Mrs. Tech

Heading into Algebra 1 this year, I wanted to add in some different activities that my students grew accustomed to that weren't just book work or IXL's. I know there was a big push away from worksheets when I was in college. It was like "if they aren't doing something hands on, they aren't learning." I can see where this line of thinking comes from, but if your freshmen are like my freshmen, you can't just do all hands on. They don't have the self control for that.  So I set out to find activities that are still different then problems from a book, but are still keeping them somewhat engaged. These matching activities are one of the simplest ways I came up with. I really like to use them as bellwork the morning after I teach the lesson. The matching itself doesn't take too long, but it gives them the ability to work different problems out and it only requires paper and a pencil. I also know that my class runs way smoother when they have bellwo...

This year my school implemented PDP’s (or Professional Development Plans). What can I do to develop professionally that will make me a better teacher? Well part of what will make me a better teacher is if I teach my students in a way that jives with them. I’m not saying to change what you do every day, but adding in some activities that are hands-on or out of the norm will totally get them engaged – which can be really hard in math. So I decided that this was one of my goals for my PDP – hands-on learning in the Algebra 1 classroom. It isn’t easy to come up with hands-on activities for the high school math classroom, but sorts are one that I have had a lot of success with in my classroom this year. Y’all. Sorting is so fun and hands on. It does take a little prep to cut the squares out (&& laminate if you want to reuse them), but there are ways to cut down on this. Sometimes I just throw the cards up in a document on the white board and have students create their own sort...

Hey y'all. I am currently sitting on the couch between both of my coonhounds getting all of the pup cuddles & watching March Madness (Go Vols, right?). My day so far has consisted of Starbucks, a mani/pedi (because not many things make me feel more like a woman than fresh nails), laying in the sunshine & reading a book, and then helping address invite es to my brothers wedding. I AM THRIVING. Guys. I think I am made for this life. I have been making salads, cooking 3 meals a day, eating a TON of greens and sipping on kombucha like its water. Every time my husband comments on how nice it is to have lunch ready when he gets home from work (he works a split shift - personal trainer probs), I always remind him that it would be like this if I was a stay at home dog mom. Obvi, I always laugh because pretty sure I wouldn't be cooking three meals a day or sipping pooch like it's my job if I was a stay at home dog mom, but who knows. I have a passion to be creative ...

Are your kids as excited for March Madness as mine are? Not all of them, obviously, but I have a lot of boys who have very little interest in math who are currently very interested in basketball and all the fun that March Madness brings. In order to capture their attention a little, I put together this March Madness bulletin board and we played an activity in class to go with it as a quiz review. First, let me tell you a little bit about this board. First, I printed out and cut the title for the board. Then I made 100 basketballs with polynomial problems on them for my students to solve. I meant to print it on orange paper, but I forgot to tell my service worker to do that, sooo maybe next time! (oops.) Anyways, I printed out and cut the basketballs also, threw up a portable basketball hoop and used a few sheets of paper to make a scoreboard.  So here's how the "interactive" part of the bulletin board came about. My students are always trying to shoot their paper ...

Even though pi isn't THAT big of a concept in Algebra 1, can you really let a math "holiday" pass without celebrating it? I didn't think so. I came up with a project for my honors students to complete. I like to leave the window for creation very open because I want them to think outside of the box for their projects. I have had cake and brownies cut in the shape of pi. I have had pie with decorations in the form of 3.14. I have had posters and murals and clay and cups and everything else you can imagine in the shape of pi or 3.14. I love to see what they can come up with when they aren't put in a box.  * You'll see that I do offer extra credit for the "most creative" project in class. I use this as a small encouragement for students to try something beyond the common Pinterest searches for pi day projects.  ** The only additional comment I made in class is that they can't just but a pie at the store and call it their project because ...

I'm not sure how observations work at your school, but we have one formal observation each quarter (grading period) and walk-through evaluations at our principals leisure. I know that I am not a perfect teacher, so I really do like when my principal comes in because I think she gives good feedback about some of the things that I might miss in my classroom. Anyways, one of the requirements (or checklist items to look for) in our classrooms is that we are displaying student work. This year I have THE FRIDGE. I found the idea on Pinterest and immediately fell in love. The students can hang things that they are proud of up on the board. I have lots of A+ math tests, a few tests/quizzes from other classes, some principals list certificates, a college acceptance letter, and even one drug & alcohol class certificate (that one you have to take before you can get your learners permit). All of these are small sentiments of my students and the things that make them proud. I love it ...

