Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Make Your Destiny Discover Homepage The First Stop For Reading & Learning Resources...And So Much Fun!

Throughout the year, Destiny Discover is the first stop for our students, teachers and families to go for all of their reading and learning needs.  

I especially love how we can now make the Destiny Discover homepage a place to personalize this experience for our community by adding messages, news, pictures, special Collections by Destiny, highlighted events, monthly choice boards and so much more.  

Let me show you how, friends! 

When you are logged into Destiny Discover, click on the menu on the left hand side and go down to Admin. 

Click on Admin to open up the window for Featured Content where it gives you a place to change content for....

 ...Featured Content Column A and Column B. 

Within those two places, the titles and content can be added and changed by clicking on the little pencil that I have circled in the image above.

In the Your Content window, you can add text, images, videos, link and even change the format, font, color, etc...

To add an image, click on the little picture icon and select the image you want from your computer.  

An image can be added by itself or..
 ...with a little text. You can even add hyperlinks to the text or image. 
I then moved to Column B.  I use this as a place to share more places for reading and learning.  This year, I have been adding the monthly choice boards I have been creating. 
Once you click the pencil, the Your Content window pops up to add text, videos, links and images. 

I just add an image to Column B and then hyperlink to the resource like I did in Column A. 

Right now, I have the April Monthly Choice Board highlighted. 
I took a screen shot of Our April Choice Board and then linked the image to the choice board found here.

I have also done with this with...

You've Been Virtually Book'd Buncee's,

and more.

These two columns at the top, along with the Learning Links that can be....

...customized and added to...
...join ribbons of eBooks, audiobooks, Collections, new books and more, will make this the first stop for reading and learning to your students, families, teachers and community too! 

You can learn more about Destiny Discover here on the Follett website.

It's Time For Our April Choice Board, Friends!

Friends, it's April tomorrow and time for Our April Choice Board!  In April, we have so many special things to celebrate including Poetry Month, Ramadan, Passover, Easter and Earth Day.  

You will find Our April Choice Board here to share with students.  

If you would like to make changes, you can make a copy of it here. And remember, to share a copy with students, you must go to File and Publish to the Web. 

You will grab that link you create to share with students. 

Also, you will find the Poetry Month Choice Board here in this post, 
the Ramadan Choice Board can be found here to share with students and you can make a copy here and...
the Passover and Easter Choice Board can be found here to share with students and you can make a copy here
For Earth Day, I made two versions of the choice board.  One with PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next, 
and one with National Geographic Kids.  

You will find the Let's Celebrate Earth Day (with PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next) Choice Board here.  If you want to make a copy, you will find the link here

You will find the second Let's Celebrate Earth Day (with National Geographic Kids) Choice Board here. If you want to make a copy, you will find the link here

You will find the April Choice Board with PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next, linked above.  And the second version with National Geographic Kids can be found here to share with students and here is the link to make a copy and edit. 

Please let me know if you have any questions and have a wonderful time planning for April with your students, teachers and school community too. 

We Played Gimkit Live With Our Youngest Learners To Celebrate National Crayon Day!

We have been so much fun using Gimkit Live this year.  
And just as their site says, Gimkit Live...A live learning game your students will beg to play. 

This week, I am introducing Gimkit Live to our youngest learners.  Since we are also celebration National Crayon Day, I made two games focusing on colors and crayons. 
You will find the Happy Crayon Day! Gimkit Live game I created for our TK/kindergarteners here.
And one for first grade and up here.  
Within Gimkit, the questions and choices can contain images or text, so it makes it easy for any age to play with success.  
I set the time for 10 minutes, which was the perfect amount of time for them to play this fun, new game.
Within the teacher view, you can also see how they did and even track the amount of correct and incorrect answers.  Even though we used it to celebrate a special day, Gimkit can be used for so many educational topics such as math, sight words, vocabulary, social studies and science facts, and much more. 

You can sign up for Gimkit here.  5 free games are included in Gimkit basic.  

Have a fun National Crayon Day, friends. 

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Announcing The 2021 National Crayon Day Stick Together Contest Winners!

 

I have a very exciting announcement to make, friends.  

I would like to present to you the 2021 National Crayon Day Stick Together Contest Winners! 

With hundreds of entries from all around the world, we have selected 10 winners for this contest.  There is one from each grade level, kindergarten through 8th grade, and one GRAND PRIZE winner.  

All winners creations can be found in the Virtual Stick Together Gallery here. 

Here are our 2021 National Crayon Day Stick Together Contest Winners. 

Our Grand Prize Winner is Nicholas, 3rd grader from Stonybrook Elementary School in Kinnelon, New Jersey.  This was submitted by his library media specialist, Nancy Bosch.  A BIG congrats to Nicholas for his amazing coloring. 

The Grade Level Winners are...
Kindergarten winner from Sandy Searles Miller Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada. 
First grade winner from Union County Public Schools in North Carolina. 
Second grade winner from C.B. Lamb Elementary in New Jersey. 
Third grade winner from East Woods Intermediate School in Hudson, Ohio. 
Fourth grade winner from West Burlington Elementary School in Iowa. 
Fifth grade student, Ian, from Visitation BVM School in Pennsylvania. 
Sixth grade student, Maria, from Hopewell Middle School in Milton, Georgia. 
Seventh grade winner, Connor, from Hopewell Middle School in Milton, Georgia. 
And eighth grade winner from Mineral Wells Junior High in Mineral Wells, Texas. 

CONGRATULATIONS to all of the winners and a special thanks to everyone who participated in the contest.  We loved seeing all of the amazing art work.  
You will be able to find all 10 of these new student Virtual Stick Together posters in the gallery here

And just as a reminder, you can get your first one for FREE.  

Happy National Crayon Day, friends.  Have a fun day celebrating creativity, collaboration and crayons with Stick Together, coloring and more. 

Monday, March 29, 2021

Our 2020-21 You've Been Book'd Posters and Titlewave Book List!

 

We have so much fun with our You've Been Book'd program!  
It's such a special way to get books into our classrooms for teachers to read and share with their students.  It's one of the best ways to celebrate books and lift up new favorites.  You can read all about our program here

With the last few months of school, I am working on the You've Been Book'd lists for April and May. As I make these last two lists, I gathered up all of them from this year. 
A lot of you have asked me for the lists of books that we have included throughout the year.  
I created a Titlewave List of all of these books for everyone to use.  


As I get the last two You've Been Book'd lists done, I will add these books to the list too.