Our experience with MobyMax - plus, win a free year!

I was recently given the opportunity to try out MobyMax with my class. I have to admit that I hadn't heard of the site before, so I was anxious to see what it was all about!

They have a great introductory video on their site, but I'm going to point out some of the features I really liked. Check it out and if you like what you see, enter my drawing below for your chance to win a free year subscription for your class!

The subjects section gives you a good idea of the types of material the site covers. Each of these buttons will take the kids to a placement test, followed by practice with those skills. 

A lot of my kids felt that the placement tests were a little long, but I noticed that many of them completed the placement test and went immediately into the practice. The Fact Master activity is really informative to me as a teacher, because it is really easy to have the kids go through several facts in a short amount of time, and the site tracks it all for you. And unlike flash cards, every kid is actively engaged because no partners are needed!

My kids really like the Vocabulary section too, because they love learning new words.

 The classroom tools section has some really cool features too. The Messenger app lets kids send you messages directly from their account to you. The Wall is a place where you can post things for your kids to check out, like polls, messages, or assignments. 

 The next section is a lot of fun. "Vibes" can be assigned to kids for working hard, or even for being off task. It's a great way to give a little reminder or a little praise privately. My kids' favorite section was the Games section, of course. The Games section comes with a little feature that makes it really great, and makes the Subjects section more important to the kids. Basically, the kids add time to their game timer by completing sections in the Subjects area! So for every set number of minutes a kid is working on math facts, she is also earning herself a set number of minutes of game time. The amounts earned versus work put in or all adjustable too!

MobyMax is definitely worth checking out. In addition to the times that I have planned for my kids to do a particular activity on the site, my kids often choose to use it during recess on days when we can't go outside! Enter my raffle below for your chance to get a year's subscription free for your class!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

New Year's Resolution Progress?

This year I decided to keep it simple with my New Year's Resolutions. I wanted them to be attainable, and something I could stick to pretty easily. 

The first was to blog at least twice a month. I've found that the craziness of the school year really puts a crimp in my blogging style! Haha. I find myself wanting to blog about more things than I end up making time for. Blogging is important to me, and I want to make sure that it remains a priority. I think I can do it!

The second was more personal. I've found myself snoring a bit more, and that basically translates to me putting the pounds back on that I successfully lost over the summer! Once again, a priority has gone to the wayside to make more time for teaching. This one is a little trickier...but I decided the most realistic thing I could do right now is to walk more!

The good news? I found a way to gamify it! It's an app called "The Walk," I love stories and games, so finding this app has been a really cool way to motivate me to keep walking. Basically, the more you walk, the more of the story you unlock! I was skeptical at first as to how good the story would be, but it is actually really entertaining!

Without ruining the story, you are basically tasked with delivering a world-saving device to the other end of England. An EMP has gone off, and you are forced to walk to make the delivery. By the end of the app you will have walked the entire length of England. Every few minutes of walking, you unlock another one to two minutes of audio story. Pretty cool, huh? 

So far it has been working well for me. I look forward to getting a chance to walk so that I can find out what happens next!

Now that we are a couple weeks into the new year, how are your resolutions coming?

Back to the Archive Linky!

Aaah, summer is in full effect here in Central PA! The Netflix binging and home improvement projects have officially begun! I've also been spending some time working on wrapping up some new products, and revisiting some old ones!

In the spirit of a stress-free summer, I've decided to pull some old posts out of the closet, dust them off, and put them out there for all my new readers to see! For most of you it'll likely be the first time!

I'm calling it "Back to the Archive!" And if you have your own blog, I hope you'll link up with your own flashback! You don't even need 1.21 gigawatts of power...Just grab the image above and link up!

So, without further ado, here's a post from way back in March of 2013! It only got a measly 57 views back then! At the time those were amazing numbers for me, but hopefully more people will tune in this time around.

I've been waiting for a good time to share a few cool websites I recently stumbled across! The Techie Tuesday Link Up from Technology Tailgate is perfect for that! I'll be back tomorrow with a Workshop Wednesday Linky for literacy!

These three sites all branch off of the same main site, which belongs to the University of South Florida

http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/genres/

This is an awesome collection of public domain stories that have been converted to audio and pdf files. Includes favorites like Aesop's Fables, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes, Tom Sawyer, etc. Great way to implement a listening center into an upper grades classroom. 

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

This link leads to a great collection of black and white clipart for non-commerical use. It's kind of amazing how many images are on here. All free to use for educational purposes. 

http://etc.usf.edu/presentations/

This one is a link to a great collection of things to use for sprucing up powerpoint and keynote presentations. I imagine the frames, borders and buttons might have other uses as well. Again, all of the items are free for educational purposes. 

The last site is one that I'm super intrigued with, but haven't put to use in my classroom yet. I'd love any ideas or suggestions on how it might be used with students. It used to be called Wallwisher, but has changed its name relatively recently to Padlet.com.

Padlet allows you to have a virtual shared "wall" that people can post things on, kind of graffiti style. You can post text, images, files, etc. It's pretty cool. Check out the wall I made just for this post. It took literally 2 minutes.

Created with Padlet

Now, I hope you'll come back to link up or visit some of the links that others leave for you! The linky will be open all summer long!

An InLinkz Link-up

Techie Tuesday Link Up

I've been waiting for a good time to share a few cool websites I recently stumbled across! The Techie Tuesday Link Up from Technology Tailgate is perfect for that! I'll be back tomorrow with a Workshop Wednesday Linky for literacy!

These three sites all branch off of the same main site, which belongs to the University of South Florida

http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/genres/

This is an awesome collection of public domain stories that have been converted to audio and pdf files. Includes favorites like Aesop's Fables, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes, Tom Sawyer, etc. Great way to implement a listening center into an upper grades classroom. 

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

This link leads to a great collection of black and white clipart for non-commerical use. It's kind of amazing how many images are on here. All free to use for educational purposes. 

http://etc.usf.edu/presentations/

This one is a link to a great collection of things to use for sprucing up powerpoint and keynote presentations. I imagine the frames, borders and buttons might have other uses as well. Again, all of the items are free for educational purposes. 

The last site is one that I'm super intrigued with, but haven't put to use in my classroom yet. I'd love any ideas or suggestions on how it might be used with students. It used to be called Wallwisher, but has changed its name relatively recently to Padlet.com.

Padlet allows you to have a virtual shared "wall" that people can post things on, kind of graffiti style. You can post text, images, files, etc. It's pretty cool. Check out the wall I made just for this post. It took literally 2 minutes.

Created with Padlet