My students absolutely LOVE TO MYSTERY SKYPE!!! 

This is an activity that I learned about at the TETA conference in Murfreesboro, TN several years ago. Ironically enough, the person I learned it from (Dr. Katrina Keene) is actually the mother to one of my students. Go check her out here, she is really amazing!

In a nutshell, students will ask Yes/No questions to try and find the mystery location of the other school. You can read more details about Mystery Skype here. 

To be successful at Mystery Skype, I have found that it is VERY important for each student to have their own assigned role. If you opt not to assign roles, this will more than likely result in the majority of students not really being engaged. I like to make sure each of my students are participating, and assigning student roles helps me to formatively assess participation levels. Each student having their own assigned role makes them feel important, involved, and excited. I absolutely love when students are learning, especially when they are actually EXCITED about learning! 

To assign student roles, I have found it very helpful to have name tags (talk about upping the importance of their "roles"). You can get your own FREE and EDITABLE copy of my name tags here. I formatted these name tags to fit name tag holders that I found on Amazon. You can get the same lanyards and name tag holders that I use for incredibly cheap on Amazon here. I opted to get 10 horizontal name tag holders (with lanyards included) for about $10 bucks. 

If you have questions about Mystery Skype, or if you want to Skype with my class, please contact me!

You can also connect with me on my Microsoft Skype page here. 

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, but I would never recommend any product that I have not personally tried and loved. ​ ​​

How many times have you heard the question "How do I know if this source is reliable or not" or "I cannot find a .edu or gov website" ????

If you are anything like me, I hear questions such as these ALL OF THE TIME from my students. In an effort to enhance my students' ability to find credible, reliable sources, I put together a handy TIP SHEET to share with my students. Feel free to direct your students to this website to make their own copy! Tip: Click CTRL + L to quickly highlight the link in the browser. 

Click the image below to make your own editable copy!

Do you have any other online research tools that help you and your students find reliable sources? If so, drop a comment below!

Have you ever used Google Slides as a method of peer feedback for your students? If you haven't, I highly recommend that you do! 

I am currently using Google Slides for the All About Me Flyer project that I do at the beginning of each semester. See more about that project by clicking here. After my students complete the "rough draft" of their flyer, I ask for the students to leave peer feedback via the commenting feature of Google Slides. I found that I needed a quick and simple way to track the amount of comments that each student was leaving. I created a form in Google Docs to distribute to my students, and it worked like a charm! You can make each student their own digital editable copy of this Google Doc by making an assignment in Google Classroom; just be sure to set the permissions to make each student their own copy. Alternatively, you can print the form out for the students to write on. 

I hope that you find this helpful. Please redirect any other teachers wanting this Google Doc back to this page. 

Please click the image below to make your own editable copy in Google Docs. 

Happy Cyber Week! 

In honor of the cyber week, I wanted to pass along another freebie to my website followers! Today I offering a lesson plan template that is FULLY EDITABLE in Google Docs! Click the image above to receive a free copy of the template.

You can click HERE to see an example of one of my lesson plans that I have created using this exact template. I hope that you enjoy this freebie and find it very useful!

Enjoy!
-Hayley 

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, but I would never recommend any product that I have not personally tried and loved. ​ ​

Now that Google Classroom has made its way into classrooms all over the world, students and teachers alike are learning the pros and cons to online classroom environments. As an experienced teacher, I have learned that sometimes the hardest barrier to overcome with ANY online platform is a very simple one: having students remember their login credentials. This is especially true for elementary and middle school students, but it does also happen fairly often in the high school environment, particularly at the beginning of the year. 

Not only am I a teacher at my school, but I am also the Google Admin for all grades 6 - 12. This means that I am the go-to person for ALL password resets for ALL students, and ALL teachers... but teachers never forget their passwords, right?! Lol! I knew that I had to find a way to hold the students responsible for remembering their password... and below you can find the steps to see just how I accomplished that.

Steps to (hopefully) never having to reset Google Passwords ever again:

1. Request permission from students and parents to hold an electronic copy of their password for their school issued Google Account (the account is not for personal use). Most districts have school issued Google accounts, so most parents and students are totally okay with this because the school has full control over the account regardless.  
2. Make an assignment in Google Classroom with the login card found below. 

• Make sure to make each student their own editable copy.

3. Ask students to fill in the card with the required credentials. 
4. Ask the students to click turn in, and to then print a copy of their Google Login Card. 

• I highly recommend printing these on a bright neon colored paper. I personally used these cheap neon orange sheets that I purchased from Amazon this year. It is a pack of 500 sheets, which comes out to about $.02 cents per sheet! This makes the login paper MUCH EASIER for the kiddos to find in their forever messy binders!

5. Assign a small amount of daily points for the first several weeks of school requiring the students to bring the login card to class each day. 

• For students that forget to bring the login card, the teacher automatically has their very own copy stored in their Google Drive account! 

Wa-lah! Magic! This little trick has made my teaching life SO MUCH EASIER, and I hope that it does yours as well.

Please feel free to make a copy for YOUR CLASSROOM ONLY. Please direct other teachers to this post to make their own copy for their class. 
​
Click HERE to make your own editable copy. 

Read more about my love for Google Classroom. ​

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, but I would never recommend any product that I have not personally tried and loved. ​​

I chose to use my Cricut to make personalized cups for all of our front office workers and all of our admin. My school is a middle/high school {6-12}, so I had a total of NINE people to make end of year gifts for. I did not want to be a cheap-o, but I also had to be economical. See the pic below to see how they turned out!

Steps:

• I simply added the Cricut adhesive to the tumblers and glasses
• Next, I dropped some Twix and M&M's inside the cups
• Finally, I attached these adorable Gift Tags around the neck of the cups with some twine!

Supplies:

• Glass Mugs and/or Plastic Tumblers {personal preference}
  • I got my Tumblers at Wal-Mart and the glasses were a wedding gift!
• Twine
  • You can get these from any craft store (mine came from Hobby Lobby)
• Cardstock
• Printable Gift Tags
• Cricut Explore Air 2 + Black Outdoor Adhesive Vinyl 
  • Click the images below to see the exact products that I use!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS
 
Prize: $75 Teachers pay Teachers Gift Card
Giveaway organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher), 
 
Co-hosts: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher),  It's a Teacher Thing, Mickey's Place, Reading and Writing Redhead, A Plus Kids, Amanda's Little Learners, The Chocolate Teacher, Heart 2 Heart Teaching, The Literacy Garden, PreK Kristin, Teaching Ideas For Those Who Love Teaching, Teacher Jeanell, Kamp Kindergarten, Leah Popinski, Digging Deep to Soar Beyond the Text, MM Bilingual, Right Down the Middle with Andrea,Trending Technology in Tennessee, A Library and Garden, Kelly McCown, Planet Happy Smiles, Teacher Mama School, Catch My Products, Samson's Shoppe, Glistening Gems, Jackie Crews, and Kathryn Watts.
 
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter form to enter.  Giveaway ends 5/13/17 and is open worldwide.

Are you a blogger who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your blog?  Click here to find out how you can join a totally awesome group of bloggers!