Feeling Inspired

Tomorrow is teacher work day! It's one of my favorite days of the year because it gives me time to reflect on this year and get ready for my new incoming fifth graders! Since, my room is packed up and nearly spotless... I decided I would seek out some Pinterest budget-friendly-projects to help me pass the time tomorrow.

The first on my agenda tomorrow is to finish scanning in my library books. I found a great app that is FREE! Yes, completely free! Which allows you to store a database of your library books. Students then log on (you do need to upload a roster) and can digitally check-out your books from the class library. It will also level books based on AR & DRA. It will also let you manually put in information for books that aren't leveled or don't have an image. I've never fully used this app but my teaching partner and I are very excited! The app is called Classroom Organizer but there is also a free website as well. The website is where students would log in to check-out, rate, and check-in books.

The app is pretty good. We've actually found it to be easier to use and better than the app, Book Retriever which is $1.99. This app seems to contain more books and it allows you to import your library as an excel file for reference or for kids to look through.

Fun Features:
- Kids can search for key words or genres
- You can track check-outs and set limits
- Students can rate books after they read them!

The next item on my To-Do List is to complete a context clue "jot lot." I'm not sure how I'm going to use it in my classroom quite yet, but since my students did such a great job using the jot lot to post their thoughts, I thought a context clue lot would help reinforce this key vocabulary skill. Here is my inspiration...

.... We'll have to see how mine goes tomorrow. I already have the poster board and colored paper so this project is also virtually free! Hopefully their won't be a line at the laminator!

Hope all my teaching friends & followers had a great school year!

What's on your summer bucket list?