"Val the Valentine" You Can Do

I did not plan on creating this activity. It is actually not even my idea. But sometimes, hallway conversations have a way of pushing me TO do something I hadn't thought of or planned. 

Many of the templates I create have a pretty cute story behind them. Here is the story of Val. I was walking down the hall last Thursday, and a young student paused and smiled up at me. I smiled back and he stopped, looked at me and asked, "Are you going to come to my class so we can decorate hearts?" 💖

A little background to this question - I've gone into our 1st grade classrooms around Halloween to decorate a pumpkin (thanks to Eric Curts); around Thanksgiving to dress up a turkey (thanks to Beth Kingsley); and Christmas to decorate a tree (thanks again, Eric Curts). 

So really, he already anticipated this activity. We chatted for a bit about how he'd like to decorate hearts and then he proceeded to give me specific dates he'd prefer I come in - he apparently has a vacation coming up and didn't want to miss out 😆.

So thanks to this little one, I designed "Val the Valentine"! It it definitely geared to a younger audience, but older students can add in their own flair if you are ok with that by changing colors, adding in space to write a Valentine note, or search additional Valentine themed images and borders.

Val the Valentine

Here is a link to the template.
If the preview doesn't work, try ↬ Val the Valentine 

Feel free to make your own copy & share out with your kiddos. (I suggest using the "Make a Copy for each Student" in Google Classroom for your littlest ones.) I've also added it to our ever growing collection of templates on "Templates for Teachers". You are welcome to make your own copy of any of them and share/modify to make them your own.

For older students, you might want to check out Valentine's Activities You Can Do, a choice board of activities I shared out last year. There are 6 activities definitely geared toward older students.

Do you know of other Valentine themed activities? I'm working to grow my "Holiday-themed" Wakelet collections and my Valentine's is pretty weak. You can check it out here ↬ https://wke.lt/w/s/eUTHpQ . Would you mind sharing ones you know of? I'd love to grow this collection.

And as always, I'd love to connect! Do you have a question, comment, or idea? Share them with me on Twitter (@kiefersj), via email: sarah@techyoucando.com, or in the comments below.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Lunch Box Notes You Can Do

This week, I have a "quick win". My mom was good at tucking notes into my lunch randomly. I've tried to be good at this for my girls, but I don't do it often enough. One reason is I usually think to do this in the morning - and that's not the ideal time to whip up something. 

After putting some thought into it, I came up with a Google Slide deck with 24 pre-made notes. (And no, they don't have to just be for lunchboxes!) I left some blank so you can handwrite your own. I also included some instructions if you are wanting to make your own! I'll be printing these out and using them for my own daughters for sure! I might even tuck them in colleagues mailboxes, too!

I've added it to "Templates for Teachers" website I maintain with a colleague of mine, Beth. We have shared out over 60 templates made with Google Apps that you are free to take and make your own. There are ones for teacher use as well as ones ready-to-use with students.

* * * BONUS * * *
2 weeks ago, I shared out the idea to include your students in creating the header for your Google Classrooms. Here is ANOTHER idea you can include your students in. This is great "real estate" for your students to express their creativity and learning. Since there are so many different devices out there - this would work for iPads and laptops as well - I'd recommend Googling your specific device's screen size to find the correct resolution. Then create a Google Drawing of that custom size.

I Googled the screen size for our chromebooks.

In the "File" menu, select "Page setup" then "Custom" and change the unit to pixels. Type in the screen size you found.

Once you have this "template," share it out through Google Classroom. You could design a challenge around a current learning topic or just allow students to demonstrate their creativity. [At the beginning of the year, this could be a great getting to know you activity!]

To insert it as the background, they just need to download it as a JPEG or PNG file. Do a double-finger tap on their current wallpaper, and "Set Wallpaper". Go to the downloads file and choose the downloaded image. You can do this as often as you'd like! 

Good luck! If you have your students create backgrounds, I'd love to see them! You can connect and contact with me in a lot of ways - just see my handles in the top right corner.

I enjoy seeing what students create!

Valentine's Activities You Can Do

My job has many different components - which I thoroughly enjoy - and the top two pieces to my job is when I get to work directly with teachers and when I get to work directly with students. I have been fortunate enough to be working with one group students regularly for 2 years now. 

Most of the time, I've got a targeted lesson to tie into something they are working on in class or something their teacher has asked we work on ... but I surprised them Friday with a Valentine's Day themed selection of activities.

