Sharing Common Core with Parents

As I was working on my classroom webpage tonight, I went on a search for some parent-friendly literature on Common Core standards.  Looking at the standards at corestandards.org can be a bit overwhelming for me, and like most of you, I have a trained eye for reading this type of document.  So imagine how it must look to parents who really just want a straight answer without having to read all the teacher jargon!  Well, I lucked up when I ran across the National PTA's website and their Parent's Guide to Student Success.   Short, sweet, and to the point it gives all the most important information (the stuff parent's care about) in parent-friendly terms and even adds some tips on how to work with the teacher to make sure your child is succeeding.  I copied and pasted most of the kindergarten guide as a link on my classroom website (I also made sure I included a direct link back to the site).  Have you found anything else that is a great reference point for parent's with questions about common core?

Symbaloo Who???

Oh do I have some awesome things for you!  I went to a SMART conference today.  The goal of the conference was to give you training and resources to use in a SMART ready classroom.  What I mean is...a room with a SMART board, SMART response, etc..  But guess what?  You don't have to have a SMART board to use all this stuff.  Anyone with a projector (for the classroom) or a computer (for at home use) can enjoy the things I want to share with you tonight!

How many of you have heard of symbaloo.com? Surely I am not the only one who heard of it today for the first time ever.  It is so AWESOME and will definitely be helpful to me this year.  It's like a pinterest board for websites, but it looks like the screen of an iphone or ipad with all the apps just ready to be tapped.

I haven't had the time to set up my own for sharing yet, but trust me, I will have my own symbaloo very soon!  This is a picture of the symbaloo created by one of my trainers today.  You can click on the image and it will link you to her symbaloo.  This particular one is set up for interactive white board activities.  But notice that the top of the page has several tabs so symbaloo can be used for any category you'd like!

I want to tell you about some other great resources but think I will have to save those for tomorrow because my eyes are getting a bit droopy.  Little man came waltzing into the my room at 6am this morning, wide awake and ready to party, 6 am was a long time ago...

I go back to the conference tomorrow and will share all the great things they share with me this weekend.  I will go ahead and point you  in the direction of another awesome resource. This is a GREAT site for interactive online actvities for k-2 and are you ready for the best news....they are all aligned to common core...WOO HOO!:)  Thank you Utah!

For those of you who aren't teachers but have young kids of your own, you'll love this one as well!  Again, just click on the image:

REMINDER:  Don't forget to spread the word about the Picture Book Giveaway...the drawing will take place as soon as I get to 25 followers, just 15 more to go!