GoodNotes- a versatile app for the classroom! Monday FREEBIE!

GOODNOTES APP

Has anyone  used the app GoodNotes in the classroom?

I know this is been on several blogs, but I thought it deserved another look because it can be such a versatile tool in the classroom.
 When I first read about it I downloaded the app and I now have several sets of worksheets in the app and have been using with my kids for a while now and thought I would share my experiences with you about it. Below you can see screenshots of my bookshelf in the app where I have added a few of my teaching worksheet sets.

When you initially open the app you view the  empty shelves of your bookshelf.  Select  the  + button and you open an entire world of possibilities. With GoodNotes, you can create your own notebook and take notes, import notes and worksheets into the product.

Selecting the + produces a blank sheet of paper.  You have choices of lined, unlined, grid paper as well as music paper. I find the line paper  particularly useful when having parent conferences or phone conferences to take notes with. You can use a stylus or just your finger, making it convenient when you get those impromptu phone calls from parents and don't have paper/pencil. The notes you take with this can then be printed or exported. When you export, you can email, save to places such as SkyDrive, Google Drive, Box , or  Dropbox.
My favorite thing to do with GoodNotes is to import worksheets for my students to complete on the iPad.  Select the + button once again and choose your preferred online storage option as your source and download PDF files and even PowerPoint files. I have had a few minor problems with the PowerPoint files. I think it depends on the size. Some of the PowerPoint files downloaded fine and then were converted to PDF by GoodNotes. The possibilities are endless as to what this app can do for you in the classroom.
One of the biggest advantages for me is using it is as an incentive for students to complete their work. Some of my students will complete anything when its on the iPad! What about YOURS?

This extremely versatile app lots of great features, but I am just going to highlight a  few of the most useful to me. Here are some of my favorites.
Shape Recognition
Turn on shape recognition, select the pen color and thickness you desire and you can circle important items on the screen. When you hand draw your circles, lines or boxes on your notes, it immediately changes them into proper shapes.
Text Boxes and Images
When creating or presenting a document, you can add text boxes and images to your document. I can make a worksheet of math problems and add clip art or photos to it, straight from the iPad camera or from an online storage location.
Lasso Tool
Move things around on your worksheet/ notes using the lasso tool.

 In the example of the Choice Board above, you will see several of the items circled, but prior to circling the grapes on the bottom row, I used the SHAPE tool and it immediately turned my hand drawn circle around the grapes to a formal circle.

In the example above I imported some task cards for number recognition. You can see where different colors of marker were used to select the answers for the task cards. A great opportunity for saving paper, awesome incentive for those kids that hate worksheets ....the possibilities are endless.

Have you used GoodNotes? If you have, share how you have used it!  If you haven't used it, give it a try. There is a free version and a paid version.


Its Marvelous Monday and here is your freebie for the week. Here is a small gift of one set of my alphabet bingo cards.

Be sure and check out our friends at Manic Monday!

Have a great week! We will see you soon!

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Its Marvelous MATH Monday today!

Hi Friends - Its a great Monday here today! So much going on and as usual, never a dull moment in the classroom. Just thought I'd share this in hopes it may give someone else a chuckle today.

I have a little one that is a very prolific complainer. Most of what she says is nonsense and just a way to get some attention.You never know what she is going to say next. She came in today telling me her finger hurt - nothing new there- she wanted a band-aid. I just dismissed it as there was no cut, nothing to bandage and we went on our merry way.
Next, she told me her head hurt and she just couldn't do her work. When I told her she could put her head down for a few moments, she said, "No, Ms Reeve I need to play with the iPad. I explained (again) that it wasn't choice time and she had work she needed to do. She need to get her work done then she would be able to choose a choice (freetime) activity such as the iPad. She returned to her desk and was suppose to be doing Math, but her sitting was short lived as she popped right back up and walked up to my desk, raising her hand as she came. I called on her, and she continued to approach me...coming right up to my face, putting her pointer finger inside her mouth. As she continued to get closer, she pulled her cheek aside as if she wanted me to look at something and said...Ms Reeve, my brain is hurting. See, its right here and it hurts! Well I lost it. I can keep a straight face through a lot of  things with students,  but not this time! I totally cracked up! I mean totally LOST IT!

