Monthly Archives: January 2014

Adventures of a 1st Grade QR Code Scavenger Hunt

Lesson Background

We read the story titled On the Way to the Pond about two friends, Herbert and Tess, who want to go to the pond for a picnic! On the way they misplace their picnic basket, and Tess goes back to find it. She drops rocks along the way so she can find her way back. In math we have been working on addition and subtraction. I thought it would be cute if I sent my students on a QR scavenger hunt around the building. My plan was to attach the QR codes to rocks like in the story, and in the end they would find a picnic basket filled with treats!

Creating the QR Hunt

I used the website QR Voice that I had previously used for my What’s in the Bag? project. I typed in short addition and subtraction word problems, and QR voice generates a QR code. There is a 100 character limit for QR Voice. When students scan the code they hear the word problem read to them. I copied and pasted the QR codes into a word document. I also made a page with the word problems, so the teacher can reread the word problem if needed. Additionally, I included an answer key and a sheet where students can record their responses.

Going on the QR Code Scavenger Hunt

I printed the QR Codes and attached them to rocks with duct tape. During my planning period, I hid the rocks throughout the hallways in the school, and placed the picnic basket full of goldfish crackers at the end. I notified the teachers in my building that I was hiding rocks around the building, and asked them to inform their students. The class had tons of fun scanning the QR codes and solving the word problems. They were super excited each time the spotted a new rock! When they found the picnic basket at the end we went back to the classroom, sat in a big circle, and ate our goldfish crackers! The only snag we ran into was that one of the rocks got stolen!

Purchase the QR Code Scavenger Hunt

If you would like to use this QR Scavenger Hunt with your students, you can purchase it in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. Enjoy!

What has been your experience using QR Codes with your students?

Digitizing Getting-to-Know-You-Glyphs

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Lesson Background

Before the winter break I got a new student. I do a lot of getting-to-know-you glyphs at the beginning of the year, but in the spirit of getting a new student I thought it would be nice to try a winter glyph that would help him get to know the rest of the class and vice versa! All the glyphs I have seen have been paper crafts, so I thought it would be interesting to design a glyph activity for the Interactive Whiteboard.

Additionally, in grammar, we started learning about proper nouns, specifically names. I thought it would be fun to have the students make acrostic poems about their classmates using their names to go along with their glyph.
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Trick for Keeping Desks in Place!

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It’s a lot of work coming up with a seating arrangement! You spend a great deal of time creating the perfect seating chart before you even get to physically moving the desks! Without fail, within an hour my students have pushed their desks completely catawampus! So to combat this I came up with a solution! Are you ready?

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Blog a Month Challenge

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Blog A Month Challenge

I was recently invited to participate in the Blog A Month Challenge by Tricia Shelton in her blog post. I think this will be a fun way to expand my PLN, and connect with other bloggers! Thanks for nominating me Tricia! Now that I have been nominated I will pass the torch and nominate another 11 bloggers! I am choosing to nominate 11 people that I recently connected with on Twitter, who happen to teach 1st grade like me! Continue reading →

Giving Reader’s Theater a Technology Twist

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A Bit of Background

All primary teachers know that Reader’s Theater is a great way to promote fluency and expression in students’ oral reading. Recently, we read two different pieces of literature in class that lend themselves nicely to Reader’s Theater. The first story, Try Your Best, is a realistic fiction story composed of mostly dialogue between characters about kids at a summer camp. The second story, Did You See Chip?, was a play about a girl who moves to the new city, looses her dog, and makes new friends on her journey to recover her missing pup! I wanted to try incorporating technology into my students’ Reader’s Theater experiences. For these two projects I selected two different tools, Voki, a web based tool, and Puppet Pals 2, an iPad app. Continue reading →

New Years Resolution: Increasing Collaboration in 2014

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On Monday night when I was sick with the flu I decided to participate in #edtechchat on Twitter. The focus of the conversation was reflection on the past year, and goal setting for the upcoming year. During this discussion several participants voiced their desire to become better about reading and commenting on blogs in the new year. Jessica Worley contacted me after this chat about starting a TLC Group, Tweet, Like and Comment! Please check out her blog article, for steps on how to join us on this endeavor! I hope you will come on board and join our group!