Spring into April- Four Free Poetry Apps

Hello Friends! It's Erin from The Elementary Darling, and my peachy friends and I are sharing our favorite new ideas to get you through the month of April!

Today I am here to share four of my favorite FREE poetry apps!

I teach first grade and I was searching for the perfect app for younger students to learn about poetry. Thankfully, I came across these wonderful apps from http://www.readwritethink.org/. They are available for ipad and android so they are perfect for any device. What I like about them is the fact that they are easy for the students to use and the app organizes the poem for the student!

1. Haiku

This app reminds the students to count the syllables, and provides a space for them to brainstorm words.

2. Acrostic Poems

This app provides the student with an example of  an acrostic poem. It then leads them through a brainstorming session, and gives hint words for the acrostic poem.

3. Theme Poem

The theme poem app provides the students with different shapes. The shapes include sports, school, and other kid friendly shapes. The students choose a shape and describe that shape.

4. Diamante 

This app also describes what a diamante poem is and takes the students through the steps to create a diamante poem. It even labels each line and what the student should include in the poem.

All of these apps allow you to save them to the ipad, which would make them easy to save to your computer and print or email! This way, if you only have one device , the students could use this as a center or with a partner! Another great resource for poetry apps is this post from Erintegration! 

Stay tuned for more ideas this month from the Peach! And if you try any of these fabulous FREE apps, let me know!

For even more ideas from The Primary Peach, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

Get a Fresh Start: Get Organized With Your PHONE!

Happy New Year, Peaches! It's Jivey here, and I'm bringing you five tips to help you organize your life with something I know you ALL have: your phone!

If you are like me, your phone is attached to you. You have it wherever you go. So why not make your life easier with it?

My first sanity-saving tip for you is to download Dropbox IMMEDIATELY on every device you own, not just your phone. Dropbox is a cloud that allows you to store files and access them from any device. Did you buy something on TPT from your phone as you waited at the doctor's office? Save it to Dropbox and you can access it from home, school, or anywhere you can sign on Dropbox! Maybe you were doing some surfing on the sofa and noticed The Primary Peach's Sharing Sunday- and you want to save those free resources! DROPBOX!

Use your alarm for more than just waking up! Set a timer for your mini-lesson to truly keep it "mini," or to remind yourself to do something daily... like leave school by 5 PM! ;-) Don't forget, the calendar app can also alert you with an alarm of upcoming events!

TAKE SCREENSHOTS!! Seriously- anything you want to remember, whether it's a teaching idea or a recipe, screenshot it so you'll remember. Even if it's next month when you see it again because you are scrolling through your pictures to make space on your phone, you'll be glad you did.

Do you love checking things off of a to-do list? Because you're a teacher, I know you have lots of planners/calendars/notepads, but you can do it all on your phone, too! Search for free to-do list apps, and play around until you find one you like. Personally, I love Wunderlist.

And if all else fails, email yourself. If you are like most teachers, the first thing you do when you get to school is check school email... Are you Netflix binging and you just remembered you need to send a note home with Rodney tomorrow? Email yourself. Maybe you are waiting for softball practice to be over and just realized you didn't sign up for media center time... Email!

Make sure to come back to The Primary Peach this month for tons of organization ideas!

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Helpful Harvest: A Google Extension You Need!

Hey friends! It's Tara from andtheyallfalldown. 

I went to the GaETC conference two weeks ago and I learned about a helpful google extension that I wanted to share with you! The name of this extension is ublock origin. If you are on a device that runs chrome - all you need to do is go to the google web store and search for ublock! There are two that come up, but Chris Craft from Palmetto Learning (the presenter I learned about this extension from) likes origin the best.  

Here are some photos of the extension in action.

I love to use youtube in my classroom, but I rarely do - I can't trust what comes up!

So this has been a life-saver for me to play my phonics snippets and videos that I have found. 

I hope this is helpful to you in your classroom! 

For even more ideas from The Primary Peach, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

Helpful Harvest: Make Worksheets Come Alive

We are 21 days into our Helpful Harvest series here at the Primary Peach and I have learned so much from my fellow Peaches!  What an amazing group of educators!!  I'm Meghan from Keeping Up with Mrs. Harris and today, I decided to integrate a technology tip for you that will make your children scream with excitement!  Seriously, go ahead and know that it will be loud in your classroom during this activity!  

YES!  Let's make those worksheets come ALIVE!  You are going to be just as excited as your students when you see this in person!  Checkout the steps below!

Head on over to Quiver Vision's website.  First, I would love for you to watch the video so you can see for yourself the fun that you and your students are in for.  Then at the top of the site, click "Education".  This will take you to the page with the downloadable worksheets that are available.  There are a ton of science and social studies content related pages and some just for fun.  These are perfect for your writing class.  Let them pick their own page for a fun write, read the passage on the worksheet and get them writing.  I say, save the "come to life" part for the very end and just see their excitement!

Students color their pictures with regular crayons or markers!  They can use any colors that they would like to, the app can change between their colors and the real life colors of the object or animal.

