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This column provides resources that could be beneficial to use in the classroom.

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I have wanted to be a teacher since the 1st grade. Now, my dreams have come true and on the journey of becoming a teacher I have gathered many helpful resources and instruction resources. This padlet I created is to share these!

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This column is used to add anything Miscellaneous!

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I have wanted to be a teacher since the 1st grade. Now, my dreams have come true and on the journey of becoming a teacher I have gathered many helpful resources and instruction resources. This padlet I created is to share these!

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Running
Going out to eat
Listening to Music
Watching Netflix Movies
Talking on the Phone
Writing Short Stories
Go to Starbucks

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GoNoodle is a great resource to take advantage of because it is full of brain breakers! It can power up the best for EVERY kid! Students need a brain break sometimes in order to be successful.

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Puffin Browser is an app that is a wicked fast browser that reachers 100 million users worldwide, meaning it can nearly pull up anything you need! You can have is on an apple product or android.

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This app is only available on the App Store for iOS devices. Puffin Web Browser is a wicked fast mobile browser. It's equipped with the next generation rendering engine, pushing loading speeds to new highs. Once users experience the thrilling speed of Puffin, regular Mobile Internet feels like torture.

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This column provides content I have created!

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This is an example of a lesson plan that can be created involving using an Ozobot. Ozobots have infinite learning possibilities and teach coding and creativitiy!

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I brought my classroom to life using PowToon! I used it to set the class rules, it is way more entertaining than just writing it on a piece of paper.

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In our classroom we...Our ClassRooM Rules Respect Others Rule # ONERule # 2Follow Directionsit is important to follow directions because then you will not feel lost Rule #3Listen when others are talking, and raise your hand if you want to talk.

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There are SO many apps that can be used to bring in Virtual Reality into the classroom. For this particular lesson, I used Google Expeditions. The class went on a virtual reality field trip to the Lincoln Memorial!

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That's right, snap chat can be used in the classroom! In this example I used snapchat to inform my class that we will be having a guest speaker in an exciting way!

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ThingLink is a great way to take a class field trip without having to leave the classroom. The tags can include, videos, pictures, and different links to put all great resources in one place. A teacher can also utilize ThingLink by using it to introduce yourself or create a project for students that involves using the resource.
In my example, I used ThingLink to take my students on a class field trip to Fords Theater. To teach about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

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An Interactive Image by Clare Klinkhardt

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TOUCH this image to discover its story. Image tagging powered by ThingLink

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A couple ways to use Haiku Deck in the classroom is it could be used by the students to create class presentations or for the teacher to create presentations for lecture. The example I gave is creating a presentation to welcome my class on the first day of school.

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Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.

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Sometimes you can just get students excited by projecting your voice from technology. The Vocaroo is a resource that lets you record your voice! In my example I used the Vocaroo as a way to be there when there is a sub, I recoded the students assignment for morning work and had the sub play it out loud.

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Cyberbullying is something that must be talked about. I chose to share this powerpoint I made over Cyberbullying because it is a great powerpoint to share with students and your students parents/guardians.

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Class Flow can be used to create interactive activities with technology. Activities that can be created include: matching, memory game, crossword puzzle, and sequencing!

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Voki can get the students excited and engaged! You record your voice, chose an avatar, and the avatar shares your message. For my example, I had this smiley avatar introduce the student inventory sheet I wanted my students to complete!

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NearPod is an interactive classroom tool! The slides can be student paced or teacher paced. It is a great way to keep the students engaged and paying attention. The students can interact with the slides and have them right in front of them on their own device!

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This resource allows teachers to create their own personal QR code. Codes can be used for so many things and for any content area. The way it works is a person scans the code with an apple and android device and it brings you to whatever activity or assignment.

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QR Codes Creation

Choose from a variety of functions: from displaying an interactive Facebook Like button to encoding a price list in PDF format. These innovative functions will surprise users and motivate them to scan the Codes. In the next step, customize the generated QR Codes by selecting colors and shapes and inserting your company logo. Or simply by using one of our ready-made design templates.

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QR Code Generator - Create QR codes here

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Choose from a variety of functions: from displaying an interactive Facebook Like button to encoding a price list in PDF format. These innovative functions will surprise users and motivate them to scan the Codes. In the next step, customize the generated QR Codes by selecting colors and shapes and inserting your company logo.

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iMovie is a great resource to use  as an instruction of you "About Me" or your students could use it as a way to share about their lives! It seriously is SO much fun! In my example, I created a fun iMovie with classmates to show the features of iMovie, and I converted it to Youtube!

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Chatter Pix is an app that lets you chose an picture and puts a virtual mouth on top of it. Then, you can talk your own message and the picture you chose can say it for you. In my example, I used the app for a project to share why Amelia Bedilia is the best character in all children books!

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This app helps teachers with seating arrangements, tracking behavior, and logging grades! It puts it all together to make things simpler!

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‎Over a million educators worldwide trust TeacherKit with managing their time and activities. TeacherKit helps you organize classes and students easily. Create a seating chart, record attendance, log behavior, and track grades all with few taps. TeacherKit lifts the headache of routine administration...

