An App Worth the Money!

As funds are always limited in schools and teachers spend a great deal of their own personal money, I am usually only interested in FREE apps.  Occasionally, I will pay for a cheaper app, but mostly I like free apps.  However, this one app is an exception!  Levelbook is an app worth paying for!

Levelbook is not only my favorite app as a teacher, but the students and parents LOVE the app also.  Levelbook allows you to record students while reading during a running record.  You can mark student errors and self corrects and it will give you their accuracy, fluency rate, and self correction ratio.  Their is a note section for you to record the errors or any observations you noticed.  There are other apps that allow the same thing, but they don't let you SAVE the recordings.  Running Record Calculator allows you to record and it will score for you, but it will not save the files.  Both apps allow you to email the recording so you can email it out to their parents, yourself, an intervention teacher, etc.  So, why would you want to pay to save the files when you could email them to yourself and then save them?  Because the app saves them in date order and you can watch for progression.  It's organized and in one place if you want to share with parents at a conference, to share with the student to talk about their progress or point out a strategy they are or are not using, and to share in Child Study or RTI (Response to Intervention) meetings.


Here are a list of reasons why I LOVE this app so much:

1.  It helps me keep up with my higher readers during a running record.  I have the hardest time keeping up with checking each word a student reads correctly and to mark errors when a student is reading 130+ words per minute.

2.  It saves recordings to be shared with interventionists, students, teachers, and parents when discussing a child's reading progress.  Ever work with a struggling reader?  Sometimes explaining how they are still reading word for word, or how they get stuck on sight words, or how they need to sound out the same word repeatedly in a reading does not have the same effect as listening to a recorded sample of that child reading.  It was very helpful to use to help get students into reading intervention programs.

3.  ALL parents LOVE to hear their children read.  Ok, maybe not all parents, but it is a good way to continue to communicate with your students' parents about their reading progress.  I like to add a few notes to the email.  Something like, "I can tell how hard you are working at home on fluency.  You can hear the improvements and I am so proud of this student."  Or, "we moved up a reading level today and your child is doing great!"  It's a great way to keep parents in the loop.

4. You can use the emails to suggest things students can work on at home.  "This book was a little harder for your child today.  We will keep practicing reading phrase cards for time to increase her reading fluency.  You can use her phrase cards at home to practice also."

5.  Nothing is more exciting for a child than for them to hear themselves.  They can hear their own progress and can feel that pride in their reading.  Students will ASK to read to you.  "Are you recording me today?  Please?  Is it my turn?"

6.  You can set "benchmarks" on different dates and it will color code the students on level and below level.  The teacher is the only one who can see this.  It's just a quick glance for you to see how many readers you have below level.

7.  It is easy to add students to your class list. Get a new student in the middle of the year?  No problem, just add a student to the list.

8.  It is easy to add your own books.  It allows you to level books by DRA, Lexile, PM Reader, Fountas & Pinnell, Reading Recover, and Reading A-Z Systems.  Regardless of what leveling system your school uses, this app will work for you!

9. You can view it from your iPad or iPhone (I have not tried it from an Andriod or Tablet)

10.  It keeps you organized!  The information is all a click away.


Parents would respond to emails that I sent praising their child and praising me for keeping them informed.  The emails "made their day!"   I had parents asking for the app name so they could use it at home or share with their own teacher friends.  Parents even let my principal know about how much they loved getting emails with their child's reading level and a recording attached.

I personally keep a piece of paper to the side so I can write down the type of errors the student makes or take a written running record.  The app will give you an accuracy percentage, but it doesn't code the errors for you.  I usually keep the written running record in a binder with a tab for each student.  If they read faster than I can make check marks, then I just record the errors and make a note that the running record was recorded.  The app allows you to enter the errors and self corrects as the child reads, or at the end you can enter the number for each and then it will calculate the scores.  If I have time,  I enter the types of errors in the notes section so I always have the information with me.

Levelbook does offer a FREE version called Levelbook Lite.  However, it does not let you load more than 10 students.  The paid version allows for unlimited students.  If you start with the free version and fall in love like I did, your information does NOT transfer over when you download the paid version.  If you are only going to use it for a group of students, the free version does allow full access though.

