Friday, December 30, 2011

MLK Activities with Glogster in English, French, and Spanish!


Are you planning on celebrating MLK Day in your class this year? Have your students make"I have a Dream" posters online with Glogster! 

With this lesson plan, students get an opportunity to reflect on their dreams for the future. The assignment includes student directions for using the website with screenshots, a checklist of requirements for the assignment, a rubric for grading, and a rough draft sheet. 


The French and Spanish versions have an excerpt of the "I have a dream" speech in the target language, and a review of the future tense. 

If you don't have the technology at your school to have all of your students make posters on Glogster, they have the option of making them on paper as well.



Middle and High School New Year Blog Party at Secondary Solutions!

Looking for more middle school and high school blogs to follow? Make sure you stop by the New Year Blog Linky Party at Secondary Solutions! I checked out the page, and I found a lot of new great blogs to follow.

There are a lot of good Blogs on the list that I already follow like Mrs. Orman's Classroom, Middle School Maestros, and High School Herd.  One blog that I had not seen before that I checked out was Zoe Confidential.  It looks great and I'll be sure to stop by this blog more in the future!

New Year's SALE!

To celebrate the beginning of 2012, I have decided to throw a New Year's Sale. All of my products are 15% off until the end of the day on January 1st! Do you have a New Year's resolution for your teaching? Maybe you want to use more technology in your classroom, or incorporate more formative assessments into your lessons? Now is a good time to stock up on those products at Liz's Lessons on TPT!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Teacher Technology Template Bundles

Throughout the year this year my "Technology Template Bundle" has been growing and growing. It is now up to eleven different templates! Since it has gotten so big, I decided to split it into two smaller bundles. They each have templates for five different sites, plus a sixth template for FREE! Each template is also sold separately so no matter where you are on your teaching with technology journey you can find a product or bundle of products that is the right size for you. "Technology Bundle # 1" contains student instruction sheets/templates for six popular websites used in education: Wordle, Stripgenerator, Blabberize,Voicethread, Xtranormal, and LiveBinders! "Technology Bundle # 2" contains student instruction sheets/templates for Glogster, Wallwisher, Bookemon, Bombay TV, and Blabberize! Just write in the concept students should demonstrate understanding of in the assignment, and you are all set! The bundles also contain a list of links for teaching ideas for the sites, and checklists and rubrics for most of the assignments. Checklists can be used as a formative assessment check on a rough draft, and rubrics can be used for the final summative assessment. The "SUPER Technology Template Bundle" has templates for all eleven sites.

Monday, December 12, 2011

10 FREE Downloads; New Year's Resolutions for Teachers; Holiday Items‏

What are your New Year's resolutions for your teaching in 2012? See this week's TPT newsletter to find out about other teacher's resolutions, and to see this week's 10 FREE Downloads. There are a lot of great downloads for secondary education this week, but my favorite was the "Blown-Up Essay: Holiday Edition" by Arik Durfee. In the activity students take an essay that has been cut up or "blown up" and try to put it back together in groups. It looks like a fun activity to do before the winter break. If you are a French or Spanish teacher, you could use this same idea in your class by taking a text in the target language about the holidays in a French or Spanish speaking country, and have students try to put it back together.

Blown-Up Essay: Holiday Edition
by Arik Durfee
Grades 6 - 10

Friday, December 9, 2011

December Instructional Resource Update # 2


Hello Teachers! I hope you are doing well. Here are some more great instructional resources that I have seen lately. Maybe there will be one that you can use for a project before or after winter break! 

Websites:
http://yaptime.com/ "YapTime is a free, PRIVATE gathering place for the important GROUPS of people in your life to have discussions, share photos, videos, files and group calendars and to do lists." There is also group email and group polling. This looks like a great site for group work. I really like the group polling feature as well. Try having your students poll each other in French or Spanish and then write about their results in the target language!

class.io | your class everywhere "class.io helps teachers share course resources with students in a simple way. It integrates with Google Apps, Facebook and other web services that teachers and students use." At my school we use Engrade, which I think is a great site, but we also use Gmail. I love that class.io integrates with Google Apps!



