Saturday, December 28, 2013


I want to recommend a great video to use as a tool during a lesson on making inferences.  The video is Pigeon Impossible.  You can easily find it on YouTube (if your school allows youtube or a clean search of it).  Link to the video on YouTube here. It is a super cute video about a spy agent and the battle over his breakfast with a pigeon.




The video is right at 6 minutes long and has NO dialogue.  Students LOVE this video, it is so well made, and they must make good inferences to fully understand the video.  Hope you enjoy!




Friday, December 27, 2013


I love Atticus Finch.  

I think he is one of the greatest fathers of all time, apart from mine, naturally.   My students are starting To Kill A Mockingbird, and I hope they adore the novel as I do.  I've been brainstorming what the students will do as a project to finish off the unit.  Actually, I had a plan. Possibly, a boring plan (read definitely).

A student in my 3rd Block has created her own Wix (wix=free, customizable websites).  My precious student has created her own website (with Wix) to sell pecans from her tree (maybe a modern day Scout or Dill?) She is selling them by the dozen to her classmates.  She's inspired others.  Someone at the next table over is selling her own duct tape creations: hair bows, pencil cases, etc., and another is advertising babysitting services.  Little entrepreneurs aren't they???  

I got to thinking about it, and realized they are on to something.  The site is easy to use, and comes with creative, adaptable templates.  The picture below is a screen shot of the Wix I have been working on.  Our Wix creation will satisfy the informational writing requirement, too.  I can't wait to see what the kids come up with!!  


How could you use Wix in your classroom? 

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Class DoJo


I love technology.  Well, I love the idea of technology. I think using it should make my life easier, and I'm sure if I really understood how to use most of it, it would.  Since it seems I am often in the category of user-error sometimes it ends up being more of a headache than a help.  It can be especially frustrating in the classroom. What do you do when your great tech idea fails and you have 30 quiet faces staring up at you waiting patiently (or possibly a few daydreamers). When that happens to me, I frequently have a 12 year old that points out it was user-error and "here's how you do it, Mrs. Wall." Great, thanks (for making me look like a fool), now go back to your seat.   Seriously though, my students are great, and they do help me.... a lot.  They have had 6 years of experience with excellent techno-literate teachers, so why not learn from them? Besides, I can tell how much they love it when they can teach me new tricks.  I learned about Class DoJo from a fellow teacher in my county, and would you believe, I haven't messed it up yet?


This site is an extremely user-friendly tool for classroom management.  Each child gets an avatar, and you keep track of the student's behavior.  The teacher gets to choose the criteria, but they do have a few built in common ideas.  You can also give the students login information (if you want to), and their parents can track their behavior too.   I am using this to determine my report card conduct grade, and for classroom data.  The site also lets you generate a report, so you can save their past conduct.  Oh, and the best part, it's FREE!!


If your school allows Smartphones or Ipads in the classroom, then you can download the classdojo app, and easily keep track of behavior as you are monitoring the students.