Wow! It's been a while since I have gotten on here, but I am going to try and get better about that. Let me give you a quick update on my career change, and then I'll get into the topic at hand. Math was my FAVORITE subject as a student. I had an INCREDIBLE Algebra 1 teacher and I was one of those kids who was SO much better at Algebra than I was at Geometry. When I got to college, the upper level math classes seemed overwhelming and I had a heart for reaching all students in my classroom, so I majored in Special Education. At the time there was a huge push towards inclusion, so I chose this major to learn more about how I could reach EVERY student in my classroom. I took the classes necessary to get my K-6 certification and graduated with dual cert. My first job was teaching 6th grade math, science & technology at my old K-12 school. I loved it, but through that year of teaching a technology elective, I fell in love with tech. At the time, I was also getting my masters i...

Hey y'all!  It has been a hot minute. In the past year, I started a new job as a High School math teacher. I teach Algebra 1 & Math for College Readiness (a Florida class for high schoolers who need a 4th math and do not want to take pre-calculus, essentially).  I went back to school today, but I wanted to share with you this simple activity that I used with my high schoolers to share about their break and their new year. I gave it to them digitally via Canvas, and had some paper copies available for students as well.  Anyways, my goal was for this to be bell work basically, so I only wanted them to take a few minutes to complete this. The front page has them set goals in 4 different categories: Educational: What kind of goals do you have for school/your future education? (ex. complete all homework, get a better grade, apply to colleges, pass this class, etc.) Kindness: What can you do this year to show kindness to those around you? Social: You are the t...

It is so much fun to talk about Johnny Appleseed and there are so many wonderful apple week resources out there to share with you. I just wanted to highlight a few of my favorites below.  Johnny Appleseed Webquest Ship Shape First Grade has an AMAZING All About Apples Product Apple Science Experiment  Apple Pretzel Snack Apple Snack Sticks Apple Jokes Books About Apples Apple STEM Activities And a long list of Apple Crafts Happy Apple(ing?) -Hilary 

When I was looking up fun holidays to celebrate in my class, I stumbled upon this one. Celebrated every year on September 19th, this appeals to the imaginative side of each student. Without much class interruption, you can celebrate this holiday while you allow your kiddos to talk like a pirate for the day. Here are some resources that I found for Talk Like a Pirate Day: A List of Words that Pirates Use Paper Plate Pirate Ship Finding Your Pirate Name DIY Treasure Map Pirate Theme Games  (walk the plank being my FAV) Free Writing Prompt Page Make Your Own Pirate Hook & A Tasty Orange/Jello Snack A Healthy Pirate Ship Snack Crystal & Comp Shares Pirate Books for Kids Ahoy Matey! -Hilary 

For those of you that have been following along with my iPad journey, I wanted to reach out and share my thoughts on our first year with an iPad lab. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you might want to start here .  Brief Overview of our goals: I work at a K-12 private school. We purchased 21 iPads (5th Gen) to suit the needs of our 1st - 4th grade classes. The way that our school does electives, I went to each class one day a week for 40 minutes. When the iPad cart wasn't in use (3rd-7th period each day), teachers were able to "rent it out" from me for full use in their classroom. I had two teachers that did this weekly from day 1, and a few others took advantage of it throughout the year.  Recommendations:  1. Buy big iPads. We set up Apple Classroom on each of the iPads and because each student had their own log in, it stores each profile as it's own app owner and in turn saved each app 8 times (one for each class). We quickly realized tha...

So I know that I have already shared with you some of my favorite coding apps on my blog both for iPads and desktops , but I wanted to get back on here and share with you about Apple's Swift Playgrounds that they released as their version of a coding app. As always, something that is based on the device on which it is being played is going to function beautifully, and this is no exception with Swift Playgrounds. I love that Apple shares user guides, help guides, and starts with the most basic versions to get you coding. I wouldn't recommend this as the very first coding you ever do, but I sat in a classroom with many other educators who had never coded before, and they did just fine on this. It does require more reading, so I would recommend it to students who are readers, but we all know that our students are smart enough to figure lots of things out without reading the directions. I love the cute little character that Apple came up with and I also like that there ar...

Play and Learn Science is a PBS Kids game that is aimed at PreK-2nd grade, and is great for exploring science topics in a hands on way through technology. None of the games last forever or have a million levels, but they are just long enough that they get the students engaged and they start to better understand the topic.  The science activities that are covered are as follows:  • Weather Control : Read the Temperature, Weather Controller, Thermometer Picking • Gear Up : Photo Weather, Gear Up, The Amazing Umbrella • Ramp & Roll : Explore the Roll, Hit the Target, Surface Challenge • Shadow Play : Exploring Shadows, Shadow Scenes, Guess the Shadow Part of what I love about this game is all the discussions that you can have after have students explore different aspects of the app. I share what discussions I have had with my students in my resource here .  Let me know if you try this app out, Be a scientist, Hilary 

