekers.  We will be wonder experts. The next few blog posts will be about my journey, first starting with the space, second with a few of the key lessons that were delivered and finally a reflection...

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2nd Grade Math, My Way

This year, I am teaching a grade 2/3 split.  I have had some of these munchkins since Kindergarten (with a year mat leave in-between).  Needless to say, we didn't need much time to go over procedures and classroom norms because I have had many of these children for 3 years.  I am team teaching math with 2 other teachers, so for math I teach all of the second graders. My school board uses the math program, "Math Makes Sense" and for...

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6 Ready To Go iPad Centers

A few of the following iPad Centers/Stations I have posted before, however I thought it might be useful to post them again, at the beginning of the year so you know they are here if you want to try something new during your literacy or math block.  All of the centers can be done using one or two iPads at the center and are actual centers that my students used last year.  I hope you find them useful or they spark new ideas to try with your...

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