Author Robert Munsch Listening Center QR Codes

Boys and girls just love Robert Munsch books they are extremely humorous.  Robert's books are excellent examples of story telling.  
I love to use his stories for a variety of reading and writing lessons.  I am not going to pretend to reinvent the wheel when it comes to these lessons.  There are some excellent lessons on Pinterest.  I put some links on my teaching website with some suggestions.  

This year I plan on printing out the book covers and QR codes and will hang them up on the back of the classroom door. That way the students can walk up to the door and scan the codes and begin the listening to the stories.  The book covers, codes and reading response sheets are free at my TPT store.   

Author of the Month Eric Carle

 Spring is the best time of the year to read Eric Carle's books.  Caterpillars, butterflies, clouds, flowers, ladybugs, fireflies and crickets are all things that make me think of Spring.    The kids love listening/watching stories on the ipad and that is why I like to have the Listening Center fresh and new each month.  I put something new in this pack.  There is a clip from youtube on how Eric Carle creates his illustrations.  I think it is important for the children to see the authors and illustrations as real people.

 What I like about this layout is that the posters make a nice display with the covers of the books that Eric Carle wrote.  I have them hanging low on the door where the students can reach and scan them in the Reading Center.  

I have some follow up sheets as well.  There are three different levels of sheets so you can pick what will work best for your students.  

You can pick this up for FREE at my TPT store. 

Happy Spring! 

Easter Listening Center

Keeping the boys and girls in kindergarten and first grade interested in reading all year long can be challenging.  That is why I have been working so hard this year to find stories the kids will be motivated to listen to.  It is more work than you think.   Creating an engaging listening center is a lot different these days, my students prefer to listen and watch stories on the ipad.  

When I first got my ipad I was able to find lots of story apps for $1 however that has not been the case lately.  In fact many of the stories can be costly or the apps are confusing for young readers to manage on their own.  So I have turned to youtube and the generosity of the wonderful people who are reading the stories and recording them.  

I find links on youtube and filter out the surrounding advertisements and create my own qr codes. My students use this center on their own as part of my weekly reading block and I want to make sure the links are safe for them.  Each week my students are required to listen to one story on the ipad and complete a listening form.  I use all sorts of different forms I have collected over the years on Pinterest and various other sources during the first two quarters. 

However, once third quarter starts I have the students start to complete the forms attached to the unit.  We start with the simple ones and work our way to writing our own letter on lined paper. 

I like to print out the listening cards on card stock and laminate them.  I punch a hole in the corner and gather them together with a ring.  I keep the cards in the ipad basket.  Another teacher at my school hangs the cards up on the students’ lockers.  Another organization idea might be to keep them in a small binder or create a bulletin board with the cards in your reading center. 

Click Here to get The Easter Listening Center for FREE! 

Author of the Month -- Jan Brett

Jan Brett is one of those author's that has so many books that you could introduce her wonderful books in December or even January.  I like to introduce Jan Brett in December with her Gingerbread Baby book.  

Jan Brett is an amazing author who continues to write and illustrate books each year.  If you want to read her basic bio Scholastic has an excellent page about her.

Otherwise Jan Brett has her own webpage with countless resources and author videos to share with your class.  

I created several FREE POSTERS for my listening center with QR codes so that the first graders can listen to several of Jan Brett's stories from youtube. If you do not have ipads in your classroom you can find the links on my Author page at CK Primary. 

Here are some cute ideas on found on Pinterest that would make great lessons:

This first one is a great idea for a follow up activity for guided reading.  You could use this idea for more than just The Mitten.  

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I love making classbook with my students.  The next three ideas would fun and exciting ways to extend the stories in your classroom.  

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PS  Don't forget to have your students find the hidden hedgehogs in the illustrations of the Jan Brett books.  

Author of the Month -- Doreen Cronin

Doreen Cronin
(Google Image)

Doreen Cronin is the Author of the Month for November in First Grade.   I thought it was the perfect choice with the elections, her book Duck for President is hilarious.   

I collected some free resources and have a link for them here.  I also have some links for the stories I found on youtube.  
 
