Happy Easter!

Thanks for stopping by!   From my family to yours, Happy Easter! This seems like an appropriate day to also introduce our new addition...

This is Licorice. He's a 4 month old Holland Lop. We got him a few weeks ago. He's a sweetie!
We're off to my mom's for the day.
Have a wonderful day with your families!

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Surprise Sale!

Did you know? There's a "Surprise Sale" going on over at Teacher's Notebook today through April 18th! Do you have items on your wishlist that you'd like to save 10% on? I need some clip art for the Fairy Tale unit I'm trying to create for my class. Any suggestions?

You can still enter the Spring Has Sprung giveaway too. Just click HERE. You can win products from a variety of bloggers.

My husband and I are off to visit friends for the day. It's been so nice to be back on my blog after all this time. Thanks for still stopping by!

Have a wonderful day!

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Spring Has Sprung Giveaway!

Yippee, I'm on Spring Break! I already love not having the alarm set for 5:45. This spring like weather is quite nice too. It's sunny and very comfortable outside. I definitely have some school planning and prepping to do this week, but today's goal is to get my plants in pots and containers. Over the weekend some nearby professional nurseries had a huge sale and there was a local nursery having their annual sale too. So I spent more than I probably should have, but it will be nice to get some color back outside.

To celebrate Spring a little bit more, there's a fantastic giveaway going on over at Beth Ann's blog

A few other bloggers and myself teamed up to be part of her Spring Has Sprung & Earth Day Giveaway. You can win terrific items from all of our stores!

Good luck! And have fun exploring these blogs if you haven't visited them before!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Favorite Apps linky party!

Ah... a Sunday with nothing much planned... this girl is lovin' it! My husband recently took his real estate exam after looking for work for a year. He's off this afternoon to his first Open House. So he's super busy this morning. Me, not so much. I've got my plans to work on but those can wait until later. 

(I've actually finished writing this post, then had the idea for this linky party. Feel free to join in by leaving a comment below about your favorite apps or link-up a new or prior blog post about your favorite apps. I'd love to know what you've discovered too!)

About a month or so ago an ipad was anonymously donated to my classroom. It was given to my principal at the school board meeting and she surprised me with it the next day. I was so excited! I took a class picture and made that the background screen on the ipad. The kids love it! Since there's only one ipad and I have 17 students, I made a list of names and decided that each student gets to use the ipad for a day and we'll just keep cycling through the list. I've found some vocabulary apps that are terrific! But I'm looking for other great apps for my kiddos to use

About 9 of my kiddos are second-language learners so I sought out vocabulary apps and found some I love that the kids really enjoy too.  They're called "Vocabulary Builder" and there are 10 of them that increase in difficulty. Here's Vocabulary Builder 1

The kids drag the word over to fill in the diagram. The best part-- you don't have to be a reader to play! Kids just have to touch the word to hear it. I love this feature!
When the kids are done, they touch OK and the game takes away wrong answers and leaves the correct one.
After the diagram is finished correctly, they get a new diagram to fill in. They just have to click on "home" to go back and choose a different game.

Here are some screen shots from Vocabulary Builder 2

Another one of the best things about these apps is that they are FREE! I also love that they are a no-pressure way to learn vocabulary. I would say that Vocab Builders 1-5 are the most appropriate for first grade or kindergarten.

I also found this math app called Number Flash. The objective is to be able to tell how many objects are on the ten frame or frames without counting. I'll definitely use this at the beginning of next year. But right now I have a student who still isn't always counting accurately. He is in resource for a while every day and has made astronomical improvement in reading! He started the year knowing about half his letter sounds and not being able to orally blend a word at all. He is now a very fluent reader and loves books! I can see that his math might be starting to come along now. This app was very motivating yesterday. He was counting wrong and after getting about 4 in a row wrong, he was getting upset. I just watched. On his own he slowed down and became more accurate. Every time he got one right he'd raise his hands in the air and say "Yes!" It was so cute! I'm definitely giving him extra time on the ipad! Here's what the game looks like.

Kids see this

 Then choose the correct number.

 If they're right they see this

If they're wrong they see this

It's been so much fun being able to give my students this additional tool to help them.  A few of my students have never used an ipad before so it's nice to give them this opportunity with technology too.

Do you know of any other great apps for kids to use? Please join the party!

An InLinkz Link-up

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