You Can Play The 5th Graders "Holiday Trivia Fun" Jeopardy Rocks Game Too!

Tomorrow, Hagan and I celebrate the last day of school before Christmas break with a little holiday party.  We decided it would be fun to create a trivia game to play with the 5th graders....something different, fun and educational too.  

One of my favorite online jeopardy creators is Jeopardy Rocks....I wrote about it a few months ago.
You can read the post Jeopardy ROCKS! And Your Students Will Think This Online Game Does Too here and see how easy it is to create your own game too.  

As you create your jeopardy game, there can be up to 6 columns with 5 rows in each.

 Each question can include an image, video or equation.  The answers can include the same.

Here is one I set up for Holiday Movies using a YouTube clip from How The Grinch Stole Christmas. As I created the question, I copy and pasted the YouTube url into the box by the question.   

When playing Jeopardy Rocks, this question looks like this....with an awesome video box in the center.  It plays right from this website.

And the answer looks like this.  Remember...you can also add an image, video or equation to the answer box.

At the bottom of the screen, you can see the little characters which are the teams playing Jeopardy Rocks.  There can be four teams playing at one time.  And yes, they are adorable little vegetables.

One of the best things about Jeopardy Rocks is that anyone can play the game you create by sharing the url with them.

You can play our Holiday Trivia Fun game from this url www.jeopardy.rocks/wintertriviafun

Have fun playing this over holiday break...at home or at school.

Jeopardy Rocks has a free or paid version.  I bought the paid version for $5.00 this month to try out all of the upgraded features.  It is definitely one that I will purchase again because being able to upload videos, images and equations makes learning very engaging for our learners.

Have fun....and have a wonderful holiday.

Dropbox Pro Gifting Is The Perfect Storage Solution To Give Others.... and I Have 5 Dropbox Pro Accounts To Give Away For The Holidays!

We have so many things we need to keep track of in the digital world we live in.  There are documents, photographs, videos and other files that we need to store and share....and most all of, we have to remember where we put it so we can access it easily and anytime we want.  

With Dropbox Pro, you take care of your storage needs.  Dropbox Pro makes it very easy to share things with others no matter where you are, keeping your things safe along the way.  

This holiday season and for the new year, our friends at Dropbox have announced that we can give the gift of Dropbox Pro to others within the United States.

For just $99.00, you can share this gift that will continue to give and support your family and friends storage needs all year long. Just think how they will benefit from all the space, collaboration and amazing too.

And I have something to share with five lucky friends. 

Dropbox game me a year of Dropbox Pro to promote Dropbox Pro Gifting and give away five one-year Dropbox Pro licenses within the United States. 

How awesome is that?  

And just look at how awesome Dropbox Pro is too. 

 Dropbox Pro gives you 1 TB (1,000 GB) of space for your photos, videos, docs and other files.

It makes it very easy to share through a link or shared folder.  You can also control who sees what by adding passwords and expirations to the shared links and folders.

I love how you can keep your files safe even if a device is stolen or lost by being able to delete your Dropbox folder remotely, keeping everything in your Dropbox safe and secure.

And there is so much more that Dropbox gives you such as Camera Upload, Version History and Priority Support.  

You can read all about Dropbox Pro here. 

If you want in on this wonderful Dropbox Pro Contest, please tweet me at @shannonmmiller and tell us how you use Dropbox Pro as an educator.  In your tweet please include @Dropbox 

There isn't a day that goes by when I don't use Dropbox within my work.  I am very excited to use Dropbox Pro now too!  

And I know you and the special people in your life will too.  Check out the Dropbox Pro Gifting program to find out how you can share this too. 

Remind Translate Has Expanded To 90 Languages Tying Our Communities & Connections Together Even More

Remind had an awesome announcement last week.  They have expanded Remind Translate on the web and mobile app!  

You now have the option to translate messages before sending them to individuals, groups or the entire class.  Participants will receive the translated message and not the original, whether they are receiving notification by text, the app, web or email.  

You can read the article about the announcement from Remind here. 

To translate a message before sending is easy.  All you have to do it type your message in the box, click on the globe icon and Select a language.  

There are several popular ones that already pop up or you can select More to see all of the languages available in Remind Translate.

The translate message will appear and you can send it.  Or you can also schedule the message to be delivered.

This will be an awesome feature to include for sending your students, families, teachers and others messages through Remind.

Just think how this could be used in a foreign language class or when collaborating with other schools and classrooms around the world.

Thank you Remind for making communicating and connecting even easier and more powerful.  

Index for the Global "Winter Around The World" Story.....This Is Going To Very Helpful For Us To Locate Student Work!

Today we put together the Index for our Global Winter Around The World Story which is going to be very helpful for us to locate student and schools who participated in this amazing project.

You can visit the Winter Around The World Index here.

Also, within the FlipSnack we put together of all the winter projects from around the world, you will find a link to the index on page 5 of the global book, Winter Around The World. 

Please let us know if your pages have something that is not correct or if you see things that need to be changed.  You can email me at shannonmcclintockmiller@gmail.com or find me on Twitter at @shannonmmiller.

Thank you friends for reading, sharing and contributing to our global winter story.  This is just the first of many projects with our friends at Cantata Learning.

Bringing Star Wars To The Classroom, Library & Home Through Books, Crafts, Games, Websites, Apps, Cooking, Coding, Building, Playing and More In This New Padlet

Yesterday we went to the new Star Wars movie.  We loved it!  It was so much fun seeing all of the old characters and getting to know the new ones.

Seeing it in 3D added a little bit of fun afterwards too.

Speaking of fun....I am sure you have noticed all of the awesome Star Wars resources available. There are books, craft activities, 3D printing patterns, recipes, science experiments, library displays, music, PE games, websites, apps and so much more.

