Teachers pay Teachers iPhone App

It's finally here! Let me introduce you to the official Teachers pay Teachers iPhone app. It's totally free and it is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and the iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Here are snapshots of the app in action.

 The first snapshot above shows the navigation through the best selling items on TpT. Isn't it cute? In the second snapshot, you will see the typical iPhone TpT store layout. This particular shot is showing the seller's products, ratings and experience. It is also showing that she's running a sale. So you won't be missing out on anything!

Now you can have access to the site when you're on the go. It will allow you to search and browse the TpT catalog, add items to your wishlists and shopping carts, access your purchases, download certain file types for offline access and provide feedback. I know this will be a big help for most of us because were always in need of resources.

There is also good news for Android users like myself. TpT has announced in today's newsletter that the TpT Android App will be released before the end of January. Looks like 2013 is already off to a good start!

A Library of Children's Picture Books

These are among some of the most highly recommended picture books for children.

I Have a Dream Beautifully written and illustrated. At the end of the book the entire speech is printed. The book also comes with a CD of the entire speech. It's remarkable to listen to the speech while reading the words and looking at the illustrations.

Llama Llama Time to Share Fun to read aloud and helpful to children and parents alike, Llama Llama Time to Share is for any child who needs a little encouragement in sharing. 

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons Pete the Cat is wearing his favorite shirt—the one with the four totally groovy buttons. But when one falls off, does Pete cry? Goodness, no! He just keeps on singing his song—after all, what could be groovier than three groovy buttons? Count down with Pete in this rocking new story from the creators of the bestselling Pete the Cat books.

The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? The Pigeon is back (hooray!) and this time the drama centers on an adorable little duckling who gets a cookie just by asking--politely. I appreciate the book’s message about the power of politeness and the rewards of sharing.

To see the rest of the top 10 picture books, click here.

Best Selling Educational Toys

With Christmas being a few days away, everyone is busy filling up the stockings. Here's a list of the best selling educational toys for 2012 at Amazon. The best part is that they are also great for classroom use!

Rory's Story Cubes - a pocket-sized creative story generator, providing hours of imaginative play for all ages. With Rory's Story Cubes, anyone can become a great storyteller and there are no wrong answers. Simply roll the cubes and let the pictures spark your imagination.	LeapFrog LeapsterGS Explorer - educational gaming and fast-paced action in a kid-tough learning system, built-in camera and video recorder, and also includes a library of more than 300 LeapFrog downloadable apps and action-packed games that develop key skills for school.
Melissa & Doug Suspend - a balancing game that comes with 24 notched, rubber-tipped wire pieces that hang from a tabletop stand. With each turn, a new piece is added to the transforming vertical sculpture, causing the balance to shift and the difficulty to increase. Recommended for ages eight years and up, this balancing game tests your nerves and helps develop hand-eye coordination, cognitive skills, and interpersonal skills.	Bananagrams - The Anagram game that will drive you bananas. The award-winning word game that needs no pencil, paper, or board. Fast and fun. Players race against each other to build crossword grids and use all their letter tiles first.
LeapFrog Ultra eBook Learn to Read Collection - using LeapPad’s advanced features; these eBooks help early readers build phonics and decoding skills, sight word recognition and reading comprehension by putting fun twists on adventure stories with interactive escapades featuring froggy friends.	Snap Circuits Jr. - This innovative kit contains over 30 color-coded, real circuit components that snap together to create working electronic circuits and devices. Recommended for children 8 and older, this set offers 101 do-it-yourself projects that will give your child an entertaining, concrete education on how electronics work.

Everything above is for reading and science - my favorite subjects... interesting. I guess most children do not like to see math games in their stockings!

What are the 'I Have, Who Has' Games?

About three years ago, I came across an 'I Have, Who Has?' card game for the very first time. It was a 3D shape matching set and I still have it. These are like flash cards that can be used for the revision of any topic that has one to one matching. For example, matching digital to analog time, numerals to number words, Spanish words to English words, etc. There are so many topics to which this game can be applied and there are many variations to it as well. It can be played a a whole class activity, in groups, or individually, yes, I did say individual work.