Well, what are you waiting for?  Go download Levelbook right now so your students will ask to come to reading groups and your parents will be on the journey with you!  The app is currently $9.99  (It was only $4.99 when I bought it 2 years ago, but I would buy it again if I had to)  Here is the image you are looking for:

 

Using Technology with Reading

Teachers around the world are looking for innovative ways to capture their students attention and to teach them 21st Century Skills along with our required content.  I've attended a few workshops on how to add technology to our classrooms and am excited about the possibilities.  If you don't use any technology with your students, you are not preparing them for their future.  If we teach to yesterdays world, students won't have a chance at survival in this fast paced, technology based world we live in.  I sat in an Engaging the Net Generation workshop from the Schlechty Center and listened to a panel of students talk to a room full of educators about their experiences in school.  That was the most powerful 20-30 minutes ever!  One student explained to the educators in the room that while we think of technology as an option to squeeze in occasionally, they see it as a necessity.  Technology is their everyday world. To them, the technology component is a requirement.

As educators, we have to step up to the plate and provide these students with the best education possible.  That includes using technology!  I teach 2nd grade and my students, although very young, come in already pretty tech savvy.  Use their tech knowledge to help build yours.  Learn from each other!  Take risks!  Be honest with your students and let them know that you are learning too.  They will respect you for it.

I've been looking for ways to use Technology in all content areas of my classroom.  This past year I created a "Reading with Technology" Tic Tac Toe board of activities.  I started using this tic tac toe board with my highest Guided Reading groups.  These students were already able to decode, read with meaning, and summarize.  They were reading well above grade level and I was looking for something to engage and challenge them.  A friend of mine, Kyersten Karbowski, had created a tic tac toe board of reading activities for our grade level the year before.  (Thank you again, Kyersten!) So, inspired by her idea, I changed the activities to be technology based products the kids could create.  I chose apps that we already had on our classroom iPads.  Many of the apps I had already introduced to the class through other activities.  A few of the apps, I introduced to their reading group alone.  Now, they were able to have some choice and to show some creativity in ways to respond to their reading.  I soon realized, this activity was not only great for my higher readers. This was something that everyone in my class could do and enjoy.  It provided some choice and a great deal of differentiation.  It could be used whole group, small group, or as a one on one project for reteach or enrichment. The students who were familiar with some of the apps the whole class had not yet learned became experts.  They helped other students learn how to use the apps.  Students were reading for meaning, responding to literature, using technology, and having FUN!  Students wanted to work on their Tic Tac Toe boards every free second they had!

Even if you don't use this board as a Tic Tac Toe board, you can still pull ideas and/or activities for kids to use.  Maybe you want to try just one of the activities with your class - that's great!  I created two versions of the board and both are attached below for FREE.  Click the link, make a copy of them, edit them and make them your own!  Enjoy and share your ideas back with me.  I plan on making more variations of these boards in the future and would love your input - new activities, new apps, better instructions, etc.  They are a work in progress!  The idea can be used in other content areas too.

The only rule I gave my students is that they may not pick 3 activities that go up and down.  This tic tac toe must go side to side or diagonal.  Why?  Because the first column is character based activities.  The next is story structure based.  The third column is mostly full of extension types of activities.  Enjoy!


Reading with Technology Tic Tac Toe

Reading with Technology Tic Tac Toe #2

A Favorite Lesson

As I reflect over this last school year, I begin to think about which activities went well and which ones didn't.  Which lessons need to be tossed completely and which ones can be tweaked.  I know that regardless of what I plan for this summer, when I meet my new class in August, this very well may all go out the window!  Every group of students is completely different.  It's one of the many things that keeps teaching so interesting.  More tweaking may be necessary once I meet my new group of students, but this lesson was a HUGE hit last year and is sure to be again next year.

In Science, we were learning about the states of matter in my 2nd grade classroom.  We had already learned the difference between a liquid, solid, and gas.  We had filled up balloons with air, water, and then froze one of the balloons to represent the solid.  Students had felt the balloons, compared them, discussed the differences, and recorded them in their Science journals on the previous day.  I was looking for something fun and different and came across "The Lifecycle of a Snowman" from The Frugal Teacher's Blog (http://www.frugalteacher.com/2011/09/life-cycle-of-snowman.html)  I loved the idea and made a few tweaks to make it my own.  If you want to try this lesson, I would definitely recommend going to her page because she has an instruction page on how to build the snowman I will talk about later.


I told my class that we had a fun experiment planned for the afternoon and that we had a special visitor coming to help us.  Olaf from Frozen was going to help us get started.  I played this video of "In Summer."