One of my favorite parts of Draw & Tell is the freedom to have students draw freely. I love to use this for them to create a word picture while we are reading a book to keep their hands busy. It is also a fun way for them to just color for a brain break and to fill in a little free time while they wait for their other classmates to finish. Honestly, who doesn't love to color?! While they are coloring, they can also add clip art or extra designs to the picture and they can color in patterns - say what?! If you want to see how I used Draw & Tell in my classroom, check out my resource here ! Also, any of the other Duck, Duck Moose Apps (like Superhero HD) are pretty much the bomb.com, too!  Happy Drawing, Hilary

Lego Creator is a game that all of my students have enjoyed working on over the course of the year. I originally found it as entertainment for my boys when I had a small group project that I was completing with my girls, but it has honestly been enjoyed by all. You essentially start out with an empty island and you collect blocks to use as currency to build up your island (and add future islands). Each time you are able to build something new, it gives the students choices on what they can pick. They really enjoy the creative part of it, as well as seeing how many blocks they can collect. (As you can see in the picture below, I hold the record with 1500+ :p)  To read more about Lego Creator and see how you might use it in your classroom, check out my resource here .  Happy Building, Hilary 

Newsela reminds me of an app that I used 5 years ago when I was doing my Student Teaching in a Special Education classroom. We used it often because we loved that we could so easily change reading levels. We also loved that our simplest readers could still read the current events that we were discussing. Honestly, I can't remember the name of that site that we used, but Newsela is so similar and I have loved using it in my elementary classrooms.  I'm not going to go crazy in depth, but you can see that the premise of this app is the ability to assign articles for your students to read at their reading levels. They can also work on vocabulary and reading comprehension through the quizzes that are attached to many of the articles. There is also a feature on many articles that allows the article to be translated into Spanish. What a great tool for bilingual students/teachers.  There are a variety of articles to choose from - kids, arts, health, arts & culture, sc...

Earth Day is April 22nd, and even though it is a Saturday, it is definitely something that you should plan to discuss with your students the week before or after! There are some great resources out there to teach your students about Earth Day and it's importance. Some lessons from Education World Earth Day STEAM idea Amazing Earth Facts Jeopardy Game Earth Day Solar Cookout Earth Day Book List from Scholastic Scholastic Video about Trash Mini Garden Craft Earth Day Ideas for Middle Schoolers EcoHaven Emergency Game Earth Day History (article) Build a Pizza Box Solar Oven Compare Light Bulbs Healthy Earth, Sick Earth Discussion   Lots of Printables & Activities for grades K-12 If you like Digital Resources, be sure to check out my digital resource for Earth Day . Happy Celebrating, Hilary *Originally posted 4/17/2017 on MrsTechs Blog

Did you know that April is Poetry Month?! There are so many wonderful poets and so many fabulous poems out there that this is definitely worth a discussion sometime throughout the month of April. I have compiled a list of online resources/apps that are great tools to use during poetry month: Word Mover App Acrostic Poems App Theme Poem App Haiku Poem App Shel Silverstein's Website  Haiku Poems Poetry 180 (for High School age) Giggle Poetry Poetry For Kids Storybird Rhyme Zone Scholastic Poetry site (make sure to check out the Poetry Engine ) Go here for Poetry Writing Forms Check them out! I hope you found a new one you can use in your class this month! If you do, let me know in the comments below :) Hilary **Originally posted on MrsTechs Blog on 3/31/2016

Happy Easter!  Hope that y'all are getting in the Spring spirit and that some nicer weather is coming your way! Do y'all get off for Easter? Do you have school the Friday before or the Monday after? Well if you do, these are some great resources to use as you discuss Easter in your classroom.  Decorate an Egg Easter Story Memory Easter find the Differences Easter Bunny Puzzle Easter Word Search Fill In Puzzle Easter Egg Basketball Easter Egg Hunt Dress Up Game: Easter Egg AbcYa Egg Hunt Free The Easter Bunny Easter Blast Easter Bunny Dress Up When you're done playing all of these interactive games, check out my Easter Webquest , Easter Symbols Webquest , or my Easter Reflections Freebie ! Happy Easter, Hilary @ Mrs. Tech *Originally posted 4-10-2016 on MrsTechs Blog

As I look through the Daily Wonder App, which places a focus on kindness, I wanted to see what I could use this for in my classroom. Here are a few ideas that I came up with to build a better classroom community:  Journal prompts – display or write the daily wonder on the board. Have the students journal each day either virtually or on paper about the prompt (quote). Collect it weekly as a completion grade – this is great for check it at the end of each quarter and spot check for 2-3 entries completed. Quote of the day – explain what this quote means to you or how it can change the way that you act today/think moving forward Class Discussion – use these quotes as you see fit to engage the class in discussion. I always love to hear what the quotes mean to each students, so have them share. You could pick a different student to read the quote each day and share what it means to them, or you could read it and just popcorn the students answers # Choosekind weekly tip – have t...