Winner of Day 6 & Technology Thursday - {Bloglovin'}

What y'all have been waiting for... an announcement of the final winner!

Congrats, LaKeita!! Boy... am I JEALOUS of all those goodies she's getting!!

Thank you to EVERYONE who helped make my one year blogiversary SUCH a great experience. I met so many new people in such a short time and I hope that y'all will stick around to next year's blogiversary - Year 2! :)

So.. I know, it's all the rage and I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

Google Reader will be going kaput... disappearing... vanishing... SHUT DOWN.. on July 1st. Yep, this July 1st.

So, if you read your blogs through Google Reader (some people did, some people didn't... just depends on how ya like to read your blogs), you're going to need a new method.

And I'm here to tell ya all about this new method for our TECHNOLOGY THURSDAY post!

So, a lot of us bloggers headed on over to BLOGLOVIN'.

What is Bloglovin'?

Bloglovin' is a reader, similar to Google Reader. You can see all your blogs in ONE place simply by giving them a "follow" on bloglovin.

Everyone is moving their readers over to other sources such as Feedly or Bloglovin'. But personally, I think Bloglovin' is one of the best choices. I have been on Bloglovin' for the last year (ever since I started blogging) and have thoroughly been impressed. It was the only way that I read blogs... I never used GReader.

BUT, say you follow hundreds of blogs... that's going to be a LOT to import one at a time by hitting the follow button on each.and.every.blog.

HAVE NO FEAR!

There's an easy peasy way to transfer all your followings that you have to Bloglovin' in a few easy steps, which I'll show ya below.

FIRST - Sign up for Bloglovin'. You can do so with your e-mail address or your Facebook profile - whatever you wanna do! But know that if you do with your Facebook profile, it will pull your information from your Facebook. 

THEN - You'll be prompted to import your blogs from Google Reader. Follow the simple steps to do so. 

Choose from which area - likely Google Reader.

Click accept when this pops up. It's just accessing your blogs that you follow on Google Reader

THEN you get this lovely status bar. I follow far more blogs than I thought I did.. so it may take a bit to import.

Enjoy reading your blogs in the same way you would have on GReader!

Cool thing about Bloglovin' that I like is that you can see how many unread posts you have at the top in the name of the website OR along the right side.

As you can see from my number of unread posts (3853), I'm a BIT behind on blog reading BUT I read a lot of posts by going directly to the blogs.

The other cool thing about Bloglovin' is you can see some details of the blog post without going. If something catches your interest, click on it! If not, click "mark as read" and move on.

You can also see how many people "like" a blog post or you can "like" blog posts to come back to them later... kind of like repinning something on Pinterest in a way!

OR you can share directly from Bloglovin'. Find a post you like? Share it with some friends!

Want to find out more about Bloglovin'?

MANY bloggers have posted their version or take on Bloglovin' - some have tutorials for setting up your profile, some have tricks of the trade (that I have yet to learn), and some even have tutorials for adding your own blog to Bloglovin'!

Check out some of these posts:

The Brown-Bag Teacher: The Death of Google Reader

A little more indepth of what I did above!

Ideas By Jivey: For the Classroom: Bloglovin' Update

Jivey gives us some hints, tricks, and some more details about Bloglovin' - check it out!

Once you've done all that above... make sure to follow me on Bloglovin' so you don't miss a thing!! I'd hate to have y'all miss some posts :)

TO FOLLOW: Scroll back up and look for my "+Follow this blog with bloglovin'" button on the upper right, directly below my other Social Media icons. 

REMEMBER: You have to click that blue FOLLOW button once it takes you to my blog's Bloglovin' page. It's easy peasy!

I hope this helped out some people and I hope some of y'all might have learned something new!

See y'all tomorrow for the second week of Feature Teacher Friday!! :)

Winner of Day 5 & Teacher Product Tuesday - {Dry Erase Pockets}

First of all, I know what y'all are waiting for. I hate waiting to find out, too, so here it is...

Congrats, Emily! She's got loads of goodies coming her way and boy... am I jealous of that Target gift card! Dollar Spot all the way ;) Check back tomorrow for the last day's winner! Cannot wait to see who it is.

Do you have those times when you dread making copies of a product you've printed out or you handed out your key on accident and it's written all over?? Yep.. I've been there.

SO, MyBinding.com contacted me a while back (like... a BIG TIME while back) and asked if I'd be interested in reviewing their C-Line 9x12 Dry Erase Pockets, which can be found here.

{SOURCE}

I decided to go ahead and give them a whirl.

I printed out a page from my soon-to-be-listed NEW pack Math Jokes, which is an addition and subtraction pack that has a total of 30 practice pages, 10 all addition, 10 all subtraction, and 10 mixed. Each page has 18 different problems (that go from sums and differences of 1 to 100) and then students have to figure out the riddle at the bottom of the page using the codes to the right of the page.

Anyways, I put it in the dry erase pocket and got to work.

Slide your page in. The obviously nice thing about these pockets is that they can be used horizontally or vertically.