So whether your brain is in your head or inside your mouth like my little one's was today, I hope YOUR Monday was a good one! You just never know what will come out of their mouths.

Reading is coming along and everyone seems to be making good progress. My focus this week in planning and making materials is  Math at the moment. I am trying to find some new activities for four of my little ones that need extensive repetition of numbers 1-10. They need help with everything! Rote counting, one to one correspondence, and number concepts just to name a few areas in need.
I made them a set of touch number cards that can be pair with card having counting dots on them. Each day they must pair the numeral cards with the counting dots cards that match. 

5 sets of number 1-9

The students must also put the numerals in order, provide me with the correct numeral when I ask for it out of order and we also play GO FISH with them. It works great and provides lots of versatility for a skill set that needs to be worked on frequently.

Next I developed a set of worksheets to complement the cards. Below you will see an example of the worksheet on the left. I am please with the way it worked with the students. They loved it because all the activity sections were short.

The set also includes other worksheets for number recognition such as this matching sheet that matches number words to pictorial representations (in this case dice numbers) and then to the numeral. It will be a little bit before my young ones are ready for this one because of the number words on it, but who knows.



For your Marvelous Monday Freebie, please stop by my TPT store and download the freebie of this product. Click the worksheet above or the Marvelous Monday FREEBIE title. It will take you straight to the FREEBIE!

Don't forget to check out our friends at Manic Monday this week!
 

   

Thanks for stopping by!

Hope you all have a fantastic week! I look forward to sharing again real soon!

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Math Skills

Hi Everyone!
Its Marvelous Monday again  and I wanted to share a little with you about part of my math class. One of my math groups in my classroom consists of 4 girls ranging from kindergarten through 4th grade all working on number recognition and some form of counting. A couple of them know how to rote count, one of them understands one to one correspondence.

One of the best things I have found to help these girls is touch point counting. It works so well for so many students. The touch points are on the numbers so once they have learned the point system, the counting system is always there for them, whether the points are visible or not.

So this is what we have been working on that since the beginning of the school year. I feel like I have had them count just about everything, realistic objects, pictures, touch points, and pennies.  

What do you use that has worked for you? I would love to hear from you!

However, we are far from mastering this skill at all so I have infused the counting into everything in the classroom. I made a set of touch point numbers 1-9 and laminated them. I redesigned my work systems task boxes so they were number driven and labeled them with touch point numbers.
The girls have a schedule on the board with numbers denoting which task boxes they are supposed to do and in what order. These numbers include the touch points so they can count and read their numbers.
I've incorporated the touch points into a line up system so I can tell them to find a certain number to line up on it. I also incorporated the number words for exposure even though they don't read the yet.

What ways do you use to work on concepts such as counting when you need to repeat and repeat? I am always looking for new ways to work on concepts such as these.

For Marvelous Monday Freebie today, I'm giving you a set of touch point numbers that can be used as a choice board for non verbal students when questions require a numerical answer, used in schedules as seen above or any way you can think of.

Don't forget to check out Manic Monday Freebies!
 
Take it easy everyone! Have a great week!