Online NotePad "Notepub is the easiest way to manage all of your information". Once signed in, you are presented with an easy to use text editor that is great for student journal entries. This would help teachers to not have to carry around journal notebooks to grade, and save money for teachers that buy journal  notebooks for their students to use. Each note can include images, links and attachments as well as tags to help with searching.


OhLife helps you remember what's happened in your life Once signed up, you receive an email every day asking to reply with your thoughts. If your students have access to the internet at home, this could work for homework assignment journal entries. You could have your students write about a novel they are reading each night, or use it as a formative assessment to have them journal about what they learned in your class that day. Have them journal in French, or Spanish to improve their writing skills!

Collaborative lists, collect and organize information: Knowcase "A fast, easy, and FREE tool for capturing and organizing information". Knowcase would is great for pair work and group work, but can also be used by individuals. On the site students can take notes. I like that they can also "prioritize and hierarchically structure information using drag'n'drop". This might be good for a pre-writing activity or for making outlines. Students can also share their lists with the partner or group members



Popplet | Collect, curate and share your ideas, inspirations "Popplet is a platform for your ideas! It can be used to outline, create mind maps, take notes, and collaborate with others!!". I love that this site is like a virtual graphic organizer! I would be great as a pre-writing activity for research papers, or projects for gathering information on the web. In a French or Spanish class have your students explore a cultural topic or a country and make a Popplet about it. Then they cause use the Popplet to teach their classmates what they learned.




Articles/Blog Posts:

Free Technology for Teachers: Ten Steps to Better Web Research


7 Tips for Overcoming Teacher Burn-Out - Washington, DC, United States, ASCD EDge Blog post

Strategies for Students Who Refuse to Work

Monday, December 5, 2011

10 FREE Downloads; A holiday gift from TpT contributors to you‏

There are a lot of great holiday freebies and other awesome free downloads this week on TPT! One of the biggest downloads is the Holiday eBook by 50 different TPT sellers. I also really enjoyed looking over the "Government Structures and Levels of Freedom" lesson by Michelle Pugh, and passed the link along to the Social Studies teachers in my building. It seems to be a great global education lesson that uses higher level thinking skills.


Winter Holidays Tips and Freebies Ebook - 50 TpT Contributors!
by Rachel Lynette
Grades PreK-12
 




Government Structures and Levels of Freedom by Michelle Pugh
Grades 9 - 12


December Instructional Resource Update


Hello Teachers!
I have listed below the top ten instructional resources that I have come across in the last month.  New website links from are also posted on http://www.diigo.com/user/Ebucrek
I hope you will scroll through the resources and find one, or two new things to try in your classes. 

Documents:
Formative Assessment Strategies and Other Evidence-Based Literacy Strategies-Includes some great ideas for "before, during, and after" reading and writing activities.

Websites:
Common Core Sqworl of Websites and Resources  
I created this collection of common core resources for you. I will be adding to it throughout the school year.


Pearltrees 
Pearltrees is a service that combines social bookmarking with mind-mapping. Using Pearltrees you can bookmark websites and arrange your bookmarks into webs or mind-maps of related topics. Might be interesting to use with research papers, or projects as a pre-writing activity.(via Free Technology for Teachers)

 


Keek - Share Microvideo Status Updates With Friends & Followers Share microvideo status updates with friends, family and the world. Make a video diary. A cool alternative to journaling. 


Smore - Design beautiful online flyers and publish instantly Have students make flyers related to the literature they are reading in English class, the time period they are studying in History, the concepts they are working in in Math or Science, or in the target language in a World Language class.

A Cupcake Story from Smore on Vimeo.

 

Teacher Community for Sharing Ideas, Advice, Strategies & More - Teachability "Teachability is a place where teachers get advice and share the things that inspire them. It's based on a simple, but powerful notion:When teachers collaborate, good things happen and students win!"