Then, I went ahead and completed one of the addition pages. I wrote directly on the pocket with a dry erase marker with ease. It glided right over the material as though it were a dry erase board - only it was more personal! 

Then, I wanted to erase. Sometime when you have a dry erase board or pocket, erasing is a PAIN IN THE BUTT. I mean a pain... it leaves residue behind, it doesn't wipe off easily, you can still see an outline of the pen... NOPE. Not with these. 

With one swipe of a tissue, it came off SO cleanly, you wouldn't even know I wrote on the pocket.

And, because I wrote on the pocket and not the paper, I can reuse this SAME piece of paper from year to year!! Saves me not only ink from having to reprint BUT it also saves me some time of having to reprint, too!

Some ideas for how to use these in the class are...

Use in centers - have kiddos place the writing for the day or the math problems for the day in the pocket. You can check it over (if you so choose) and then wipe it away for the next kiddo to use!

Use when testing reading - you can slide one in a pocket for your kiddos and one for you, and your kiddos can underline or circle words they may not understand. This gives you, as the teacher, an idea of what students may need reviews on and what they could improve.

As for at home... the possibilities are endless, too!

Lists - put a piece of blank paper in the packs and use it as a list. Grocery list. Menu planner. To-do list. Anything!

Drawing - have your kiddos go to town with dry erase markers! Gives them a place to draw, draw, draw and it'll stay off the walls ;)

The other thing I love about these is that they can be stored in a simple place as they're all very thin. You can pull them out and have kiddos use them at their desks instead of trying to fit everyone up at the board. This way, everyone gets to participate, including that child that is too nervous to go to the board!

So, how would YOU use these in your classroom or your home? Let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear lots of your ideas - I know y'all have some! :)

**All opinions expressed on this product are of my own. MyBinding.com supplied me with free product to review, but opinions are 100% my own.**

Winners Day 3 and 4 & Monday Made It {Party Puffs}

OH man, what a weekend! Swimming and sun, dehydration, research papers, homework... LOADS of sleep. It's been a long one but I am BACK.

And I owe you all TWO announcements of winners, so it's my pleasure to announce...

Congrats Lori & Robin! An e-mail has been sent to both of these ladies so they're going to have LOADS and LOADS of goodies being sent their way and I couldn't be more excited!

So, since I missed my Summer Reading Sunday, I'm going to have to make it up on Wild Card Wednesday this week... I spent OVER 11 hours on my research paper yesterday. ELEVEN HOURS. Yep... it was loads of fun. Come Wednesday, you'll catch a glimpse of some of my favorite reads :)

But now, it's time for..

Mondays are my favorite when it comes to summertime. During the school year... ehhh not so much. But when summer starts, AH, Mondays are like music to my ears!

How do you keep classroom management issues to a minimum in your classroom? Me, I like to use positive reinforcement and sometimes, I like to use rewards. So, for the reward portion, I decided I wanted to make a party reward jar.

I have a Cricut machine that I use when scrapbooking and decided to buy some vinyl when I was at The Lob (which is slang for Hobby Lobby). I also bought a jar and some pom poms. All of which were on sale. Heck yes!

I decided to use all this to make a fuzzy pom pom reward jar. I couldn't think of a creative name so I decided to label it with "Party Puffs."

First, cut out what words you want on your vinyl. I chose black vinyl because it would be best seen against all the bright colors of the pom poms.

Once you've got what you want cut out, start peeling off the backing and place on your jar in the order you want!

Tada! All finished!

Students will earn pom poms (or puffs) when they are behaving as they should (listening to directions, are on task, not misbehaving, were great when subs were here while I was out, etc.), receive a compliment from another staff member, and are exhibiting other such classroom behaviors.

The pom poms will start out in a plain jar will be transferred to the "Party Pals" jar. There are 100 pom poms and all pom poms must be in the jar in order to receive the party. It's an incentive for them to want to behave. BUT, pom poms can also be taken away... which is the classroom management - positive negative part.

But, I know that using rewards ALL. THE. TIME. is not the best resource. This is why I will not utilize ONLY this jar as my classroom management system, but I will use it as something that is fun AND rewarding AND engaging for my students. Just something a little extra :)

So, what did YOU make this week??

Link up with Tara by clicking the Monday Made It button above!

See y'all tomorrow for Teacher Product Tuesday!

Winner of Day 2!

Today is going to be a VERY short post, as I'm facing dehydration. I spent too much time outside with too little to drink so...

Day 2 of the Miss V's Busy Bees One Year Blogiversary Giveaway bash is done and I am so happy to announce...

Congrats, Heather!! An e-mail has been sent her way so she's going to have LOADS and LOADS of goodies being sent her way and I couldn't be more excited!

See y'all tomorrow for Summer Reading Sunday! :)

Winner of Day 1 & Technology Thursday!

Day 1 of the Miss V's Busy Bees One Year Blogiversary Giveaway bash is done and I am so happy to announce...

Congrats, Shanon! An e-mail has been sent to Shanon so she's going to have LOADS of goodies being sent her way and I am so excited for her!

