1, 2, 3... An App-tastic Monday!

Well, we are home today with yet another snow day...  Living in southeast VA, it is quite unusual for us to miss more than maybe one or two school days a season, but today is our 6th day home this winter so far!  Wow!  What a strange winter this has been.  Yesterday my husband and I took a walk at the park to enjoy the nice 70 degree weather and today we get ice and snow.  Gotta love Virginia weather.  I'm guessing we will be home tomorrow too since our streets are still a sheet of ice.

I recently found some new apps I have shared with my teachers, so I thought you might like them, too. 

 

#1  The first is Tellagami.  Create awesome animated videos called a "Gami"!  Students create an avatar using the simple tools in the program.  They can either choose a background in the free pack, draw their own background, or upload one from the iPad library.  Then students can type what they want the avatar to say and choose a voice or they can record their own voice.  I can see students uploading pictures of historical events or places and then talking about them!  The video can be shared via email or social network or can be downloaded to the iPad library.  I am getting ready to work with classes who are studying famous Americans and I hope to use this app with them. 

 

 

Click this link to see a Gami that I created for my teachers.

 

#2  The second is ChatterPix Kids.  ChatterPix Kids can make anything "talk".  Import a photo, drawing, or clipart, draw a line for a mouth and record your voice.  The app will create a video of your person or object talking.  So, how can you use this?  Have your students draw a character from a book, then have the character "talk" about the book.  Or use pictures of famous people recording facts about that person.  I'm sure you will come up with some great ideas for using this app! 

 

 

#3  The last app I want to tell you about today is an awesome fractions app called Fractions by Brainingcamp.  This FREE fractions app has everything you need for teaching and learning.  For each topic there is a narrated lesson, practice questions, virtual manipulatives and a challenging game.  Students can "write" on the app like a white board as well as manipulate fractions pieces.

Topics covered include:

• Fractions Intrroduction
• Equivalent Fractions
• Common Denominator
• Comparing and Ordering Fractions
• Adding and Subtracting Fractions
• Multiplying Fractions
• Dividing Fractions

 



 

I hope you get some use out of these apps.  Enjoy your snow day if you are having one after this storm.  Since I started this post, I have received "the call" that we will be home again tomorrow.  

"App"solutely Cool Tools

I've been off from school for the past 2 days enjoying the SNOW we got here in southeast VA!  It snowed about 6 inches here in Gloucester after getting about 3" last week.  This is really unusual for us.  We usually get a good snow like this once every couple of years and we've had 2 within a week!  Crazy!  But we are loving it.  And... I just got word that we are off again tomorrow.  Last week we only saw students for 1/2 a day Tuesday (Friday was a teacher work day) and this week we only saw them on Tuesday (Monday was a work day).  As much as I love the days off, I'm sure I won't be loving them when we have to make the days up.  Oh well... :)  My co-teacher and I are working on this big project... the book trailers I talked about in an earlier post.  At this rate, it'll be March before we finish them, but I promise to post about them soon.

I've been saying to myself over the last few weeks that I really need to share the resources I obtained from our annual state technology conference on this blog, so here goes...  Back in December we attended the VSTE conference.  VSTE is the Virginia Society of Technology in Education and I LOVE going to this 3-day conference.  I always learn so much and come home rejuvenated!  My colleagues and I created a document that we shared with our teachers with all the resources we learned about.  There are many great apps and websites in this document.  I hope you are able to find several that you can use.  Click on the picture below to access and download the document.

 

 

Some of my favorites are EduCreations, NearPod, Poll Everywhere and Socrative.  I also love the website Interactive Sites for Education.  This site has a great listing of K-5 online, interactive, educational games and simulations all in one place.  It's awesome!

 

Enjoy these resources!

Happy New Year!

Hi Blog Readers!

Happy New Year!!!

 

It's been a busy start to the new year so far, but I have spent some time reflecting on the past year and making some New Year's resolutions for the coming year.  Last year was a great year of new beginnings for me.  I started several new endeavors... selling on TpT and TN and last summer I started this blog.  I'm excited about sharing all of the neat technology projects and lessons I do with teachers and I had great plans to do that.  Then school started and things got crazy.  Every time I thought I might have time to write in my blog, something more pressing came up. :(  So... this year's resolution is to work harder at adding to my blog!    I've been working this week on an Animoto book trailers project.  Stand by for information about this awesome project coming soon...  :-)

TpT Cyber Monday & Tuesday

If you haven't heard, Teachers Pay Teachers is having a HUGE site-wide sale!  I am giving 20% off my entire store.  On top of that, use promo code CYBER to get an additional 28% off at checkout.  Click HERE to visit my store and save!

Teachers Notebook 3-Day Sale

Check out Teachers Notebook 3-Day Sale November 30-December 2!  You can also Build your own Bundles!

I'm having a SALE!



Teachers Pay Teachers was excited to announce yesterday on their Facebook page that they reached 100K followers!  To celebrate they are offering an extra 10% off if you use FB100K at checkout.  Their offer ends at midnight tonight.  I also decided to hold a sale.  I am giving 20% off today and tomorrow!  So... pick up some new activities and save $$ at the same time. :-)

Favorite Free Fonts & How to Install Them

Yes, I'll admit it... I am a fontaholic.  I LOVE fonts and how they can make a big difference in the way a document  or presentation looks.  So today I'm going to share with you my favorite fonts, where to get them and how to install them.  This is something I get asked quite a bit, so I hope you find this post useful.  My favorites are shown below.  These are the fonts I turn to over and over when creating activities.

 

Click on the links below to take you to the download page:

Baby Boston

KG Lego House

Smiley Monster

Archistico

Miss Smarty Pants

KB Dunk Tank

The Blue Cabin

Passing Notes

Miserably Lose

KG This is Not Goodbye

Markus the Cow

Simple Kind of Girl

Annoying Kettle

KG Behind These Hazel Eyes

 

 

Installing Fonts on a PC:

After clicking the link, save the file in a location on your computer, such as My Documents.  The font will download as a zipped file.  To unzip it, double-click the folder and click and drag the fonts out of the folder to your desktop or another location.  Next, open your Control Panel by clicking on Start and finding Control Panel on the right side of the menu.  Open the Fonts folder.  Drag and drop the fonts file into your Fonts folder.  It will copy into the folder and be available in your software programs to use.  Voila!

 

Installing Fonts on a Mac:

Right-click on the font file you want to download and choose Save Link As.  In the Save As screen, choose a location to save the file and click Save.  Open Finder and where you saved the file.  Double-click on the file name.  It will open the font and show all of the letters.  Click on the Install Font button at the bottom of the screen.  It will add the font to the fonts file and be ready to use in your software programs. 

*Note - If you don't have a right-click button, alt option and click on the file or use two fingers to click on your touchpad.

 

**Note - If you have a program, such as Word, open when you install a font you may need to close the program and reopen it in order for the fonts to show in your list.

 

Happy Creating!