If this is a new approach for you and you are interested in trying some out, here are a few links to some free 'I Have, Who Has?' card games that you can print and prepare for your students to give it a whirl! Just click on the pictures below.

        

I made this one for the review of place value with 4-digit numbers: 

  

It is available for $3.00 here at TpT.

A few Words of Comfort

We are all still coming to grip the horror of the shooting at the Newtown School on Friday but we cannot change what happened. What we can do now is to learn from it and plan (as schools) how we should prepare for such situations if they may occur. The Newtown teachers were exceptionally brave in the face of terror and I just hope that all of the survivors are given all of the counseling and support that they need to help them to cope and carry on with their lives.

The bravery of the heroic Newtown teachers is truly embodied in this quote: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let's keep the families of all of the Newtown teachers and students in our prayers.

Christmas Fun in my Class!

My students and I had a blast last week (last week of school). I came through on my promise to treat them to a day of Christmas craft. I invited my son's craft teacher to help me out; she is really talented and makes great stuff. And she got these amazing scratch boards (I didn't know about them, now I love it), for my students to create their own designs on their custom Christmas cards.

These are the items we started off with: blank cards (rectangular sheets of card stock folded in half), envelopes for the cards, shape templates, skewers, clear plastic bags and Scratch Art Rainbow Paper. We let half of the class decorate their envelopes with markers and colored pencils while we demonstrated how to trace around the shape cut-out with the skewers to reveal beautiful colors where every line would be. The students loved it! They are so creative, some used the shape cut out of the Christmas Angel or the Christmas Tree and some of the really artistic students didn't trace with the cut outs at all. Their art work were drawn free hand.

 

Each card was already prepared with a rectangular piece of scratch paper glued to the front. We used the black scratch paper with the neon colors underneath the black coat but it also comes in a white coat version as well.

  

After the cards were done, we put it one in clear plastic bags for the students to take home for Christmas. The students eagerly showed their cards to every teacher at school. I wish I could be there to see them show them off at home on Christmas Day!

Click on the picture below to download the Free Christmas Tree and Angel Cut-out Templates from TpT!

Free Interactive Websites for Fractions

Are you teaching about fractions? Whether it's matching fraction pictures to numerals or just matching equivalent fractions, I would recommend this free interactive website for your students to get fun practice with fraction matching. Just click on the picture above to take you there.

You may also e interested in my free Fraction Strips.

How to Write up Student Report Cards

Teachers, let’s face it. No one likes to have to write up report cards. But there are a few things you can do that will make the process an easier one. I do not consider myself to be an authority on the subject, but these are the rules that I've developed over the years and they have changed my initial feelings about the task. Use these rules below to guide you when writing up report cards: (see bottom of post for free download)

· Always begin with a positive general statement about the student. (Find something good to say.)

· Briefly state the facts with a gentle tone. Mention any improvements and/or setbacks in terms of the student’s behavior and academic performance.

· Always end it with an encouraging statement. This will encourage the parents to never give up on their child. It’s very comforting for a parent to know that someone else believes in their child the way that they do.

· Keep a list of positive adjectives handy for easy reference.

· Always have more good things to say than bad.

Avoid the use of negative adjectives like lazy, slow, listless or delinquent. Instead, use phrases like ‘John was listless not as attentive as he could have been’, ‘John was lazy did not put his best effort into his school work’, or ‘John has been unusually reserved…’.

List of positive adjectives for describing students:

Writing Report Cards is all about finding the good in every student. Click here to download a free copy of examples that you can use to guide you.

Telling Time with Rolling Cubes

Here is a fun activity for students to practice telling time. This is a good alternative to worksheets since many students are kinesthetic and need to incorporate movement into their learning.

This pack has a total of eight cubes. Each cube has six clock faces and tests a specific skill. The skills tested here are telling time on the hour, at half hour intervals, quarter hour intervals and five minute intervals.

This is a digital download and you can get it here at Teacher pay Teachers!