Articles/Blogs:

Ten Tips for Engaging Under performing Students | Edutopia


21 Signs You’re a 21st Century Teacher – SimpleK12

 

Education World: Top 6 Ways to Use Tech to Boost Student Achievement


Top 12 Ways to Increase Student Participation | TeachHUB

Friday, December 2, 2011

Common Core Resources-Sqworl of Websites and Documents

 This year North Carolina is in the first implementation year for the Common Core Essential Standards. We have a district-wide CC team as well as a school-based team. One of the teachers asked me if I could put together a Sqworl (a great too for getting a quick view of a lot of webpages all at once) of all the Common Core web pages that we are using this year to make it easier for teachers. A few of the sites are specific to North Carolina, and Chapel Hill Schools, but most of them should be useful to any teachers working with the Common Core. As I find more useful sites this year, I will add them in so be sure to bookmark the link!

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

French and Spanish Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's Vocabulary and Activities!


Looking for some fun activities to do before winter break? Teach your students some vocabulary and expressions in French or Spanish for the winter holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's)! The French version has 95 holiday vocabulary words, and 13 greeting card expressions. The Spanish version has 80 vocabulary words and 15 expressions.  Have your students create greeting cards in the target language in order to practice the vocabulary and expressions! They can do it on paper, or use the instruction sheet with screen shots to make virtual greeting cards online. The documents also includes a holiday word search and a double puzzle with answer keys, and a blank holiday bingo board. The Spanish version also contains a crossword. Finally, there are 65 holiday writing prompts for you to use with your students at all levels!  I have added a lot more vocabulary and activities to these documents since last year's version.

   

Monday, November 28, 2011

10 FREE Downloads; Cyber Monday Sale, up to 28% OFF‏

Have you looked at this week's 10 FREE Downloads on TPT yet? There are some great holiday themed FREEBIES, and six of the downloads this week can be used at the secondary level. I passed along the links to the two Geometry activities to that PLC at my school, and "Winter Creative Writing Activities" link to our English Department head. I included my two favorite activities of the week below. I liked that some of Tracee's activities had a Twitter theme which always increases student interest, and that Krystal's activity incorporated the real-world application of animation to Geometry.


Winter Creative Writing Activities
by Tracee Orman
Grades 3 - 10
         
Using Translations, Reflections and Rotations to Create an Animation
by Krystal Mills
Grades 6 - 9



 
   

Cyber Monday Sale!


Don't forget to stop by TEACHERS pay TEACHERS today to clear out your wishlists with the HUGE CYBER MONDAY SALE! 
Liz's Lessons is having a Sale for 20% off ALL products, and then enter the PROMO CODE: CMS28 FOR an addition 10% off, or 30% OFF TOTAL! Sales like this don't come along very often! Today would be a great day to get some bundled products such as: 

Technology Template Bundle!
 

18 Formative Assessment Templates!

Spanish Holiday Bundle!

French Holiday Bundle!

French & Spanish Winter Holiday Writing Prompt FREEBIES!

Tis' the season for giving and freebies, so I created some great winter holiday activities for you and your language students! Have your students practice their French, or Spanish writing skills with some holiday themed writing prompts! This document contains 65 different writing prompts centered around Christmas, Hanukkah, and the New Year. There are prompts for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students. It also contains a sheet for your students to write their responses on. If you are looking for some holiday vocabulary for your students to use in the prompts, or more winter holiday activities you may be interested in my "Spanish Winter Holiday Vocabulary and Activities" or "French Winter Holiday Vocabulary and Activities" products as well. 


Friday, November 25, 2011

Black Friday through Cyber Monday Sale!


Don't break the bank today because TeachersPayTeachers is having a big CYBER MONDAY SALE. Liz's Lessons is offering 20% OFF today through Monday, and then the TEACHERS pay TEACHERS PROMO CODE for an additional 10% OFF will be CMS28, this Monday November 28 only. Stock up for the rest of the school year!

Monday, November 21, 2011

NEW Bookemon Instruction Sheet & Rubric! Make your own books online!