Download the app to your iPad.  Now, this is the sad part...it isn't free.  There is a free version, but it only has a couple of worksheets that work with it.  However, I can tell you that the full version is well worth the $7.99.

I let my son color and scan his picture this week for the first time and he seriously dropped the iPad!  When his bug jumped off the page he screamed and then started laughing.  After that, we had to print off nearly every picture from the site just so he could see what they would do.  AND he is only 4!!!  Another feature of the app that I love is that there is an recording of information for some of the pictures as well.  So kids are learning even after their scan!  

Isn't this amazing?  I couldn't think of a better way to be "helpful" than share this with you just in time for the holiday craziness!  You can use this as a time filler during all those stressful moments between now and Christmas.  :)  Enjoy!

Fall Favorites and Freebies- The Elementary Darling

Happy Fall Y'all! It's Erin from The Elementary Darling!

This month we are sharing our Fall favorites and a Freebie every day! 

I LOVE these books. Fall is a great time for books, and these are a few of my favorites.

I am lucky enough to be a 1:1 iPad classroom and these are some of the apps we will use this fall! Below I will give you some examples of how you can use these great  FREE apps!

Popplet- Popplet is a great app and it has so many uses. The students could create popplets on fall words or books. They could identify the main idea and details or story elements of the fabulous stories above.

Book Creator Free- This would be great for a fall themed book or to review a book that you read to the students.

Kidspiration Lite- Kidspiration is great for organizers of many kinds! There are cute pumpkin pictures that you could use to make a venn diagrams, charts, or word webs. 

Alphabet Organizer- Alphabet organizer is great for so many reasons! I have used it for nouns and proper nouns. The students put a word that starts with each letter of the alphabet in the spaces. This would be cute to create an alphabet activity on fall words!

Theme Poem- In the theme poem app, there is a leaf that the students can write a poem about. It is very user friendly. The students just type their words, and it publishes the poem on the leaf.

Epic- Epic is a great place for the kids to read different books. You can look up books by a title or just search what they have. There are many fall books that your students can read.

Now it is time for your FREEBIE!

We are working on graphing this week and I love this Fall Favorites Graph! Click here to grab it for free or click on the picture. Happy Fall Friends!

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Tech Tuesday:SeeSaw-The Digital Learning Journal

Hello! I'm Jonna from The Primary Life. It's Tech Tuesday here at The Primary Peach and I am so excited to share one of my favorite tech tools with you!

The free Seesaw app has absolutely transformed my classroom! It is a digital learning journal that allows parents to view their child's work and leave written or audio comments. It has been instrumental in helping my kinders to become digital experts. They love exploring and discovering new ways to use this app.

So, what is so great about Seesaw? It's amazingly easy to use, even for children as young as 4 years old. It allows them to create and upload their work independently. Also, the support available from the Seesaw team is outstanding. They are always ready and eager to help with any questions.

I was searching for a way to extend our work beyond the four walls of our classroom. However, all of the blog-like options I came across required a login.  Then I found Seesaw and their QR code login was exactly what I needed for my students.  I was SOLD!  When you sign up for Seesaw, they automatically generate a QR code login poster for your class.  As you can see from the picture above, students can easily access the poster to login with minimal assistance. 

After logging in, students see this screen where they can easily find and select their name next to their avatar. There are a variety of avatars available, but you can also upload your own photo or drawing.

So what can students do in Seesaw? After finding their name, students see this screen.  They must choose what type of item they want to upload.  

The note option allows students to type in text and also add their voice. We haven't used this a lot in kindergarten, but it would be a great tool for older students.  They can also take a picture by simply choosing "camera" and selecting the green button.

The link option allows students and teachers to upload URL links. The drawing tool is a popular choice among my students, because they can not only draw but, add text and their voice. Once students have finished their work they follow the green check marks and it is uploaded to their journal.

I absolutely love the folder option in SeeSaw.  You can categorize by content, groups or even have students create a "BEST WORK" folder to share with their parents. 

When parents download the free Seesaw parent app, they receive email notifications. This tells them that their child has uploaded an item to their journal. The ability for parents to see and comment on their child's work is such a powerful tool.  It goes beyond "What did you do today?" and opens up a dialogue between parent and child. 

                                                                                                                       

These are just a few examples of what your students could do in Seesaw.  It is amazing how quickly students become experts at using this app. 

                                  

 In this example, one of my students did a book review of the Grouchy Ladybug in Tellagami. Then we uploaded it into Seesaw. 

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In the example above, we "grew" a plant in the Chromvillle app, exported it into Seesaw and added our voice.  VOILA! Super easy!

App Smashes may seem a little intimidating. However, THEY'RE NOT! They are super simple because Seesaw has made it so easy to use these apps along with theirs.

If you would like to know more about Seesaw, I would love to help!  Also, the Seesaw website listed above has a wealth of information-including lots of videos that are great for the Seesaw novice.

For even more ideas from The Primary Peach, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!