There is something Star Wars themed for almost anything you can think of and our learners love this theme just as much as all of us.

As I have seen special posts and displays I have been keeping note of them.

After seeing the movie yesterday I decided to bring all of these resources together on a new Padlet called Bringing Star Wars To The Classroom, Library & Home Through Books, Crafts, Games, Websites, Apps, Cooking, Coding, Building, Playing and More!  

Not only can you follow the Star Wars Padlet, you can also share things that you are finding and doing with your kids too.  

Please feel free to add to this Padlet and share it too.  With our holiday break here, this will be a fun resource to share with families and check out with your own kids too.  I know that Hagan and I will have fun doing just that over our holiday.  

2nd Grade Friends In Seattle & Iowa Share Their "Winter Around The World" In Google Hangout & Padlet

There were classrooms and libraries from all over the world who participated in our Winter Around The World project.  

In fact, over 250 schools created winter stories to share as part of our global story that we published a few days ago using FlipSnack.  

You can read Winter Around the World here. 

Two of the classroom who participated were 2nd graders from Iowa and Washington.

Tracy Ferguson and Staci Braun's in Van Meter, Iowa and....

Craig Seasholes in Seattle, Washington.  

They both created adorable winter stories that were educational, creative and fun for all of us.  

Through conversations and brainstorming, we decided to connect the two classrooms in different parts of the world to each other.  They could share the winter stories they created and tell the others about their winters.  

Craig and Tracy decided to use Google Hangout to connect.  With this, the conversation could be recorded and viewed by others too.  

On the day we connected,  I was flying back from Minnesota and got delayed due to a snow storm. But that didn't stop me!  I just jumped into the Google Hangout from the app on my phone and found a quiet spot in the airport to connect with all of the amazing 2nd graders.  

It was very special to hear all of them share their stories and to see how proud they were of the contribution they had to the global winter story.  We listened to original stories and songs, shared art work, and got to know one another over the virtual connection.  

You can watch the Winter Around the World Google Hangout here too. 

This won't be the last time these two classes connect with each other....they enjoyed it so much.  

To continue the conversation, the 2nd graders have been connecting on the Winter Around the World: Sanislo and VanMeter 2nd Graders Padlet where they are able to share links, have conversations and take pictures of themselves to post on the wall.

It has been awesome seeing what they add to their Padlet.

I cannot wait to see where this connection takes them next.  It all started with the Winter Around the World global project, which was inspired by the Cantata Learning book Winter...The Coldest Season of All.  

And this is just the first project.

Stay tuned for more coming up in 2016 including birthday celebrations, nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and school and community themes.

The GoNoodle At Home Winter Challenge Will Keep Your Family Moving Over The Holidays

I was excited to see this exciting news from our friends at GoNoodle...especially with winter break coming up for us this week.

The GoNoodle at Home Winter Challenge will keep your own family and students moving over the holidays....and promote lots of fun, togetherness and giggles too.

GoNoodle has made it very easy to share this with your students and families by sending this letter home.  You just have to click here...

log in or sign up for free if you haven't already.

This will pop up once you are logged in and it will let you download the GoNoodle at Home Winter Challenge PDF, in English or Spanish.

You will get....

 a letter...

 a puzzle to fill out as you work through each GoNoodle video in the challenge and....

another that will ask questions about specific videos from the challenge.

GoNoodle keeps our kids and schools moving throughout the year....Let's bring it to our homes over winter break and into the new year too.

How does music facilitate deeper learning? Find Out With The New "Learning With Music" Infographic From Cantata Learning.

This week Cantata Learning released this wonderful infographic, Learning With Music.  

It shows us how music facilitates deeper learning by stimulating and connecting to the different areas of the brain.  

Also, it shows the effect that music and arts training has on reading.  By using music and art with our learners, we can see a big increase in reading accuracy over the year.  

You can find out more about Cantata Learning and see all of their beautiful books and songs at cantatalearning.com or by scanning the QR code above. 

Check Out Santa Tracker from Google.....Maps, Cards, Coding, Learning, Translations, Tracking and Talking To Santa & So Much More!

One of the best resources from Google this holiday season has been Santa Tracker!  I just love all this site has to offer our children and families.  

With Santa Tracker we can explore, play and learn with Santa's Elves all December long.  It is filled with places to....

 Play and....

 Learn.

Look what they included last week during Hour of Code week.   I will show you more about this below. 

And each day they add one more fun place to go!  Today they added City Lights which let me travel around the world looking at how other places celebrated the holidays.  

 With my daughter in Brianna and her husband Jaden living in Belgium, I looked up Christmas lights close to them.

I found Brussels and WOW, they are beautiful.  You can even move yourself around in Google Maps to get an amazing view and add your own photos to these Google Maps.

It is so much fun going to Santa Tracker every day in December to see what they have included. 

There is something for everyone including....

 North Pole Airport where you can dress up elves,

 Holiday Traditions...

 where I looked for Brianna again and traditions from France,

 Code Lab and

 Code Boogie to teach and practice coding skills,

 Translations...

 where I learned a few holiday phrases in French (you can even hear them as you practice),

 Santa Cards....

where the holiday message can be shared using a link or to social media including Facebook and Twitter,

 Map Quiz to guess and play around the world,

Call from Santa.....who makes personal phone calls to North American phone numbers and sends personal messages on Google+ and email 24 hours a day...

and so much more throughout the month.  

Hagan and I are having great fun working through the month to see what pops up on the website each day.  

We can't wait to track Santa on the 24 throughout the night using Google Map.  

At the bottom of the Santa Tracker website, there is a place to help fund a special needs project on DonorsChoose.org.  This is a wonderful way to support classrooms and make a difference for so many children and teachers.