There are a variety of great organizational and time saving tools on the Internet for teachers.  I know that I obtain most of my resources from the Internet anymore.  Gone are the days of using resources from a book.  I know that I have searched online for classroom decorating ideas to go with our building theme, craft ideas, and lesson plans.  Not only can I collect resources or ideas, but I can easily share them with other teachers throughout the world.  Things sure are different than when my mother-in-law taught school.  She is always amazed!

This week we were able to explore some amazing sites.  Here is a run down of some of my favorites and ones I want to explore some more.

Share My Lesson: 
This site is a collection of lesson plans shared by other teachers.  Best of all it is a free resource!  It provides lessons for all grades levels K-12 and special needs populations.  They also cover all subject areas including Common Core lessons.  This site also includes a blog that is great for professional development purposes.

Read Works: 
This is another free site that offers great resources to reading teachers.  The lessons found on this site strive to develop better reading skills in students.  These lesson plans include novel studies on down to improving skills and comprehension.  The novel studies include lesson that help students work on vital skills such as main idea and detail, and making generalizations.  Common Core standards are also met through students interacting with text while reading the novels.  Not all of the lessons are part of novel studies.

Teachers Pay Teachers:  
I have used this site for many years and it is one of my favorites.  It is not totally free, but there are some resources that are free.  Many of the resources cost anywhere from a dollar to much more.  Overall the cost is not overly expensive.  Price is usually according to the size of the file or how many documents are involved.  These valuable tools are teacher created by teachers who are familiar with the standards.  Many are common core related.  Sign up is free so it is well worth taking a look.

We also explored many useful organizational and time saving tools.  Here are links and descriptions to some of the ones that I thought would be useful in my classroom.

Remind:  Remind used to be known as Remind 101.  It is a communication tool for teachers.  It allows them to communicate with parents through a secure means.  This means a teacher does not have to give out their personal phone numbers in order to be available to parents and students.  I have used Remind in my classroom for the past two years.  I explain what it is and send directions for how to sign up at Open House each year.  However, not all of my parents attend Open House.  I have only been able to get about three parents to sign up each year.  I have also sent home the flyer with directions for parents.  This did not help.  This year Remind has added some new features such as "Chat" and the ability to attach files or documents to messages.  Chat will give me the ability to message back and forth with parents or students to answer questions.  I can now submit numbers that parents give at enrollment or email addresses and have a link sent to parents with directions on signing up for Remind.  This will alleviate the parents never seeing the note about Remind!  Apps are available for Android and IOS users.  Here is a screenshot of a message that I sent out last year.

I also discovered some great classroom management tools.

Stopwatches are great visual tools for helping students know how much time they have left on an activity.  They also help students that do not transition easily.  Here are a few that are free!

Time Me:  I liked the music when time was up!

Online Stopwatch:  This timer gives many different options.  My students like the bomb!

My students usually have a difficult time monitoring the noise level during group work.  Two great sites that provide visual displays are Bouncy Balls and Traffic Light.

Traffic Light:  This is exactly what it says.  The traffic light has three colors and the teacher can click on the green, yellow, or red as needed.  Green means that talking is okay, yellow means that quiet talking or whispering is necessary, and red means that everyone needs to be quiet.

Bouncy Balls:  Is a site that is a fun visual for kids to learn to self-monitor their noise levels.  Sound is monitored through your computer microphone.  The noise level makes the plastic balls bounce with the noise.  The media can be changed for example instead of plastic balls you might choose bubbles, emoji, or eyeballs (great for October).  My only worry is that this may be distracting for certain students.  I found myself trying hard to make the balls bounce.  I could see my students trying the same thing!

Have you ever felt that you call on the same students all of the time or the same students always have their hands up?  Sites like Class Dojo and Random Name/Word selector can help.

Class Dojo:  Is a tool that has multiple functions.  This  tool can randomly select student names, and also keep track of points and behavior.  Class Dojo works well with IOS devices (sorry not sure about Android).  Parents can even see reports on their students behavior.  Students like the little monster characters.

Random Name/Word Picker:  I loved this tool!  I can enter in a list of my students names or copy and paste them into the data entry box and then using either the typewriter or fruit machine mode randomly select students.  This helps keep all students engaged in the lesson and on their toes.  

Finally, we needed to create a flyer using Google Drawing to show other educators some useful tips.  Google Drawing is a truly versatile tool.  I will forever use this tool when creating flyers to send home.  Here is a link to the flyer that I created and will share with my coworkers soon.  Please take a look!  I had used Google Drawing before, but did not realize everything that could be done with it.  It is very easy to use and share with others.  Here are two tutorial videos from YouTube.

and

This was a busy week of exploring.  I hope I have given you some great useful resources, and tools for your classroom!