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Class Dojo is another great resource that makes teachers lives easier. It allows teachers and parents to connect. Teachers can track students.behaviors and teachers can send reminders and messages to parents through the website!

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ClassDojo helps teachers, parents, and students build amazing classroom communities.

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Create a blog for free! Blogs are a great way to stay connected to parents and students outside of the classroom! You can put reminders of assignments or important information! Also, you can have your contact information and an introduction to yourself! Blogs can be used for anything, and they are so much fun to keep up with.

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Use bookbinder to create, share, and publish digital books... this can be used for students to create a project with or just another unique way to present information! Try using Bookbulilder on the web browser, Puffin that was mentioned earlier.

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Message to our Loyal Users of CAST UDL Book Builder, UDL Exchange, and UDL Studio

On January 15, 2024, we will retire this website, along with a few others. We know it has many devoted followers who will be sad to see it go. We're sad, too.

Making these creative tools and offering them free-of-charge to educators, parents, and learners at no charge the past decade-plus has been our joy, we also know that usage is way down, funding for the tools ran out years ago, and their underlying technologies are no longer contemporary.

To ensure a smooth transition, we're providing a three-month sunset period so you have sufficient time to download any stored materials you may have on the sites and to find alternative tools. After January 15, we will also close all user accounts.

Thank you again for your understanding and be sure to visit www.cast.org to learn more about the exciting innovations we are pursuing today and tomorrow! Questions: questions@cast.org

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Message to our Loyal Users of CAST UDL Book Builder, UDL Exchange, and UDL Studio On January 15, 2024, we will retire this website, along with a few others. We know it has many devoted followers who will be sad to see it go. We're sad, too.

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Creating your own comic can be very fun to share and post in the classroom! You can have a comic that shares a classroom rule or presents an assignment! There are so many things that can be done by using characters and text bubbles the ideas are endless!

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Pinterst is a great resource that you can nearly find anything on! You can find ways to include flexible seating in the classroom, organization skills, or even more resources to utilize!

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Discover recipes, home ideas, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

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Flexible seating for cheap DIYS!

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As soon as I heard about flexible seating I knew I wanted to give it a try! I'm thrilled that you're here and interested in improving your students' learning via flexible seating! This has been a game-changer in my classroom and I can't wait for it to transform your room too. It can be intimating and a bit overwhelming to consider, but you won't regret it!

Flexible seating is a choice provided to students that allows them to work around the room comfortably and focused. It provides students the environment they need to be their best. These seating arrangements can look wildly different from room to room, and the depth of implementation can too! Every year we have students who do their best when they can get their wiggles out, students who do their best standing, kneeling, or in a number of positions that only little bodies find comfy.
Students do their best when they are comfortable. Heck, I do my best work when I'm comfortable. A colleague of mine encouraged me to give it a try, and probably like many of you reading this I thought, "Where do I even begin?" Fears began to race through my mind. What if this doesn't work? Am I turning my room into a recess zone? How am I going to manage this?

Below, you will find an easy to navigate description of how I funded, introduced, and implemented flexible seating (and of course the results). I'm happy to say that while we had some good, bad, and ugly days in the beginning, it's now an integral part of our learning!

Educators have an incredible amount of options available to them when implementing flexible seating. Below are a range of free, moderate, and higher priced flexible seating options.

Standing, kneeling, laying, sitting around the room

Ask local carpet companies to donate old carpet squares to your classroom

Parents/community members can donate gently used children ' s seats/pillows

Yoga Mats (again, I cut these into smaller sections so more students can use them)

Pillows - they have a lot of different options from long body pillows, pillow chairs, fun shapes (my kids loved a poop emoji pillow I found here), and little squares.

Our PTA gives us an allotment of money to spend on our classrooms each year. This year I used mine towards some of our seating! What the PTA didn't cover I submitted a project on donor's choose, and asked for parent/community donations.

Here are some options for funding your flexible seating!

-Create a project to be funded via crowdsourcing. You can share these projects with family, friends, and social media networks in seconds.

-There are also online resources like where you can pick up free items others in your area no longer want. It reminds me of a virtual curb pick up. You can see what people are offering to give away for free in your neighborhood.

AT SCHOOL:
-Describe your vision to the PTA and ask if they would be able to help cover any part of the cost.
-Ask parents/families to donate any gently used children's chairs/rugs from home (we had 2 pillow chairs, a bean bag chair, mini table and a handful of rugs). You will be amazed at what furniture people are looking to give away. J

-Start a classroom fund, let parents and community members know your goal and ask them to donate towards your classroom.

COMMUNITY:
-Check out local garage or rummage sales.

-Look at donation centers such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army. -Facebook Marketplace/Craigslist

-Late spring check out college areas as many students are getting rid of furniture they no longer need.

The idea of flexible seating can be overwhelming at first, and that's OKAY. You can start small, see how it goes, and add more options as you go. That's what we're currently doing! This approach allows me to see what's working for my kids and what's not. We make changes, improve, and keep moving forward.

Initially I shared the idea to students in class, wrote a note home to parents notifying them of the exciting change happening in our room, and asked for donations.

