Adding Fractions with Unlike Denominators

This would be good to practice over the summer!  Many students struggle with this math concept. Adding fractions with unlike denominators

Our Amazing Wax Museum

Students worked hard on their Wax Museum Projects and really showed the school how to prepare for a big event! So proud of these amazing students!

A Walk to Remember!

We enjoyed a nice walk to our local downtown Dairy Queen on a perfect day to celebrate a successful 5th grade year!

Candy Bar Awards

We celebrated the end of the school year by awarding students with special candy bar awards!

Curriculum Video

Here it is...The Systems of the Body! It's not perfect, but I learned a lot from creating it! There is music in the background, but it is not loud enough. I am not a fan of narration when you can not edit or pause it without starting over. I am constantly making mistakes! I loved making the movie, but definitely got frustrated at times!

Curriculum Video

A Reflection of My Professional Growth

This is a Voicethread that I created. It reflects much, but not all, of the things that I have learned in the EDUC 552 course that I am taking through Peru State College for my Masters in Education Program.

Twitter for Educators

I am excited to continue to learn about and use Twitter as a resource for an educator. I have been exposed to numerous links to articles, blogs, pictures, and ideas that can assist me in my classroom. I am one to take an idea and "give it a shot" the very next day if I'm excited enough about it! I love reading other educators blogs and finding out what they are doing! Such an amazing resource to be connected to educators all over the world! I'm still learning about Twitter and still get uneasy tweeting ideas wondering who is all reading this! I plan to continue using Twitter even after my course is finished. I hope to become more comfortable and confident. I think this is much more professional than I had ever imagined! I am amazed at the resources that are out there. I learned a lot from the people I followed. I read articles, looked at pictures, read blogs, found amazing websites, and even learned from my peers about some of the projects we had to complete for this course. As soon as someone tweeted their blog link, I usually checked it out to make sure I was on the right track. It is hard for me to choose just one person that I enjoy following. I recently just started following Richard Byrne and have to say that I am very excited to read his tweets. I love his blog and find myself browsing through it often. Twitter truly is a game changer and I'm glad to be a part of this online, instant feedback, and professional community.

Free Technology For Teachers --Richard Byrne

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
What a find!! This is an amazing site for educators because of the variety of resources that are contained in this blog! One of my favorites I found right away was an app called Three Ring. This is where you can take a picture of the student's work and organize it and comment on it without having to hold onto it. Notes can be added before and after the upload! Brilliant way to showcase student work for parents to see! I also loved the Most Popular Posts of the Year blog he wrote about.
A Cleaner Youtube is something I will definitely use in my classroom. I am always finding related video clips on the topics I teach, but some advertisements along the side can pop-up and as a teacher, this makes me nervous! A Cleaner Youtube allows you to show the video without any of the comments, advertisements, or related videos appearing.
I am excited to have my students do some comic writing using Witty Comics and The SuperHero Squad. I am finding success with my students' writing on the computer. This takes away the reluctance of getting started for a lot of my kids. Making comics is my next writing project I'm going to start this week with my kids. I also read about how comic writing can help students become better writers. I found all of this through this site!
I could go on and on about what I have found on this site! I will continue to follow Richard Byrne and spend more time reading through all of the great resources he has found for teachers!

My students' first Animoto

A couple of my students were very eager to start an Animoto. I introduced them to it on Monday, and they presented it to the class on Wednesday. This was their first and now they want to add video to it, but I was proud of the way they dove in! They used this video as an introduction to a unit in science we are about to begin!

Navigating our classroom website using Screenr

This screencast will show you how to navigate through our classroom website!

Using Animoto in the Classroom!

Completely impressed and absolutely love Animoto! Had so much fun creating a video to show this year's students featuring them! I plan to use this video when next year's upcoming fifth graders visit my classroom to see what 5th grade is all about! I plan to take more pictures in different subject areas to add to this. Students in my room will be using Animoto this year! I love the idea of my students developing a project based on what we are studying. I am going to start by having a few students be my "pilot" group. I will let them choose the subject area they are interested in. We will see how it goes! I will post their final projects!

My Animoto Movie!

Blogging in the Classroom!

I recently completed an article for a course I am taking in pursue of my Master's degree.  I created a Multimedia project about an article of my choosing.  I chose an interesting article on blogging in the classroom and it really inspired me to start this in my own classroom.  I am very excited to introduce this to my students in the upcoming week! Take a look at the project!

One of my favorite inspirational videos!

Showed this clip to my class a few weeks ago during an exercise and nutrition unit we had.  They loved it and of course, I do too!  Ben in the video is truly an inspiration!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbXgQqbOoU

Red Ribbon Week!

It has been a very fun week at school celebrating being drug- free!  The kids at Belleaire have been enjoying a little friendly competition between the classes.  On Monday, we all wore red to celebrate. On Tuesday, we wore slippers.  On Wednesday, today, we wore sweats.  Tomorrow, Thursday, we will wear crazy mismatched clothing and on Friday, we will wear spirit clothes!  What a fun way to celebrate such an important message!

Curriculum Project

Oceans Curriculum Project

Busy Times in Room 20!

The last two weeks have given me so many ideas to utilize in my classroom!  I have focused on skyping and using video footage from gaggletube in my classroom.  There are so many different resources out there to incorporate into the classroom to make learning a concept easier and more fun for kids!! I am very excited for my parents and students to check out my blog as I incorporate classsroom information.  I plan to use this blog to let parents know what is going on in our room, upcoming tests, our usage of technology in the classroom, and any other important information.  I skyped my teacher and partner this week.  It is such a great way to communicate.  I plan on using this more as the school year goes by.  I have also skyped another teacher in my building to do reading lessons.  My class loved this experience and we plan on doing this a lot more this school year!!

Communication is great!

Using Skype in the classroom setting has been a great experience so far!  I have been able to skype my instructor and it does make the learning more personable.  I also have skyped Ms. Matuza (the other fifth grade teacher at my school) to teach a lesson to my students.  Of course the class loved this and had a lot of fun with it!  This is definitely a tool that I will be using with my students to take them places that they might otherwise not go!  So excited with all of the possibilities in using technology!!

Continents and Oceans Song That We All LOVED!!

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This was a video that we used to help us remember the names and basic sizes of the oceans on the Earth. We got a bonus continent lesson too!   Every day the students ask to hear it at least once!

About Me

I am a fifth grade classroom teacher in the Bellevue Public Schools, in Bellevue, Nebraska.  I am in my eighth year of teaching, after taking some time off to stay at home with my three sons.  I love my job and am excited to continue growing professionally.  I love technology and am eager to incorporate more of it into my classroom.  I enjoy doing anything with my three active boys!  I also enjoy cooking and running. 

The purpose of this blog is to communicate with my parents and students about what is going on in our classroom.