Technology linky party x3, another giveaway prize, and a Freebie!

It's August! I can hardly believe it. Where has my summer gone? This is the last week for the Tune into Technology linky party. Thanks Kristin, Amanda and Aylin for hosting such a fun linky party.

 I'm also linking up with Erin from I'm Lovin Lit for Thursday Throw Down.

 

 Finally I'm linking with Tracey at The Teacher's Chair for her School Week Linky.

 

This week's topic is QR codes.

QR Codes

How I love thee

Let me count the ways: 

1. They are easy to create. If you aren't sure how to make them you can read more about it in my post here.

2. They can be used in centers. Students are able to work quietly and check their own work. This is key when I am working with a small group of students. They are able to stay occupied without needing me.

3. They can be hung around the room and used as another tool to help get kiddos out of their seats and learning. My students will happily complete 24 QR code problems without complaint when I hang them around the room. If I gave them the same 24 problems on a worksheet for them to do at their seat, I'd never hear the end of it!

4. You can create QR codes to get kids to video websites. You can read about my experience with this here.

5. If you don't have time to make them, there are tons of great products on TPT. Some of my favorites TPT stores to pick up QR codes from are: Kristin Kennedy's TPT store and Flapjack Educational Resources.

If you haven't used QR codes in the past I'd encourage you to try them out. I have a few free products that you can download in my TPT store. I just updated my multiplication and division properties QR codes. You can grab them for free here.

One final reminder to enter my Giveaway. Another prize was just added to the prize list. Vincent Mastro author of Aesop's 1st Book of Childhood Adventures is donating one of his books to my giveaway.  Winner will be announced Friday!

Integrating technology in Math

Happy Fourth of July! I'm up in Rhode Island spending the long weekend with my family. I am looking forward to seeing some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins that I haven't seen in months. I hope you all have a fantastic time with your families today!

I'm double dipping today. I'm linking up with iTeach 1:1 and Learning to the Core for their Tune into Technology linky party.

I am also linking up with I'm Lovin Lit for her,Thursday Throw Down linky.

Math is one subject that I have had an easy time integrating with technology. Using technology makes it much more interactive for my students. I use my SMART Board for every lesson. I've created some fun activities to help the kids learn different strategies. One of my favorites is the What's My Rule activity. I have it for multiplication and division as well as addition and subtraction.

My kiddos love this activity and talk about it all year. The students slide the number from the black side of the page behind the bear to the white side. The number "changes" and the students need to find out the "rule" for the numbers.

I also love using ipads. I've created a lot of QR code task cards to help my students learn and review. A lot of the activities are free in my TPT store. Feel free to check them out. My students love solving problems using the QR codes.

They don't realize that they are actually solving more problems doing the codes than they would do if I assigned them a worksheet. They are also having much more fun than if they were doing a worksheet!

What do you do to integrate technology in math? How do you make your lessons more interactive?

Five for Friday, Flashback Friday, and a Giveaway Winner!

It is Friday! This week was a "short" week, but honestly it feels like it has taken forever to finally be Friday! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and Teaching Maddeness for their Friday linky parties!

1. This week my students and I continued on our Motion and Design unit in science. The students experimented with their vehicles learning about force, friction, and air resistance.

2. We created our science foldable for our Motion and Design unit. Foldables are such a great way for students to take notes. I've blogged about them a lot so I will save you from reading my speech about how awesome they are.

Side 1 of foldable

Side 2 of foldable

3. My kiddos and I are also working through our measurement unit in math right now. I discovered this QR code pack on TPT and have been using them this week after key lessons to reinforce what we are learning. I hang the cards all over the room and have them walk around to solve the problems. My kids LOVE it, and beg for more.

I am in love with my new red table

4. I attended a great workshop on Thursday night about running a Math Workshop. I'm really planning on running a math workshop next year-but I am still a bit worried because I only have 50 min. for math each day...Do any of you run a math workshop? How long is your math period? I'd love to hear what you like/don't like about it. I'm thankful I have the summer to work thought my thoughts!

5. This week I ran my first giveaway! I am so excited to be able to announce the winner!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations Tara! Be sure to check your e-mail. Enjoy your Friday everyone!

Tried it Tuesday-Creating and using QR Codes and a Freebie

Over the last few weeks I have had quite a few people ask me about QR codes. I know that they can seem intimidating at first, but they are extremely easy to make.

There are a lot of different websites that you can use to make QR codes. My favorite site is The QR Code Generator. I like this site because it is easy to use and with the click of a button you can change the size of the code. All you need to do is take whatever information you want to come up when the students scan the code and put it into the code generator. The QR Code immediately pops up onto the screen. Then all you need to do is copy and paste it into the document you are creating.

Click on picture to see notes

There are a lot of free apps that you can download on your ipad, ipod, or iphone that allow you to read QR Codes. The one that my school uses is I-nigma QR Code. There are many others, this is just the one we use. It is very user friendly and free!

