Digital Reading Choice Boards



I blogged recently about my reading choice boards, and what a fresh take they are on the average reading response. I love these boards! So much so, that I decided to make them digital, to better support teachers throughout this time of distance learning. 

If you aren't already familiar with my reading response choice boards, they are menus with a variety of reading response prompts that get your students interacting with texts in different ways! I have the digital versions of both the nonfiction and fiction choice boards, so your students can use them with any text you assign!


Here's how the digital versions work:

-When you purchase this digital file, you will download a PDF from my store that links to the file on Google Drive. You will need a google account to access this product, and any students you share it with will also need their own Google accounts!

-When you click on the link, you will be prompted to make a copy of the file. This is your own, personal copy of this product, so any typing or editing you do to it is completely yours. 

-The menus are the first slides that you see. When you click on the different boxes of the menus, they link to a different slide that has the response page. For example, if you students want to create a text message conversation between characters, they simply click on that prompt and it takes them to that page.

-Some of the response pages have a clipboard with directions. Your students will be directed to read those directions and then delete the clipboard so they can get to work. The directions help them to know which Google Tools they should be using to best interact with that page. 

-When you want to share this product with students, you will want for each of them to have their own copy. If they all have the same copy of the file, they will all be working on the same pages at the same time...and that would be a mess!
In order for each student to have their own copy, you will want to share the product with them, and teach them how to make a copy of the file into their own drive. This is done by simply selecting File-Make a Copy. :)

-As students are working, you will have access to their work. This means that you can login to individual reading responses and leave feedback to help your students' grow their writing skills, or simply take a grade! 


My hope is that these digital response menus make your distance-learning life a little easier, while also giving you something highly engaging for your students to work on! 

Shop Digital & Printable Reading Choice Boards HERE


Independent Math Activities for At-Home Learning


I can’t even believe that it’s already APRIL. How did that happen? Granted, this blog post is being written in April of 2020, so this April looks different from all of the others, doesn’t it? We’re all home, and we’re not wrapping up the school year with the kids the way that we thought we would. 


This is where things are getting a little funny...some of us don’t know if we will see our kids before this school year is over. We don’t know how the end of the year will look...how we will clean out desks, pass out yearbooks, complete graduations, etc. We don’t know what next year will look like...but where I live, more and more evidence is suggesting that we are just going to put a pause on things this year, and send the kids to the next grade level. The next years’ teachers are going to have to figure out how to fill the gaps of the content that didn’t get covered the year before. 


I think the best thing we can do for our students (and their future teachers) right now, is to find ways to get them independently working on all of the domain that are in their grade level standards. 


Independent because moms and dads have a whole lot on their plates right now, and all they need from us is more assignments that give their children the chance to sit and work without help,


‘All of the domains’, because this is the time of year when we would normally be reviewing year-long content with our students, but we can’t. If we can’t be there to review what we taught them, we need to give families the tools!


Enter: Math Choice Boards for 2nd Grade and 3rd Grade! These boards work in the classroom as early finisher work, enrichment for gifted education, center work homework...but in an unprecedented time like this one, these boards are perfect as end of the year review!


This is how the boards work:
-Choose the domain that you want students to practice (you can assign different domains to different groups of kids, depending on what they need to work on!)
-Send the students the choice board for that skill, and allow them to choose the boxes they want to complete. (You can assign boxes to students as well, but the choice really makes it more fun!)
-Many of the tasks are open-ended, but tasks that can use an answer key have answers included. Students can complete the open-ended tasks the way that they choose, and submit work back to you.
-Use the completed work as a way to chat with your students about those math standards, and what they need to have mastered before they move on to the next grade!



My store has 2nd and 3rd grade math choice boards. See the different boards available below, or read about my mixed skill at-home boards here and here:


SHOP ALL BOARDS HERE

Or, buy the boards in bundles and save!

2nd Grade Bundle HERE

3rd Grade Bundle HERE


Digital PBLs for Distance Learning


I recently blogged about distance learning, and how projects can be really helpful for kids and families during this time. But, the idea that there is a growing need for digital resources was also at the front of my mind. I put out some questions to teachers on my Instagram account, and got the overwhelming response that teachers really were looking for digital versions of projects that their students could complete from home. 

I wanted to be mindful by providing you all with resources that would make distance learning a little easier for you in this difficult time, and turning a handful of my Project-Based-Learning activities (PBLs) into digital, Google-slides projects, felt like the best fit. 

Here are some ways that Digital PBL Activities can make your distance learning efforts easier:

  • My digital PBLs are housed in Google Slides, and are compatible with Google Classroom. If you already have student Google accounts through your school district, or you have set up a Google Classroom for students and parents to access during this time, my Digital PBLs will fit perfectly! If you don’t have a Google set up, but you have a personal Google account, you can download the project as a Powerpoint from within Google, and share individually with your students! 
  • These projects are *differentiated*! There are pages with circles in the corner, which indicates on-grade level content for 2nd graders, and pages with squares in the corner, which pushes into the 3rd grade standards a bit. All you have to do, when you’re getting ready to share this project with certain groups of students, is make a copy of your master project, delete the pages you don’t want the students to do, and share with them! 
  • Videos are inserted into different portions of each project, to give your students extra guidance on the Google Tools they will need to use to complete it. You can choose to leave these videos in the project to share with students and parents, or delete them and use those directions to create your own tutorials, if you are live teaching this project!


By creating digital projects for you students, my hope is that you all will keep your students deeply engaged in their math standards, in a way that is fun for them! We want our students to keep growing, but we also want to make this an easy transition for all of us. These digital projects accomplish both: ease and engagement! Happy digital teaching, everyone!

Check out the video below to see a preview video of my Digital Build A Zoo PBL:

Shop Digital PBL Activities



Free Project Calendar for At Home Learning



With so many of us facing several weeks out of school right now, I wanted to do something to offer you a little relief! This at-home learning situation looks so different from school to school. Some districts are taking control of what the schooling is going to look like, while others are letting each individual teacher decide what distance learning will look like for them.

No matter where you sit on the spectrum, the thread that is binding us all together right now is that the parents are shouldering most of the responsibility of making sure that kids are logging in on time, doing the work assigned to them, and helping them when they get stuck. One thing that can help our families in such an unprecedented time, is providing them with projects!

Projects:
  • require deeper application of skills
  • can be done over and over again, and get a different end result each time
  • are hands on, and therefore can be more engaging

For these reasons, projects can be a life saver when it comes to keeping kids busy, but working independently! I have a summer project calendar that I have offered in the past, because the summer months tend to be a time when parents are scrambling to keep their kids busy, keep their math skills sharp, and inspire creativity. We never could have predicted that we would all be living out that summertime schedule at home for all of the spring, as well, but here we are...and I want to help! 

I took my FREE Summer Project Calendar and shifted it to be something that you can use right now for the coming weeks of distance learning. Eight weeks of project ideas are included, with each day of the project’s work mapped out for you!

These projects can be adapted to use materials you already have in your house, and done with just family members...or with classmates, digitally! Teachers can send these calendars home to parents in packets or via email, or take the ideas from this menu and work into their lesson plans. I’m hoping that this versatile menu can help fill a need for teachers and parents everywhere as we all do our best to navigate this trying time!

GET YOUR FREEBIE HERE


If you're in the market for more Project-Based-Learning fun for your 2nd-3rd graders, check out the other PBLs in my store! You can find a topic for every kid in your class, and keep the learning fun going on for weeks at a time!