I put together some qr cards with books jackets for the listening center.  You can pick those up free here. I mount them on colorful card stock and hang them up in the reading center.  What I like about the posters is that they serve two purposes:  1.  decoration and 2.  They have qr codes on them that the students can use with the ipads as a listening center.  

Below are some great ideas I found on Pinterest.  I really like the last activity.   

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Updating the Listening Center

My Listening Center has changed a lot over the years it all started with the cassette player....

Then I upgraded to ipads...

When I moved to first grade I had several ipads so we had a white baskets

For the most part I had my students just listening to the handful of apps that I had purchased and mainly Mercer Meyer  However last year I learned how to make QR codes and how to purify youtube videos.  This enabled me to control exactly what my student view on youtube.

Last year I had the students make their own listening center in first grade with the ipads. Although we had a lot of fun doing this with a large class it took up to a month to get through all the student reading and lot of my prep time.

So this year I am slowly creating listening center material for the authors the students are learning about each month.   This month I put together some posters for Mo Willems.

Click Here for free Posters with QR Listening Codes

I also have some links with ideas for teachers that I found on Pinterest. If you would like to see more of my author resource page go to http://ckprimary.wikispaces.com/Author+Sites.

QR Reading Center

This QR Reading Center has been a vision of mine for a long time.  I just did not know how to pull it off.  After reading the book, Reading in the Wild, I was invigorated to find a way to make this project work. With the guidance of the computer teacher at my school and some advice from the blog Reflections of Teaching, Learning and Technology I was able to make my vision work.     

I worked with one reading group at a time.  For the first time I let them pick any book they enjoyed reading, so we have a lot of Mo Willems.  They practiced reading their book for a week.  

Then I used my ipad and took their photo with the book.

Then I took a video of them reading the book on the ipad.  I had them sit down in a chair and I tried to get as much of the book as
possible.  I want the children who view the video to read along. 


Next I downloaded the youtube app on my ipad for free.

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Then I uploaded the videos to youtube.  I checked the unlisted box so that only I could view them.  This uploading process takes a long time.  Once the process is done I click on share so I could get the link code.  

Once I got the code I copied it and took it to ViewPure.com

Then I purified the video so the children will not have ads around it.  Now I have a new link code.  Again I copy the new code and take it to a qr generator.

I use QR Generator.com because it is FREE and it works great!

I created a code and printed out the code.  

Then I put the code and picture on the file cabinets.  

Now my students can go to the reading center with the ipads and scan the codes and read along.  

In my classroom we use the scanner i-gnima on the ipads. Again it is free and kid friendly.  

One theme you may notice with the sites and apps I use is that they are.....FREE.  I don't know about you but I have an extremely limited budget of $250 at the private school I teach at. So I try to stretch my money the best I can. I appreciate companies who realize there are teachers who are trying to create fun learning activities with limited funds.  

My first lesson with a QR reader

One of my "sick goals" during my time off is to create a lesson using a QR reader.  It was not easy to find directions on how to create a lesson.  Of course I want to do this for free. One of my biggest obstacles was staying focused and awake.   It took me a while however finally I found a blog with great tech ideas that pointed me in the right direction...Reflections on Teaching, Learning and Technology.

Sara had a post where she wrote about creating a lesson about QR codes for kindergarten....so I followed her suggestions and after a few misses I created a lesson of my own.  

Here is what I learned in the process of creating a lesson using QR codes!!

1.  Never Give Up.....
The first couple blogs I read were not helpful, thank goodness the sixth one was.

2.  Start with Kaywa. I had to sign up but it did let me try for free with joining.  I was able to download the codes I made without paying.  

3.  I had to click the "more" button and look for the word text.  Then I could type whatever I wanted.  Next, click Generate and download the format you want.  So simple!!!

4.  Following the suggestion from Sara at Reflections on Teaching Blog, I downloaded the app i-nigma from the app store.  Yeah, this was free and it is perfect for the kiddos.  Very easy for kindergarteners and first graders to use.   

5.  Finally I created my lesson.  I imported all my qr codes into word document and printed them.  I cut them out and put them on apple cut-outs because that is what I have at home.

6.  I created a simple recording sheet for my students. 

7.  Now Monday on my first day back at school my students will have a fun activity to do for spelling.  If you are interested in trying my lesson you can get a FREE copy HERE!  Enjoy!