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Objectivity

Step Back to get some Objectivity


Last week I took a few days to travel with my sister to the wonderful state of North Carolina. As a native Floridian, life long resident and dedicated teacher, I have had few chances to view the wonderful spectacle known as Fall. So as I was traveling last week and enjoying all the beautiful fall colors, I was communicating with my classroom on a few behavior problems that came up, mostly because of the routine changes.
As I was traveling up and down mountains and going in and out of good cell reception, I realized that I was able to come up with solutions and ideas to try, much quicker than when I was in the classroom. I was shocked and surprised at how quickly I could come up with some viable solutions for them to try in the classroom. I got a social story written, visuals made and sent back to the class for them to use. It made me aware that objectivity is so important! Perhaps even when I am at school and dealing with the behaviors, I need to find a way to step back from the situation and determine the best course of action sometimes. I might want to find a way to obtain more objectivity.
Do you have students that run away from class? I have two right now that like to do it and of course, they try it when I am not at school. So when I received the information that they were attempting to run, I first determined, from information my paraprofessional gave me, what the cause was. What are they getting out of the behavior. Once I had the reason behind it, I was able to tell her what needed to be done to help stop the problem. One child was running to get attention and one was running to escape the disruption of the classroom schedule caused by my absence and just different people doing things differently. I adjusted the frequency of the the reinforcers to an reinforcement everytime he did something correct instead of every other time. This helped and things got back to normal...well close to it.
Through this experience, I came to realize that sometimes stepping back from situations such as behavior problems in the classroom can actually give you more  perspective you need to see what really needs to be done and see the behavior for what it really is.
Take a look at these visuals for a variety of behaviors. As I was traveling, I realized there were many behaviors that I needed visuals for...poking, hitting, too close, and pinching, just to name a few.




One of the things I did was put together a social story for running away from class. Check it out.

Here is your Monday Freebie for today Enjoy.

Have GREAT week!

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Fostering Communication Through Choice Boards

A delightful 1st grader on the autism spectrum entered my classroom and my life this year.  He can cry, but beyond that, has no verbal communication skills. He can sign a few things, but those signs are often poorly executed and difficult for others outside his world to understand. He often runs through his repertoire of signs when asked to use them just to see if he "hits" one that will work. So here I am! I am a new person in his world and I need to communicate with him and him with me. Where do I start?
I chose to start with things he liked. His preferred items.  Luckily, I have one of the most awesome paraprofessional and together we have walked this path together of working our way into his world and him into ours.
 We systematically introduced him to items in our classroom finding a variety of activities he demonstrated interest in doing. One of his first was a 2nd hand office chair I had gotten from a fellow teacher to use at my teaching table. Fortunately, it is very sturdy and safe because we soon discovered he loved to spin in it. The preferred item we found was through his behavior analyst. He shared that he enjoyed gummy bears.
Once I had found 2 items he preferred, I made a choice board with those two items. We set up a schedule for him that alternated work time and choice time. At the end of each work time we asked him to "make a choice".








We started with a board with just two items. A food item of gummy bears and a picture of the chair he LOVES to spin in. It took several weeks to get a good pointing action from him and the moment we got a close proximity of indicating a response as to what he wanted -he got the item.

It was AMAZING to watch this learning in progress. I've worked many years and in many ways with kids with disabilities but I am still in awe and humbled every time when I see learning taking place like this.
The next thing we did was increase his items. We found he like grapes and jumping, so those were also added to his choice board. The jumping was an fantastic find, as it added to his physical activity and seem to funnel some of his energy into an appropriate physical outlet.
Here is an example of the 4 item choice board I made.

 

As you can see I try and use real pictures when at all possible, but sometimes, its quicker and easier to use clip art.

Now we have built up to a choice board with 12 items on it. 

Here are some other examples of choice boards. 

Thanks for stopping by. Check out our Freebie using the link below.

 

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WORD FAMILIES

Strong readers are those that are able to decode new words among other things. Good readers learn new words by comparing them to known words instead of sounding out individual phonemes each time.  Learning spelling patterns is one way to increase their proficiency in reading words. In my classroom right now, we are concentrating on word families and chunks.
I want them to be able to recognize chunks of letters or the word families quickly and easily. If they can read bad, had and sad, they should then be able to generalize that knowledge to mad, glad and even keypad. 
Some student have difficulty generalizing or seeing patterns such as are evident in word families, so they often need extra practice. So this week I am trying a new activity I created for word families. And I'm sharing it with you. I hope you find it useful, too.
Be sure and check back tomorrow for your Marvelous Monday Freebie.

Till Next Time!

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