Time-Saving Tools for the Classroom

Flippity

If you haven't heard of Flippity, you are missing out on a fantastic, digital resource for the classroom.  Flippity is a Google Drive add-on that allows teachers to turn Google Sheets into interactive activities and tools for the classroom.  You can create interactive quiz shows and flashcards to help your students study for a test.  Teachers can use word scrambles and hangman as a fun, engaging activity during literacy centers.  The random name picker can be used as a quick and easy way to create groups for learning activities.  This is a link to a quiz show I created for my class.  It only took 10 minutes to create the entire quiz show!  Flippity is a wonderful resource that allows teachers to make learning and studying fun for their students.  Here is a video that takes a quick look at Flippity:

ReadWriteThink 

ReadWriteThink is a website that is partnered with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTM) and the International Literacy Association (ILA).  This site has a wide variety of resources including lesson plans, units, and mini-lessons.  Teachers can search for resources by grade-level, lesson-plan type, learning objective, and theme.  The lesson plans include links to other websites that relate to the lesson.  For example, I found a lesson about acrostic poems and there was a link to an alphabet organizer and a list of thematically related texts.  You can find a multitude of ideas for any lesson or topic.  I also found a lesson where students view historical photos related to the Civil Rights Movement and create captions to summarize the main idea of the image.  This lesson had a link to a graphic organizer and a PowerPoint with historical images.  I suggest browsing this website for some great ideas and resources!

Here is a list of a few other amazing lesson plan websites:

• TeachersPayTeachers 
• SMART Exchange 
• LearnZillion  

Remind for Teachers

Remind is a time-saving website that allows teachers to communicate with students and parents digitally.   Teachers add parent's email addresses and phone numbers to the site. Once a teacher has created a class and added the parent information, they can text reminders and share links and files with parents. For example, you can send parents an announcement about an upcoming field trip or pajama day.  Teachers can remind parents to send in more snacks for snack time.  Teachers can also send important files to parents such as a copy of the Halloween party sign-up sheet.   If you are a secondary teacher, you can add student's phone numbers too so you can answer any homework questions. With Remind, teachers are able to view which parents have read the messages. Teachers are also notified of any error messages. This website allows teachers to stay in close contact with parents without having to share their personal phone numbers. Also, there will be no need to print out a ton of reminder notes or worry about notes getting lost anymore!