“Does Everyone Know What Time It Is? …. Tool Time!”

Anyone else remember the early 90’s sitcom, Home Improvement?  That was a weekly family event in our house, watching the new episode that came out.  And then after it stopped airing, every rerun that was shown.  I am pretty sure I could at least remember a snippet from every episode of that show.  But the one line that you heard on every episode, without fail… “Does everyone know what time it is?  Tool Time!”  

Anyway … when thinking about what we wanted to share this week, we wanted to give you some concrete takeaways that you could implement tomorrow if you’d like.  So we decided that we would share our top ten tools.  Now, we aren’t going to share about tools that can fix your leaky faucet or wiggly table, but some tools that we find we use on a consistent basis in our classrooms, tools (both hands on and tech related) that we couldn’t teach without!  

Now you know why that classic Home Improvement line kept popping up into my head! 😉 
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Top Ten Tools: 

1. Music/Bluetooth Speaker: We use music all throughout our day! For moving our bodies, transitions, work time… you will hear music! The bluetooth speaker is a great way to enhance the music without having to go through the room’s sound system.  You can find cheap ones that will do the trick at almost anywhere.  
2. Sharpie Chart Paper Markers: I know, I know….you’re thinking, “Markers...really?”  But hear us out! These markers are the BEST when creating anchor charts and visuals for your students.  We LOVE them!  We go through at least two packs of these markers every school year.  We promise… once you use them, you’ll understand why we put them on our top 10 list! 
3. Google Suite: Our team lives in and loves the Google Suite!  We put our daily lessons plans and events on Google Calendar, share and organize resources through Google Drive, and create resources on Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Drawings. 
4. The Ramped Up Read Aloud by Maria Walther: This book is GOLD!  There are such great lesson ideas that range in age and skill level.  And the best part, it is all based upon a read aloud book! We use this book for inspiration in our unit planning and has definitely been a useful tool for us! 
5. The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo: This book gives some amazing ideas on different ways to teach the skills and strategies specific to reading.  It ranges in grade and skill level.  We use this to help us plan whole group, small group, and individual instruction. 

    6. The Writing Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo:  Jen for the win again!  Similar to the Reading Strategies book, this book gives some great ideas on ways to deliver writing instruction.  It ranges in grade and skill level.  We use this to help us plan whole group, small group, and individual instruction. ​

     7. Symbaloo: This is a website that allows you to create a grid of all the websites  that you use frequently.  We set this as our home page on our preferred internet browser.  Then when we open our internet browser when we start our day all of the daily websites we need are right there! When using Google Chrome, you can also “Pin” this site to stay up.  
     8. Apps: Book Creator, Epic, Flipgrid, Prodigy (There are more but we tried to limit ourselves! 🙂)
     9. Daily Drawers: We have purchased two sets of 3 drawer containers that we use to organize our daily supplies. Whether it is paper copies, read alouds, games, etc. we fill those daily drawers with whatever we may need. This also makes things easy for a sub if they have to come in unexpectedly.  
     10. IntegratED Unit Planner: We have developed a unit planner that helps us create engaging, effective, creative units throughout our year.  We love this planner to help keep us on track and organized for our long term planning and goals. (Coming soon for purchase!)

*** None of this is for an ad! These are just some of the things we love that we wanted to share with you!