Miss Elementary: five for friday

Today, I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to bring you FIVE for Friday!!

1. I got a Whiteboard!

I finally have an interactive whiteboard in my classroom! I received it on Tuesday and it was fully plugged in and functional by Wednesday afternoon.

I was so excited I could barely teach on Wednesday, after lunch. Needless to say my kiddos only had eyes for the board. So we spent some time discovering it together. You would've thought we were discovering the world wide web for the first time.

I tell ya. Kids (and a teacher!) on Christmas morning. The same.

I let all of the students, one by one, come to the board and write. They signed their name and it was like I'd given them a million dollars.

We did some math problems (because yes I ended up being able to teach) and we had so much fun! I feel like I can do anything and they will LOVE it simply because it's on the board.

Awesomeness.

2. Go Noodle!

Since we got an interactive board, I was finally able to test out GoNoodle.com.

Oh. My. Word.

If you don't know this website, please do yourself a favor and go sign up, right this instant.

GoNoodle is a brain break website that includes a whole bunch of free video brain breaks. You choose a little mascot (we choose McPufferson ;) and the more brain breaks you do, the more levels you can unlock.

We all know brain breaks are a necessity for the kiddos. The littles need to move!

These are perfect and extremely engaging!

I look forward to using them a LOT in my classroom.

3. Pinspired trick

I found this idea on Pinterest but forgot to pin it and now I can't remember where it was from.

If anyone knows please let me know so I can give proper credit!

When my kiddos work independently, they have a lot of questions and often need to see me.

If they come to my desk, I end up with 20 students in line, waiting for their turn. During that time, they are either chatting or dancing or dropping their pencil.... basically not doing anything productive.

If I have them raise their hand, I never know who raised it first, their arm hurts and once again, they aren't being very productive.

Not anymore!

I gave each student a clothespin with their name. When they are working independently and have a question, they pin their pin on a little basket near my desk. When I'm ready for a student, I take the pin, in the correct order, call the student to my desk and help the kiddo. This way, they can keep busy while waiting, time seems to go by much faster for them and everyone is happy! The kids love having a little pin and they are always super happy to use it.