The beauty of QR codes is that you can use them in many different ways. I have used them to link my students to websites. (It is a lot easier to have them scan a QR code then to have them type in a website.) I have also used them in centers. My students will read a task card with a problem on it, solve the problem, and then check themselves to see if they are correct. Here is a task card freebie of some QR codes I use to review multiplication and division basic facts and properties.

Do you use QR codes in your classroom? If you do, how do you use them?  If you don't, give them a try. I'd love to hear about it!

Be sure to check out Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday to hear about more great ideas that people are trying in their classrooms!


Check out more great links about QR codes at Table Talk with C&C

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Tried it Tuesday-Learning about Lewis and Clark with QR Codes

Today I am linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for her first linky party. Tried it Tuesday-it is where you share something that you tried recently-be sure to check out her blog for the details.

Last week my students and I started our study on the westward expansion of the United States. I found this really cute QR code activity for Lewis and Clark on TPT. The pack includes six QR codes that link to six different movies/video clips that ranged from one min. to eight min. long. The QR codes linked right to YouTube videos so I remade the codes after I used safe share.tv (we aren't allowed to give kids links directly to YouTube in my school because of the types of adds and other videos that can pop up.)

Once I remade the QR codes I hung them up around the room. I signed the iPads and headphones out of our computer lab and explained to the kids what they were going to be learning about, then as I went to pass out the first iPad the WiFi went down, no lie. Thankfully, my kiddos are really flexible and we switched gears to work on our big writing project instead.

The next day our WiFi was down all day, but finally on Thursday the WiFi was up and running! The students had a blast watching the different videos.

They wandered around the classroom and watched the videos. some students took notes, others just enjoyed the clips.

When they finished I gave them seven options they could choose from to tell me things that they learned. Most of them chose to share the top three facts that they learned, others drew a picture or wrote a letter. It was neat to see their personalities come out in their choices and the way the accomplished the task. Some chose to rewatch a movie to hear facts again, others looked back at their notes to help them. No matter what they chose they all enjoyed it, and they retained a lot more than they would have if we had only read our textbooks!

What's something new that you tried? Link up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday and share something new you have tried!

Maniac Monday-Elapsed Time QR Code Freebie

It's the Monday before spring break for me...I can't begin to tell you how excited I am for a week off! I'm linking up with Classroom Freebies for Maniac Monday, as well as the Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday (I can never seem to get my act together in time to post a freebie on Friday. Thankfully they leave the link open all weekend!)

I don't know about you, but my students really struggle with finding elapsed time. Some of them still struggle to read an analog clock. To help reenforce these skills I created these QR code cards. There are sixteen problems for the students to solve. Three of the cards are pictures of clocks and I ask them what time the clock shows. The other 13 cards are finding elapsed time, or using elapsed time to figure out when something starts or ends. You can download the cards here. 

If you use them, be sure to let me know what you think! Don't forget to check out the other awesome freebies people are sharing this week.

Maniac Monday-Converting Customary Units QR Codes

It is Monday, and that means Maniac Monday time at Classroom Freebies! (It also means Freebie Friday-just a few days late!) I am linking up with QR Codes that I made for my upcoming math unit.

In the next few weeks my students and I will begin our measurement unit. One thing my kids can always use extra practice in is converting between units of measure.The customary units always seem to be extra tricky because they have to remember so many numbers to help them convert.

If you have read my blog before you know how much I love QR Codes. I copy the cards onto card-stock and cut them apart. They are then able to be used in a center, or in a tic-tac-toe board. You can download them for free here.

Math QR Codes

A few years ago, I decided that in order to keep my teaching fresh and up to date I would spend each year focusing on a new subject or two. Since I have taught fourth grade for nine years I am really comfortable with the school's curriculum and I have a good understanding of where the average fourth grader is developmentally. With the Common Core being implemented at my school I decided that this year I should focus on math and reading.

One of the first things I did was look around teacherspayteachers.com. While I was there I discovered this activity from FlapJack Educational Resources; QR Code Math Problem Fun. In this activity students can create their own QR codes to math problems that they create. I thought this would be a great way for me to differentiate, and really challenge those that need it, but it also gave me the idea to create my own task cards where students could check themselves using the QR codes.

I spent a Sunday afternoon working on my first set...creating problems that covered the key concepts my students needed to know, and from my years of experience, what most students struggled to master. When I brought them in Monday morning the only thing I had at the time that could read QR Codes was my iphone, so after a discussion about what I expected of them, I allowed a few kids to work together on the task cards at a time.

The students loved them! Some students worked alone and then checked their answers to the problems using the codes, other students worked together and helped each other as they worked on the math concepts, then checked the codes to see if they were correct. My students loved them because they could use my iphone (now I sign out a few ipads for the students to use from our computer lab,) they had the option of working together, and they could immediately check themselves to see if they understood. I love them because it gives my early finishers something engaging to do, it covers key concepts that I know they need to master, and it allows them to enjoy learning! Who doesn't want that for their students?

You can find a few of the task card sets that I created at my TpT store here.  Most of them are free for you to use in your classroom. All I ask is that you let me know what you think of them! I've just started to load them, so there will be more coming soon.