I just posted a brand new product for teaching with technology! It's an activity for using the site http://www.bookemon.com/.  With bookemon you can easily create free books online that you can share with students, friends, and parents.




Ideas for using bookemon in the classroom:
  • Create a class book of student projects.
  • Have students write their own stories.
  • Have students write a book in the target language in a World Language classroom.
  • Students can use bookemon to make ePortfolios of their work throughout the school year. 
  • Create a book of student poetry.
  •  Have students write a biography about themselves in a language arts class, or foreign language class. 
  • Students can make a family history book in a World Language class to practice family vocabulary. 
  • Students can create a “How To” book in a World Language class to practice the imperative tense. 
  • Have students create a travel book about a city or country in a World Language, or Social Studies class.
YouTube bookemon Tutorials:



Advantages of bookemon: 
  • Creating a book is free! There is no cost to join, and no obligation to purchase.
  • You can add many types of multimedia into your book-documents, PDFs, photos, images, links, etc. 
  • It incorporates technology into your lessons. 
  • Books are easy to share. You can share with friends on a website or blog, via social networks, or through email.
  • You also have the option of publishing, and purchasing your book.

10 FREE Downloads; Giving thanks for this amazing job called teaching‏


 I really enjoyed this week's newsletter because it made me stop and reflect on what I really love about teaching, and why I am thankful that I have the opportunity to work in the field of education. It really is a rewarding experience to help young people to learn, and to reach their goals. I love being able to share my passion for learning French and Spanish with them. It is awesome to see students that I taught Level I in middle school now taking AP Language courses in high school, or studying abroad in college. The feeling you get from teaching is not one that everyone is lucky enough to experience. Make sure you read the newsletter to find out why other TPT teacher love teaching!

This week's newsletter had five free products for the secondary level. As usual, a lot of them looked really interesting, but my favorite of the week was "Daily Wordplay" by Arik Durfee. I liked that it makes students think critically, but that it is fun at the same time!



Daily Wordplay!
by Arik Durfee
Grades 7 - 12

Thursday, November 17, 2011

November Instructional Resource Update


Hello Teachers!
I have listed below some of my favorite instructional resources that I have come across in the last month. You can find more website links that I bookmarked in November at http://www.diigo.com/user/Ebucrek. I hope that you will find something below that you can try out in your classroom soon!

Documents:

Websites:
www.scoop.it  
Have your students make their own magazines with Scoopit! Students can choose relevant content from the Web, edit it, and share. The site is similar to www.paper.li, but is a magazine instead of a newspaper.

80+Google Forms for the Classroom
Scroll down to see some examples of Google Forms that other teaches have created, and check out the slideshow presentation called "71 Interesting Ways to use Google+ in the classroom & Tips".

Teaching Channel
"At Teaching Channel we believe what makes teachers inspiring is how they became experts -- the hours and years they've dedicated to improving their craft to benefit their students. Our mission is to capture their technique on video so that all teachers -- new or seasoned -- have a place to find inspiration." Search topics such as behavior, differentiation, common core, etc.

Articles:
Alternatives to Traditional Homework
Scroll down to the bottom to see a chart with useful ideas and tips.

Other Teaching Ideas:
Paper Plate Venn Diagrams from Mrs. Moore's Busy Bees



Schema, New Information, Misconceptions Anchor Chart
                                                                     from The Good Life

Videos:

Monday, November 14, 2011

10 FREE Downloads; Keeping your advanced kids engaged‏

Have you seen this week's 10 FREE downloads yet?  You will find some great differentiation tips from TPT teachers, as well as some excellent FREEBIES! This week there were six downloads for the secondary level. They were all really good, but  my favorite was the Thanksgiving Activity by Tracee Orman. I liked that it could be used in both Social Studies and Language Art classes, and that it is linked to Common Core Writing Standards. It can also be used as a formative assessment. I believe that the writing prompt will peak students' interest. I will be passing along the link to this activity and some of the other great freebies to the teachers at my school this week!

Thanksgiving Creative Writing Activity
by Tracee Orman
Grades 4 - 12


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