Pinterest App for IPhone

Pinterest App on IPhone

This is my second post about apps that make my life as a teacher easier. Of course, you can access the site from your laptop/desktop, but what makes it a winner for me is that it is an IPhone app., and I can get ideas 24/7 wherever I am.

Pinterest is a fantastic way to get ideas for the classroom. When you find an idea you like, you pin it to your board. I have so many teaching related pins on one board, I am already thinking of separating the pins into boards by category. May be more efficient this way. Great summer project!

Every few days I go on to Pinterest and either go to the education search or type in something specific into the search bar. I am never disappointed with what I find and there is a great amount of variety and styles.

Possible Board Categories:

Classroom Decor/Theme

Classroom Organization/Supplies

Math 

Writing 

Reading 

Education/Teaching quotes

* Science would be one too, but I am not teaching it next year.

Many of the resources I find are linked to Teachers Pay Teachers, a site I had never heard of before going on Pinterest. Some are free, the rest are very reasonably priced. 

Some examples of lessons and ideas I have used from Pinterest:

- Common Core checklists and student self assessment rubric

- Area/Perimeter/Volume sorting activity

- Figurative Language activities

- Format for weekly plans and set up of planning binder, so that every week the repeating information is already on the plan/ saves time

- organization of week's work into folders with days of week on them.

- a lot of new, creative ways to present information to my students in all curriculum areas

Pinterest is extremely valuable to my teaching now. It is sharing ideas with colleagues on a grand scale. 

Document Writer App. for IPhone

As I sit in the movie theater waiting for Iron Man 3 to start, I am writing this in document writer. In the past week since I discovered this app., I have used it multiple times for the purposes of teaching. Today, I am using it to draft my blog post as well.

So, earlier this week, I was almost ready to turn in for the night when I realized that I had not created the landmarks (mean, mode, median, and average) math reference page for my students that I had been meaning to make. It was late and I didn't feel like getting out the laptop and waiting for it to get going. I wondered out loud to my husband about whether there was an app that does what Word does on my laptop. I searched apps and quickly found that Document Writer was well worth the $4.99 price. I made my reference page in just a few minutes and the app is set up just like Word! A life saver especially since my wonderful husband has set it up so that I can print from my iPhone as well! Even if you can't, there are multiple ways to send it, save it, etc. I still have not fully explored the app, but I know it has templates, as well, that I definitely want to check out.

I have already set up folders within the app and love that I can now do this kind of word processing on the go!

The movie is about to begin. Summary: Educator or not, check out Document Writer!

Elated to be Back to Blogging!

I am getting back to blogging again regularly. Started a brand new blog, fresh start. It is very different now. Easier to write on the go. Now, with an IPhone, I can keep a list of topic ideas and draft my posts in my notes app. So convenient! Then, when I am ready, I can cut and paste the post into my blogger app. I love technology! I just came up with another topic to write about. I could write for pages about how my IPhone has helped me in my teaching and in my life in general. So many ways. Will write about that at some point. For now, I am just happy to be blogging and reflecting this way.

April Vacation

I never fully take a vacation. Most teachers don't. We take a few days to relax and maybe even go somewhere. We sleep in if that is what we like, go see movies and set our own schedules. However, most of us don't turn off our teacher.

For instance, when I was recently in Newport, R.I. and saw rocks that were beautifully layered, I took multiple pics so I could have my science classes discern what kind of rock they are seeing. This is an easy, real world review of what they have learned and many teachers do this while they are vacationing. I also took pictures of the tide pools and cliff areas to review ecosystems and weathering/erosion. Showing a picture and having the students just write what they see using science vocabulary never gets old.

Because I do this, some of my students through the years have adopted the same habit. They come in after a vacation with rocks or shells they collected "for class" or with pictures they took with our science class in mind. I hope they maintain their wonder wherever they go!

This same kind of obsession, never turning off my "teacher mind," like many teachers, does not end with just science class. I am working on developing a figurative language unit and have had to pull over while driving to write down a song title or lyric that demonstrates a figure of speech. There are so many!

I am online regularly finding better ways to present difficult concepts to students. It never ends. By the way, if you are an educator and have not checked out Pinterest...get on that!!!!

Looking forward to my honeymoon in Hawaii this summer. I know I will come back relaxed, tan, and full of great experiences/photos, etc. to apply to my classroom.