Days 2 through 6 are still going strong, so make sure to get your entires in!!

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Time to gear up for...

I love technology. I would use it day in and day out (I already do... really), but I do believe it has a place in education. It shouldn't be ALL that is used throughout the day, all day, every day, but when it is used, it can be one mighty AND powerful tool!

VoiceThread is one of my FAVORITE technology tools to use in the classroom. The possibilities with it are endless... so many different areas of the curriculum can be integrated into presentation format, which is what VoiceThread essentially is!

So, what is it?

VoiceThreads are "conversations in the cloud." It's a collaborative video making service that is completely FREE. Yep, free (teachers LOVE free)!!! If you'd like, there are single educator licenses that can be purchased to where you can add up to 50 student accounts to your account but psh.. it's FREE!!!! And I like free... :)

Anyways... so when you're using VoiceThread, it's kind of like PowerPoint. You upload photos to some kind of program. But, with VoiceThread, you have a method of commenting over the photos. This commenting can be done by voice, by type (using your keyboard), or by phone. 

Then, during the presentation, others can make comments by text, too! Talk about collaboration.

But, you're probably wondering, how can I use this if I'm an elementary teacher?? 

Then, you may want your students to do a project using VoiceThread, but you're not sure how to have them complete a project... so, below are some examples! 

Compare/contrast. A teacher named Debbie and her class that wants to share the similarities and differences between first and second grade for incoming second graders. This would be a neat, end of year project! 

Inquiry projects - what students have learned - reflections in the form of voice overs on pictures.

Book reviews. This would be simple for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade students to complete in just a few slides:

This one was set to not be embeddable SO if you want to view it, click here.

Response to literature assignments. This can be done individually, in small groups, or large groups like this class did. What an awesome review activity!

This last one is goofy. It's ME!!

State study. I did this project for one of my undergrad projects and it had to be a project we would implement in the classroom. So I did mine on the study of the state of Ohio. I found out more about Ohio in this project than I knew about Ohio in my entire life... funny, huh?

So, as you can see, VoiceThread can be used in a multitude of ways in the classroom across a variety of grades! 

Where do you think YOU can use VoiceThread in your classroom? I'd love to hear some of your ideas!

One Year Blogiversary Giveaway - Day 6!

**TEACHER PRODUCT TUESDAY WILL RESUME NEXT TUESDAY**

We made it! We're at the LAST day of the ONE YEAR BLOGIVERSARY bash! What have y'all thought thus far? Amazing, huh? I have been SO jealous of all the fantastic files and I cannot wait to pick the winners!

So, here's to the last giveaway and good luck to all the entrants & here's to the winners!

DAY 6

The winner will receive:

EVERY product that I add to my store from here until December 31st, 2013 + what is currently in my TPT store/TN store. That's 47+ products!!
AND a $25 TPT Gift Certificate
AND a $25 Target Gift Card

Rikki's Shap-aholic A Unit on Shapes
One product of choice (up to $5.00) from The Lamppost in 1st Grade Math's TPT Store
One product of choice from SOS Supply's TPT Store or TN Store & a surprise package of UK goodies!
One product of choice from 1st Grade Fireworks' TPT Store

Patty's Words in Context-Community Members

One product of choice from The Traveling Classroom's TPT Store

One product of choice from Angela's TPT Store

Fashion Craze Learning Days' Compound Word Puzzles featuring Common Beginnings
One product of choice from Pitner's Potpourri's TPT Store
Tori's Teacher Tips' Back to School Activity Pack {games and icebreakers}

Mrs. VanMeter's The Alphabet Pack

And

Stephany's Chevron, Stripes, & Polka Dot Theme Classroom Packet

One product of choice from Elementary School Garden's TPT Store
Kelley's Good Morning Work for September (Reading & Math)
$10.00 credit to April's TPT Store

4MulaFun's SH, CH, TH Word Sort Flippables, Simple Sentences- Identifying Nouns and Verbs, and Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock... It's Time to Read the Clock (Hour and Half Hour)

Nicole's Reading Skills Posters/Organizers/Reference Sheet/Tests and Matching Game

Lindsay's Glitz & Grammar Anchor Charts

One product of choice from Smiling in Second Grade's TPT Store

$10.00 credit to Shifting Teacher K-2's TPT Store

A $10.00 Starbucks Gift Card AND The Craft of Teaching's Quadrilaterals: 2D Shape Sort w/ Shape Cards

HOLY GOODNESS, right? Yup, what a tie up to a week's worth of goodies and celebrations!! I hope y'all have enjoyed this week and are happy with the giveaways!

I know I am truly blessed with the support that I was given by my bloggy friends by the donation of their products and their time AND the support I've been given by all my NEW and OLD bloggy friends that have entered the giveaways this week, too. So, THANK YOU.

Y'all know the drill - this giveaway will be open for SEVEN days. Hurry, hurry and get your entries in!!

Ready? Set? GO!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

See y'all Thursday for the first announcement of the winner from Day 1 and tomorrow for a Wild Card Wednesday!