Vocabulary Review with Flashcard Factory

Instead of writing definitions or creating static sentences, engage students with Pear Deck's Flashcard Factory! Just use this deck that includes the terms and definitions and set the students to work writing original sentences and drawing illustrations for their words. Once students login with Google, Pear Deck automatically pairs students up and puts them into 2 teams. When they are finished with production, you can choose your favorite slides or have the students vote for the ones they like best. Flashcard factory keeps track of the winning team (Day Shift or Night Shift), too. Liven up your vocabulary review with a game your students will love!
https://sharepeardeck.com/x6v77b

Student work sample

Wonders Unit 1, Week 5

These slides accompany Wonders Grade 5 Vocabulary and Skills for the 2017 edition. Feel free to download, edit, and use in your classrooms. If you haven't enabled the free Pear Deck extension in Google Slides, you are missing out! This extension makes the slides interactive. Every student can answer every question, share individual or group responses, and save/review student responses later. With the premium version, Take-aways can be published and sent to every student through Google Classroom with the touch of a button. It is worth the money!

Digital Components in My 1:1 Chromebook Classroom

Here is a recap of the digital components that in my 1:1 Chromebook classroom. Click on the links to go to learn more:

• Google Apps for Education We are a Google school using Chromebooks, Classroom, Docs, Forms, Sheets, Gmail, Drawings, etc. Each student has a google login to connect to the school district wifi network. 
• Hapara  Through Hapara, teachers are able to monitor student screens, access documents, message students, and create collaborative workspaces for projects.
• Spelling City  Spelling City replaced our printed spelling workbooks several years ago. It also integrates with our newly-adopted nders Reading program and GoMath series.
• McGraw-Hill Wonders Reading  The Wonders 2017 program provides digital access to all components, tests, and student responses.
• Accelerated Reader and Accelerated Math For our 5th grade classes, the completion of 20 AR points and 20 AM objectives per quarter is required.
• GoMath  Think Central provides the digital link to our math component. Students can complete tutorials, watch video explanations, and gain immediate feedback using the Personal Math Trainer assignments. 
• XtraMath My students complete XtraMath each day as part of their morning routine. This 5 minuted fact review builds fluency and allows me to track and report progress easily.
• Read Theory After a placement test, Read Theory provides leveled reading passages and high-quality questioning for students. Not only do the topics increase background knowledge, but the reporting features clearly show student growth in reading levels and lexiles. Writing components are optional.
• EdPuzzle  Flipping the instruction and providing remediation is easy when questions can be added to instructional videos. EdPuzzle integrates seamlessly with Google Classroom, too.
• Planbook Digital lesson planning puts sub plans, yearly lesson units, and the ability to share assignments into one place. Planbook makes it easy to print, alter, and save lesson materials for easy access.
• BookWidgets This site provides tools for adding alternate digital lesson options to any lesson. Make digital breakout experiences, crosswords, word searches, drag and drop, fill-in-the-blank, timelines, and sequencing options to Google Classroom.
• Bloomz After using Class Dojo and Remind in previous years, I have settled on using the free version of Bloomz for communication. Parents do not have to respond to the sign up link to get your digital communications by email! Create a class photostream, add reference documents, make alerts, sign-up for conferences, request materials, and message privately through this one app. The read receipts are such a time-saver, too!
• Pear Deck I like this app and extension so much that I paid for the premium version to get even more features. The Pear Deck extension with Google slides turns any device into a digital responder. Collect brainstorming ideas, multiple choice responses, drawings, etc. and save them into student take-aways to review later. This one supercharged my student engagement. Don't forget to try the Pear Deck Flashcard Factory, too. Awesome!
• Quizlet All of my test review materials are housed in folders on Quizlet. No more waiting for review materials for an upcoming test. Students know they can find practice sets here and use games to make learning fun. Quizlet also exports easily to flashcards and to Gimkit.
• Gimkit If you have played online quiz games like Kahoot and Quizizz, you will love Gimkit. I finally broke down and paid a subscription fee. It is a little pricey for my taste. This quiz game beats all of the rest by adding power-ups, insurance, multipliers, themes, and gifting to the individual, homework, and team modes. After playing this one, the students didn't want to go back to the other game formats.
• Flippity This website turns a Google Spreadsheet into fun review games. Check out the options.
• Jeopardy Labs Use this site for students to create and play their own Jeopardy-style games.
• Flipgrid Post a question for your class and compile all of the responses in one place. This is a great way to facilitate classroom discussions and give every student a voice.
• Khan Academy Khan Academy allows you to set up classes and assign content to your class through Google Classroom. This is the perfect way to add remediation for any subject. I like to attach it as an assignment to a Google Forms Quiz based on the students' scores. Use some forms add ons to make this happen automatically.
• NoRedInk For most grammar units of study, students complete a pretest, remediation practice, and a growth assessment through NoRedInk. This is mastery-based program so the length of student practice is based on their success. Once they prove mastery, using sentences created based on their own interests, they are finished. 
• Brainpop After having a school account for years, I finally discovered how to create a My Brainpop account for my class this year! Now I can assign videos, games, and quizzes to students, track their completion, view digital work, and view a digital gradebook easily. Brainpop also integrates with Google Classroom so it is very user-friendly.
• Kidblog Kidblog is a secure classroom blog with options for sharing privacy that made this my classroom choice. I did opt for the paid version, since I liked the format and features.
• Epic! Find digital texts, quizzes, and reading content for your class. There are over 35,000 texts in the library that you can access and share with your class. The students love this site.
• DOGO News  Find current events, high-interest news for kids here. Most stories include video clips, vocabulary lists, and word searches, too. Teachers can create classes and assign content seamlessly. Through the DOGO News classroom or Google Classroom you can share content that is curated just for students and the content if free!
• Padlet I use Padlet for sharing introductions, posting questions and responses, and for Revolutionary War projects. Students can record audio/video, share images, add links, embed slide shows, write, and personalize their Padlet walls. I especially like the privacy features that allow me to monitor and approve posts before they are visible for my class. There are so many options here.
• EduTyping Our keyboarding class uses this and students like returning to practice touch-typing skills in their choice time.
• Mystery Science Our school will have access to Mystery Science next year for all classes! Woohoo! These open-ended science tasks require critical thinking and collaboration to complete. Check out the 

How to Use Pear Deck!

Learn how to use Pear Deck to make your slide shows interactive. This tool is free for most features and amazing!

Making the "Pear"fect Lesson with Pear Deck

I don't get paid to love Pear Deck, but it is my new favorite tool. Presenting a small group breakout at our January in-service was a no-brainer. Here is the Pear Deck I used for the interactive presentation. Hopefully, my enthusiasm will catch on...

Wonders Resources for Grade 5

As I am creating resources to accompany the Wonders Fifth Grade Reading program, I will post them here. I hope to create one or two resources per week as I use the series this year. Check back for the links to Google Slide Pear Decks for introducing skills and vocabulary and Book Widget resources review. Subscribe to my blog so that you don't miss out!