I can't believe it is already May, and we are down to only about twenty days of school left! It didn't really feel like May a couple days ago when it was snowing, but we are going to try and pretend that didn't happen. Let's make corsages for Mother's Day! For Mother's Day this year, I wanted to have my kids make something to go along with the little Mother's Day Booklet that we do. So, I came up with the idea to make corsages after seeing really cute tissue paper flowers on Pinterest. I got all of my materials at Walmart and Michael's. With my 50% coupons at Michael's, it only cost about $30. Rather than try to include step by step photos, I made a video of how to make it. These are some of my kids corsages... I thought they turned out great! I guess a couple moms even wore them to the Mommy Son dance last weekend! At one of our professional development days this year, a fellow teacher talked about all different kinds of technology to use in the classroom. One of my summer goals is to experiment with some of the things she talked about like Plickers, remind.com, Edmodo, and Prezi, to name a few. I thought I would share a couple of ways I have used technology in my classroom, and then I even have a giveaway to share with you! I have used Class Dojo for a few years now, and I know most of you probably already know about it. This year, I began using it a little differently. In the past, I would give prizes at the end of the week to the kids who had earned the most points. It wasn't long before certain kids gave up, knowing they just couldn't compete with those students who are always doing what they are supposed to be doing. No matter how hard I tried to catch them being good, they just weren't in it to win it, if you know what I mean. This year I created a reward chart and just allowed the points to accumulate. When a student reached a certain point level, he/she would earn that reward. This way the students weren't competing with each other. They were just trying to earn as many points as they could to reach the next reward. I made a chart with each student's name on it and colored in the space when a reward was earned and used. If you would like to try this out with your class, you can get my Class Dojo Behavior Management Set in my TPT Store for free! Something I tried out for the first time this year was RAZ Kids. This is a program affiliated with Reading A to Z. I have used the Reading A to Z books many times, but I had never heard of RAZ Kids. Well, apparently special education teachers in our building have been using it for several years. It is an online program where students can read the leveled books and then take quizzes on them. My school bought a couple additional subscriptions to the program and each teacher was able to sign up a few of their lower readers to participate. If you are an upper grade elementary teacher, then you know how challenging it can be to get some of your readers to read books at their level. The students can also listen to the books being read to them and then read them on their own. It is definitely something that I will want to continue to use. I'm so thrilled about my 4th Show & Tell! I am guest posting on Minds in Bloom with Rachel Lynette! It just so happens that my post about how to put an end to endless book browsing during reading workshop time is going live today. Please check it out by clicking on the button below!