Olaf set up the perfect Science Experiment!  What would happen if he went to summer and felt the effects of heat?  Students were then asked to share their predictions.  Then, in the back of the room, I had set up one of Olaf's friends on our hot plate.  The "snowman" was made from 3 frozen balloons.  I learned from The Frugal Teacher's blog that after you fill the balloons with water, you set them in bowls with plates on top of the balloons when you set them in the freezer to help create a flat base to stack the snowman's body parts together.  (Do this at least 2 days before your planned experiment to be sure your snowman is frozen solid)  Use salt to help the body parts stick together.  Add cut out pieces of felt for the eyes, nose, mouth, and buttons.

Here is a picture of our class snowman.  I was only able to get two of the frozen pieces to stick - my third plate must of slid in the freezer because it was not level at all and would not stay on!  But, it didn't stop our experiment!

I let each student pick a name for Olaf's friend and then drew a picture of what their snowman looked like in the solid state of matter.  We continued to turn up the "summer heat" and watched as Olaf's friend changed from a solid, to a liquid, to a gas.  We recorded our observations of the changes as we went and drew pictures of what the snowman looked like in each stage and always predicting what would happen next.  Here is our snowman friend towards the end of our experiment.

We watched as he turned into water vapor and disappeared into the air.  A few students were upset that we killed Olaf's friend.  But, we decided that really we were helping Olaf.  He wanted to go to summer time and we did this experiment to see if he could survive.  Our conclusions show that summer time would not be a safe place for Olaf to visit.  So, we wrote letters to Olaf explaining the changes he would go through and why summer time was not a good idea for a snowman.  I had seen this picture below at https://projectoriented.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/sb-snowman.jpg?w=487 and decided to use the paper bowl idea.  We glued our written work and melted snowmen onto large pieces of blue construction paper and hung them out on our bulletin board.

Writing the letter helped students make the full circle and not be upset about our melted snowman.  It was the perfect way for them to reflect back on the experiment and what they had learned.  Only, they didn't realize they were reflecting on their learning.  They were concerned friends of Olaf helping him to survive.  This was such a fun day of learning in class!  The students were talking about this experiment for weeks!

Why blog?

As I start this blog, I am doing so to help me grow as a teacher.  Why?  There are a few reasons really.  First, because I have learned that other teachers are the golden key to success.  I have always been one to share information and new ideas.  I have taught for 7 years now, and each year has been different.  New students, new team members, new curriculum, new ideas, etc.  The saying "beg, borrow, and steal" is very accurate with teachers!  I love to get new ideas from other teachers.  It's great that I was sharing with teachers on my campus, in my district, and in my friend circle, but then I started the Summer Learning Series with Todd Nesloney.  (If you haven't heard of this, check it out at http://summerls2014.blogspot.com/ or the newest set of challenges called Educator Learning Series at http://educatorlearningseries.blogspot.com/)  Todd and I went to Elementary school together until 4th grade.  Now, Todd is leading the nation with his ideas in Education!  He has inspired me to do more.  Think globally!  I participated in his Summer Learning Series last summer.  I was encouraged then to start my blog.  I even created my account.  But, I still didn't know what I wanted to say.  I began connecting with educators through Twitter and realized that I love that other educators put themselves out there to share the amazing things happening in their classrooms.  Amazing things are happening in my classroom too, so I need to do my part and share too.  I still have TONS to learn, but maybe you can learn from a few of my mistakes or "aha" moments.  It may have taken me a whole year to finally take the plunge and publish my first post, but I am taking the next step in creating a network of peers to help each other all be the best educators we can be. I will use this blog to share my knowledge and the new knowledge that I gain from others.

The second reason is for reflection.  I always take the time to think about the activities I do with my students.  Did it go well?  What worked or didn't work well?  Was it successful?  But, blogging will give me another way to reflect.  One with more time and thought.  And, it will be a way to document and look back over time to see what has changed.  I don't want to ever be the teacher that isn't constantly learning and changing with her students.

The final reason was in a tweet I read this week.  It said something about teacher's should be required to blog before asking their students to do it.  I have introduced my students to KidBlog and I love it!  They love it even more! They want to "blog" me.  (Which really means they want to post a blog and they want me to read it and comment back)  Getting students excited to write is awesome!  But, I myself have never blogged, and I love to write!  I need to lead by example and practice what I preach.  So, here goes - my first blog!