Epic! is a fabulous app that students can use in the classroom. It is basically a giant online library of books that students have access to across the world for free. There are fiction, non-fiction, read to's, chapters and more. Lots of range, lots of topics and even quizzes that test your students after they have read the book. 

The great thing about epic! is you can log in as an educator and see what your students have been reading. It shows you how many books your students have finished, how many hours read and videos watched. You are able to click on the book each student read and see how many pages they flipped through and how far they read! Great stats if you are wanting more information on their independent work. 

The limit is endless with the online library epic! has. So many books to choose from to link into your topic studies. Or just to choose from as free choice! Visit the website, get set up and use epic! in your classroom today!

Happy grams!!! A quick and cute note for parents on how the day has gone. With so many things that go on during the day, it can be hard to make contact with parents to let them know about the amazing things their child might have done! Could be around attitude, perseverance, assessment or just a general awesome day!

Morning check in's are a great way for teachers to check in with students, see how they are feeling, how their night was or anything to help start the day well. I create mine on Google forms, display a QR code linked to the google form and students complete it upon their arrival to class. There are different google forms I use, depending on the day of the week, what is coming up and how students are feeling. I use a daily check in on most days, with the Monday and Friday check in's being different. 

Find a copy to each of the main check in's I use that you can make copies of and use in your classroom too!
Have any questions? Send me a message!

Morning routines are a huge part of setting up my classroom and day for success. There are a few things I do to engage with students, share our daily tasks and keep everyone updated. Last year I created this easy to use Google Slides template that has some exciting aspects to it, airplayed onto my classroom TV. 

You can create your own copy of this template and use it in your classroom! So easy to use, simply duplicate it for each day, change the information and you're good to go. 

This weeks Sunday spotlight is sharing a new freebie I created for my classroom - post it note goals! Perfect for any year level with students using post it notes to document their goals. There are three boxes for goals which could be anything students are wanting to work on (curriculum level, behaviour, outside the class). Students write their goal on a post it note and stick it on their goal card. Once they have completed their goal students can take off the post it note and add a new one. Great for reusing the template also as the goal card can stay on the wall all term/year. 

This week I was lucky to attend the Ulearn19 conference at Rotorua, New Zealand. It was an action packed three days of meeting new people, learning new ideas and gather information/resources to bring back to my school and other teachers. I was also fortunate to be able to present two workshops as well which I will share the links again for today. This website post shares some of the key ideas and takeaways from the sessions I attended. 

Future of learning
This amazing infographic is a great way of showing the future of learning. This encompasses key ideas around technology 4 learning, research 4 learning, environment 4 learning and assessment 4 learning. Click on the picture for the link. 

Seesaw
I presented two presentations on Seesaw within the classroom. The first one was using seesaw portfolios for assessment with aspects like seesaw skills, activities and fluency checks. The second was using seesaw within literacy and maths - providing teachers with links, templates and ideas on how to create activities around literacy and maths. Click on the photos below for links to the presentations. 

Check out my own personal reflection on my drive home thinking about the best parts from ulearn19! Check out their website also for more information. 

Today I did a 25 minute taster presentation on using Seesaw portfolios for assessment. This was a quick introduction on using skills, activities and fluency checks alongside or integrated into your assessment. 

So as I mentioned this week, there have been changes to the New Zealand curriculum to help create students that are future focused, critical thinkers, ready for future jobs and creating/solving problems that are relevant to them. These changes are evident in the 'technology' curriculum area; but are best met when integrated into all curriculum areas. For more information check out the website post here. 

This particular long term plan has been over 20 hours of thinking, typing and planning to bring together key ideas and links that I believe make the terms of these changes (and progress outcomes) more clear and easy to implement/introduce in the classroom. A lot of these ideas have been things I have tried, seen in class or heard of and I have tried to supply links to the information the best I can. There are some links and freebie resources of my own which are linked in that I am giving away for free with the plan. 
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I most certainly am not an expert in this area; but hope that this can help unpack these changes for teachers and students. 

Last week I shared and talked about the traffic light reflection model. Check out the post here. This was a poster I used to help highlight reflection prompts and thinking structures to help my students with reflecting on their learning in class. I have used this reflection model in my classroom on and off this year, but wanted to commit myself to using it more going forward to the end of the year. 

Purchase the resources here to help support the traffic light reflection model in your classroom too. 

Self reflection is a great way for students to think about their learning, their evidence and how they feel about what they are working on. Reflection can occur at any time of the lesson and it is important that students (and teachers) are practicing it throughout the day. Using the traffic light reflection model is a great way for students to develop this type of thinking. 

This model works the same as a traffic light with 3 colours - green, orange and red. 
Green - "I get it"
Orange - "I'm getting there"
Red - "I need some help!"

I have used this traffic light model before with my students, with circle cut outs that they place in their books to reflect on how they are feeling. I also have a stamp which they can tick to show their reflection under their learning.