These students know Google Slides. They have been working with Slides since 2nd grade, so that's nothing new. However, I published this slidedeck to the web, so they got to see it in a different light. (At first they didn't even recognize it as Slides.) I used the Jourdain presentation template from Slides Carnival and they "oohed & aahed" over it. Since it's "choice activities", I explained they had 6 different activities to choose from and they were free to switch at any time. Then I stepped back and let them explore.

http://bit.ly/valentinechoices

Non-bit.ly link for Valentine's Choice Activities

Looking for a link to make a copy of the choice board? Here you go: Valentine Choice Activities template

💖 Valentine's themed hangman game using Flippity.net's template

💖 Chrome Music Lab to create music

💖 Make your own Valentine's Magnetic poetry in Google Drawing (thanks, Eric Curts!)

💖 Valentine's Day Breakout using Flippity.net's template

💖 Valentine's word search - 2 levels - in Google Slides

💖 create your own Word Cloud with WordClouds.com

These kinds of activities are fun, holiday themed tech activities and I try to provide a variety of activities to allow students to explore things they may not otherwise get to see. To my surprise, this group focused on 2 activities - the Music Lab and the Breakout! There was some good music happening and a group of students worked together to "breakout". When the classroom teacher saw how many were drawn to the Music Lab, she went across the hall and grabbed the music teacher to join us for a few minutes and I learned who Kandinsky was!

Control Alt Achieve Math

Control Alt Achieve

Eric Curts

TWITTER: @ericcurts

WEBSITE: Control Alt Achieve

If you know me at all, you know I hold Eric Curts in very high regard. I learned about him several years ago and I am blown away - on a regular basis - with his creativity and his ease at making learning accessible to all. I share his stuff all the time and I definitely want to highlight some of his amazing math resources. 

I only have so much space, so please do NOT limit yourself to these particular resources. Go to his website (linked above) and for math resources, scroll down on the right side and find his "math" label. You'll end up getting lost in all his resources!!!

• 11 Ways to Teach Math with Google Drawings Google's Drawing app provides so many possibilities for the math classroom. Eric shares 11: lines of symmetry, pictographs, line plots, fractions, shapes, and so much more! [He also lists common core standards each activity can link to!]

• Interactive Clock Face with Google Drawings Again, using Google's Drawing app a clock face become interactive. Learning time and how the hands move becomes a fun activity. I shared this with my daughter's 1st grade teacher two years ago and it quickly became a class favorite on the SMARTboard! The students were super excited to "tell" time on the giant clock! 

• Pattern Block Templates and Activities with Google Drawings Can you tell Google Drawings is a must for the math classroom?? This activity provides limitless pattern blocks for hours of fun. No worries about losing the tiles, or not having enough sets for the number of students ... give each student their own copy of the Drawing and step back! Eric even includes the template AND directions easy enough for even the littlest learners.

• Solving Story Problems with the Highlight Tool Add-on in Google Docs A big part of any math class is reading - we have to be mindful of that. How cool is the thought that Google Docs can enter the picture and using the highlighting tool add-on to assist with students visually seeing the various parts of the problem. (Or a lower-tech thought ... simply have the students use the traditional highlighter on digital word problems.)

I could go on and on ... Eric's resources are amazing and extremely helpful. And, as a bonus, he has FAR MORE than math resources! Bookmark his website for sure!!!

Social Media Your Students Can Do

OK, so it's not really fair of me to use the title that I did, but I HOPE it caught your eye enough to be intrigued.

I try to focus a chunk of my time on is sharing out ideas that I've see or read about. I hope that activities I find are useful ... or maybe they are innovative ways of doing activities ... or possibly ways to better utilize the tech we have in our classrooms. Some ideas are well received. Others, I never hear a peep about.

If I'm being honest & upfront, this is not HOW to use social media, rather it is about how you can TURN social media into a productive and creative tool in your classroom. Writing doesn't always have to be paragraphs ... images in a report don't always have to be portraits ... critical thinking doesn't always have to take place in a huge time-consuming project ... conversations regarding tools in a program don't always have to be dry and lecture style ...

One teacher who entertains A LOT of my ideas is Beth Kingsley [@bethkingsley13] - 3rd grade teacher who already does a fantastic job of incorporating tech in her room and trying out new ways to "do" school. 

Background: I read this on Twitter: [LINK to actual Tweet]

And I was INTRIGUED! I had to check out these Google Drawings @JenniferPeart used with her kiddos to make fake Twitter accounts for ... of all things ... the planet MARS! What??? In her tweet, she thanks Ryan O'Donnell, aka @creativeedtech, for his template.

Two of my FAVORITES! Templates and the recommendation from another teacher who has done it. 

Anyhoo ... Ryan's blog [LINK] has an entire page devoted to templates for "for student or teacher use".  How awesome! I shared this link with the teachers in the elementary buildings where I work.

Beth talked to me and said she was going to do the Twitter one for Groundhog Day! Of all things! But you know what? It is SUPER cool! Groundhog Day is right around the corner so it is timely.