Voki in the Classroom

April is Poetry month and my first graders have been busy writing all types of poems....free verse, acrostic, cinquains, and haikus. We used Vokis to publish one of their poems. I embedded all of the vokis on my class blog. Here's one example from a student....enjoy! I chose this particular one because it's about my alma mater!

Listen to our April Songs!

Take a listen to our April songs that we sing during calendar time each morning. We use the calendar pages from Jessica Meacham's site. I've included the lyrics for you. Enjoy!



Oh, A-P-R-I-L,
It’s April, it’s April,
Oh, A-P-R-I-L,
It’s April, my friends.
When green leaves are showing,
And flowers are growing.
Oh, A-P-R-I-L,
It’s April, my friends!




April, April,
Days may be warm or cool.
Let’s have fun but
Don’t be an April Fool!
We’ll work on our garden flowers,
And watch for April showers.
On Arbor Day
We’ll sing and play
As we plant a new tree at school.

April, April,
Time for a holiday.
Easter bunny
Hopping along the way!
The leaves on the trees are growing.
The farmers now are hoeing.
It’s green, it’s spring,
It’s time to sing
Now that April is here to stay!

Earth Day Music Video -- 3 Rs!!

Earth Day is coming up and we've been thinking of ways we can make every day Earth Day! We made a video to showcase what we've learned, to teach others, and to HAVE FUN!


My students worked so hard planning, dancing, brainstorming to make this music video for Earth Day! We will show this to the rest of the school during lunch on Thursday!


For this video, the students were filmed in front of some green fleece fabric. I usually use iMovie for the editing, but just came across jaycut.com and LOVE LOVE LOVE it. Makes the green screen editing easy. I'll post about that soon. The music is 3 Rs by Jack Johnson.


Enjoy our music video! At the end, you will see some "outtakes" -- make sure you watch those too! :)

Super Cute Earth Day Art!

With Earth Day coming up, I'm sure a lot of us are talking about the 3 R's with our classes! My student teacher led an adorable art activity that is getting a lot of oohs and ahhhs when people walk past in the hallway!

Here's what you need:

• coffee filters

• green and blue markers

• spray bottle with water

 Students color their entire coffee filter to look like the earth...plenty of green for the land and blue for the water. 

When they finish, they take the spray bottle and spray their coffee filter. We put the filters on chinet dinner size plates which worked out great. Soak the entire filter and you will start to see the colors bleed together. 


Let them dry overnight and mount on black construction paper for a beautiful work of art that is out of this world!

Each one is different and I just loved this little saying to go with the display. 


Later this week, I will be posting some pictures and information on how my class is planning and putting our Earth Day music video together.

Are You On Twitter?

I'd love to follow you on twitter! You can find me there at @thetekyteacher.

Two MUST HAVE Sites for SmartBoard Users

For the past two days I've been attending Smart Notebook training. Awesome stuff! I thought I had figured most everything out on my own....I was so wrong! Our trainer was awesome, moved at a quicker pace than most, which I liked. Very little time just sitting there.....LOTS of time to get to work and apply the things we were learning. 

We all know Smart Exchange is an awesome place to download Notebook lessons.  Our trainer today shared two more awesome sites for SmartBoard lessons. I can't wait to explore more....what wonderful resources, be sure to bookmark!

Teachers Love SMART Boards

Harvey's Homepage 

Techy Linky Party -- Blabberize!!

Miss Snowden is having a linky party all about tech! A techy linky party?! Well that sounds right up my alley!

Blabberize made my Top Ten list of web 2.0 tools for educators. It's easy and FUN! It hooks the kids in when presented in a lesson, and is easy enough for the kids to do as well.

With Blabberize, you can upload any picture and make it talk. Simply upload your picture, place the mouth, and record your audio. Easy peasy!

Here's a quick Blabberize I made with a zebra. Let's see what you can do with it! I would love to see how you use this tool in your classroom!

Video of Caterpillar Making it's Chrysalis!

I know many of us are getting ready to start our butterfly/life cycle units VERY soon. I don't know about you....but THIS is my favorite time of the year! I wanted to share this video from about 3 years ago. We were very adamant that we wanted to actually SEE the caterpillars form there chrysalis...but it happens so quickly! So I set up my video camera and hoped for the best. When the students came back from lunch one day, they noticed one of the caterpillars (you'll hear them call him "Frederick") made it's chrysalis. You can hear how excited the kids get towards the end of the video! :) It was a great day in first grade!


I play this for my students each year when we aren't able to witness it first hand. SO COOL! It amazes me every time!!

Create an Awesome Presentation with Prezi!

Prezi is an outstanding website where you can create presentations live and on the web. Prezis are so much more interactive than PowerPoint and look much more up-to-date. You can zoom in on details or pan out to see the whole picture. It works awesome with the SmartBoard too!

Prezi is really easy to use, and that's why it's one of my favorite web 2.0 tools for teachers.

Here's a Prezi I did for our big Earth Day unit. It combines text, pictures, and video.



Here's another Prezi I found on the site for the life cycle of butterfly. It's VERY well done and the video included is awesome! (Edited to add: It's very well done....except for the misspelling of "caterpillar"!)

Life Cycle of a Butterfly on Prezi

April Fool's Joke for You!

One of my sweet firsties came in this morning..."Mrs. M! I have THE BEST joke to share with the class for April Fool's Day!!" 

What do you call a cat that has just eaten a whole duck? 

A duck filled fatty puss!

(get it? duck billed platypus!)