Technology Tuesday

Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope that you are enjoying yours as much as I plan to enjoy mine. I have a few things to get done around the house today and then a craft or two to make. But before I did all of that, I wanted to take the time to sit down and tell you about one of my favorite resources for teaching with informational texts. (Click the picture below to go read all of the Kindergarten Common Core State Standards for Informational texts.)

Last year my librarian introduced us to a great resources called PebbleGo!

PebbleGo is strictly informational and is divided into 3 different sections. "PebbleGo Animals," "PebbleGo Earth and Space" and "Biographies." From the screen above you would select your category. More often than not, in kindergarten, we have clicked into the animal database.

 In the animal database you will find 12 categories. You can either click on one of those categories or you can type into the search button what you are looking for. Now, I will be honest with you and tell you that there have been times when I have been disappointed and haven't been able to find what I am looking for... but when I do find what I am looking for I am in Teacher Heaven.

For example, this next week we will be reading "Armadillo Orange." On Monday, before we have even read the story, we are going to be building some background on armadillos. So I searched into the search bar "armadillos" and found that they had it in their data base.

So on the Monday that we return we will be learning about the body, habitat, food (that they eat), life cycle, and some fun facts about armadillos! It is engaging, fun, and best of all they are learning!

If you are like me, however, you feel the need to take things just one step further. So if you are an older grade you can click the button that says "Share What You Know" or if you are PK, K, or maybe even 1st you can get creative and create a worksheet for your class to do like I have done for this one.

For this lesson I plan to do a tree map as a whole class and then each student will get their own writing sheet for them to use to "show what they know" about armadillos. If you would like to get the sheets I plan on using, click on the picture below.

The next wonderful resource is Bookflix. But to read all about that one you'll have to make a pit stop to my friend Greg's blog. He asked me to guest blog since he is honeymooning in Key West right now! Woohoo! So make sure you head on over there to get the scope about Bookflix and how it can engage your students too!