You can grab that flexible seating parent letter for FREE near the end of this post. There is also a flexible seating contract included.

During the time of collecting donations, donors choose project funding, and my personal shopping for items I prepared the students on what to expect when we began flexible seating.

When first introducing the idea of flexible seating to my students they became extremely excited, I could tell their little eyes were filling up with all sorts of off-task ideas. To keep this train from derailing we talked about being in where they chose to work. We talked about what strategic meant and why that would be important. I listed the initial options they would be able to choose from (pillows, carpet squares, exercise balls, and standing).

We then we brainstormed ideas of when you would choose to use an exercise ball (reading, word work, small group), when you would choose to stand (partner work, using manipulatives, centers), etc. For the first 2 weeks I walked around asking students why they choose their workspace. This held them responsible for choosing an appropriate seat for their task. At times students were thoughtful and deliberate in their choices, other times they responded with, "... because I wanted to do what - so-and-so- did. " ( This is a work in PROGRESS! It will not be perfect from the start. ) Over time, we continued to discuss the expectations, the WHY behind flexible seating, and now they're independently able to make strategic choices. Remember:

After reviewing our classroom rules for flexible seating students signed a contract. You can grab that for FREE as well. This contract helped students view this opportunity seriously and show that they understood it needs to be respected as much as our other classroom materials.

-I will choose a workspace where I can do my best.

-I will be a good classmate by making sure my body movements and workspace will not disrupt others' learning.

-I will respect the classroom materials.

I had tried using a student rotation schedule in the beginning but found that it wasn't nearly as effective as students picking their seats. It took away choice and made more work for me in creating centers that matched those specific students with their specific seating options. As our options grew (as donations and funding became available) the schedule became too complicated and wasn't benefiting the students enough to continue with it.

To remedy the scheduling mess I got myself into, I now create engaging, fun, and meaningful daily 5 centers and I let the students take the responsibility for choosing the right work space. Thanks to many rounds of modeling, encouraging feedback, and student accountability they ' re choosing appropriate strategic places, staying more focused than ever, and loving the choices. It's less work for me and more choice for them. Win-Win. Sometimes I'll even hear them asking each other why they chose their workspace. #happyteacherheart

After a few days, students would want to rush to the same spot/same resource and it became a competition of who would get what type of flexible seating. In no way was this the type of environment I was trying to create.

We had a classroom discussion about why we are doing flexible seating. I reminded students that my number one goal when using flexible seating was for them to be relaxed and find the best workspace possible. What works well one day may not work best the next. Subsequently, each day forward they had to choose a spot that was NEW to THEM. Each week we started over, but this prevented the same students from always having the same resources or spots. Students fell into the routine of choosing a new spot, quickly, quietly, and no arguing. As time has gone on I've added choice charts (see below) which have been a great visual addition that's helped immensely with the management of choosing spots.

Whole Group- As we still have our classroom desks, students sit at their desks or on our front carpet for whole group instruction. I love to have students turn and talk and this keeps them close for that.

This year I also have a friend who really needs to move around, stand up, etc. He recognized through flexible seating what works best for him so we moved his desk to the back and he is allowed to stand and move as needed to pay attention during whole group instruction.

Small-Group- When I teach small groups I pull them back to work at a table with me. We have exercise balls around the table that students use. While I meet with students for strategy groups the other students are working on their weekly centers. They are allowed to pick any work space as long as it follows our classroom rules.

My classroom is not 100% flexible seating. We use our desks in combination with a fantastic amount of flexible seating options. It started off as a small endeavor to see what impact it would have on my students and has grown into a wonderful integral part of our workspace.

Someday down the road, we may move towards 100%, but for now, I love having the option of using our desks OR our flexible spaces around the room. The desks are a place to house their materials and aid their organization. State testing requires us to have students in rows of desks, another reason why we keep our desks.

There are some amazing teachers out there, like Angie from Lucky Little Learners, who did switch to 100% flexible seating. Check her post out if you're interested in that.

*Focus and productivity has skyrocketed.

*Students enjoy the extra responsibility of choosing a strategic workspace and take their learning more seriously.

*Students have a better understanding of what works best for them! I've even had parents say they've noticed their child picking new locations at home when reading or doing homework.

*Students are able to engage in tasks longer than when they were stuck sitting in their hard desk chair.

I love seeing how other teachers use flexible seating in their rooms. This is where I'll be adding pics and ideas I see from other amazing teachers!

To the right, Simply Kinder had the great idea of placing her exercise balls in crates. This helps keep them in one place, but allows students to move in their seats!
Join the Classroom Kindness Movement to cultivate a culture of kindness in your classroom. Social and emotional learning skills set your students up for success. I can help you get started today. Your totally FREE teacher guide is right here, click below.

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As soon as I heard about flexible seating I knew I wanted to give it a try! I'm thrilled that you're here and interested in improving your students' learning via flexible seating! This has been a game-changer in my classroom and I can't wait for it to transform your room too.

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Inside California Education: Service Dog in the Classroom

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The school receptionist has a hidden talent and sings a song for the last day of school!

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School Receptionist Sings At Last over PA on last Day of School Before Summer