QR Code Museum Pieces

Turn your classroom - or school library - into a museum.

Student created art

Students create museum pieces and museum placards that indicate the information required. Perfect for history, prereading for historical novels, or post-reading for self-selected texts where each child can share an artifact from a book.


I wish I could show the kids' faces. There were smiles all around!

Students learn about lutes

Here are the directions for it as I applied it to pre-reading for Midsummer Night's Dream in which students examined the Elizabethan Era - so much better than a lecture from the teacher, right?

How I used this:

Shakespeare Centers (set up in ability groups of 3-5 with two of each type of center runnign concurrently)
Center A: Students participated in Shakespeare Museum
Center B: Students explored The Globe with the Shakespeare's Globe 360 App
Center C: Card Sort - advanced groups paired Shakespearean insults to their 21st century prose versions while struggling students worked on literary terms matched to examples from All the World's a Stage

Abydos Conference 2016: Day 2

General Session: Sharon Draper (how am I so lucky?!?)
So many awesome affirmations and motivations,

• In regards to Out of My Mind: "I was writing something from my heart."
• Stella by Starlight is a tribute to Draper's grandmother, the "first writer (who couldn't write) in the family"
• Pro tip from Draper: One page first chapters are an excellent way to get kids hooked on a book. Convince the kid to read the first chapter because it's only a page.
• Mrs. Draper travels all over the world. On a trip to Africa, an African man came up to Draper to talk about America over testing. He explained, "In my country if we wish an elephant to grow, we feed him; we don't measure him."

Session E: Isabel Corona "Organization and Progression or Is This the Best Way to Organize My Essay"

• I chart
• Using what students know - their personal experiences - as support for reasons

Session F: Michelle Johnson "Welcome to the 21st Century Classroom"

Some of the free goodies available for tech

• Symbaloo
• Story Board That
• Blendspace
• Powtoons
• Google Docs Add-on "Draft Back" - creates a video of the construction. Could watch a student typing 
• rattle- poems created inspired by current events

Session G: Valerie Maclin "Shaping the Color of Our Learning: Using Mulicultural Literature to Unlock the Stories within Us"

Great book options:

• The Other Wes Moore - nonfiction; two boys with the same name and similar childhoods grow up to be completely different men
• The Secret Olivia Told Me - picture book
• Enrique's Journey - nonfiction
• Ball Don't Lie
• Simon vs. the Homo Sapien Agenda - kid being blackmailed with the threat of outing him
• Beyond Magenta - follows 4 trans kids
• Mexican Whiteboy
• Separate is Never Equal by Mendez - picture book
• The Big Box by Toni Morrison

Session H: Michael Guevara "Writing SHort: Beyond Elements - the Atoms of Style
Love, love, love this. It reminds me of how when working on a poem every word and structural element is more closely considered and considered for a greater period of time because there are fewer words. Guevara too micro messages - Chipotle bags, the inside lid of a a yogurt cup, a fortune cookie, etc. and challenged students to create their own micro messages. The journey of writing balanced, unbalanced, and change of pace micro messages over the same subjects is a wonderful lesson in writing style and instantly make me consider syntactical decisions, focus, and thesis. Powerful stuff that can be done as mini-lessons.

I also deeply appreciate how he pointed out the long essay came from a time where a student's writing was mainly kept within the classroom and for that audience, but today, students are writing for a much broader audience using social media, but the messages are much shorter.

Session I: Emily Newton "Brene Brown, Shame, and the Writing Classroom: How Does Shame Impact Us and Our Writers?"
Emily Newton is phenomenal. I feel like I was just in therapy and made a breakthrough. Through defining and determine the difference between shame and guilt and then relating that to our lives, our students' lives, and then having us take on the voice of a child experiencing shame or guilt at a essay in which red has been bled all over it and marked with an F? Brilliance! Also, made me go out and buy the last two copies of Rising Strong by Brene Brown. One for me and one for others I love.

2016 Abydos Conference: Day 1

Opening General Session: Jeff Anderson

Anyone who has been so lucky as to sit in on a Jeff Anderson Abydos session knows he commands a room. His energy was absolutely brilliant for the large stage. Quick takeaways, connections, references:

• Jeff's entire introduction was organized in hero's journey. He examined his own tragic flaw, which I think is simply brilliant and has multiple classroom opportunities
• The Plot Whisperer - helped Jeff with his fiction writing
• "Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted" by Brene Brown - what a powerful piece. I want to suggest it be read at the beginning of next year
• Ted Talk on Power Stances - want to make me instantly feel uncomfortable? Make me stand like Super Woman and repeat something en mass
•  Jeff Anderson quote of the day: "It isn't fake it 'til you make it. It's fake it until you become it."

Session A: Shanna Peeples...yes, that Shanna Peeples

There was so so so much in this session, but one of the biggest was I feel the Progress Principle from Harvard Business Review's Teresa Amabile paired with journaling (because, as Shanna says, "Writing is what is going to save us") to chunk what is her 10 minute reflection mentioned on her site. My favorite part? "Fear is cheap and easy, but what's hard is to be a creator, to take risks." and then she has us silence our inner critic and bring out our inner coach and write for 2 minutes about what went well.

Session B: Beth Egmon's Putting the "Draw" into Writing: Using Illustration Study to Nurture Young Writers

Beth is a-maz-ing! I was about to teacher my first institute with her. Even though the session was for primary, you can easily see how drawing as prewriting and studying illustrations to add details helps students create depth in their own writing. 

Session C: Malaika Easton's From Self to Story

Even though Malaika left our campus over the summer *sob sob* I was able to see this transformation of thought and reflection unfold and come full circle from last year until now. I simply loved how she took her role as a counselor to create a lunch bunch of 5 "bad boys" and through writing, examine their own stories and how they can be the authors of their own narratives. These boys will never forget Malaika and I have no doubt she changed their lives for the better. Insert plug for the three memoirs that were part of Malaika's reflection process and which are wonderful: Brown Girl Dreaming (READ THIS BOOK), Bad Boy, and Zlata's Diary. All three of those are musts if you ever want to do a memoir lit circle. 

Using ReadWriteThink to Simplify Differentiation

Instead of lecture on Shakespeare, I devoted two days to research of choice. Students researched 15 interesting things about Shakespeare and his time and got to choose the product they made. Students could make a crossword with Crossword Creator or the Timeline. Simplify the amount of info and make a Cube.

Instant Poetry 2: Beautiful Poetry App

Instant Poetry 2 is a great app for teachers - students can make a poem quickly and it is a very non-threatening app. Teachers not used to iPads will quickly get their students making poetry in thirty minutes or less. The finished products are lovely and the free "stripped down" version does not feel stripped down at all.

Graphite Blog Post: 5 Ways to Flip Shakespeare

Please follow this link to the blog I wrote for Graphite!

Technology Integration Matrix

This is an amazing resource. Not only does it show the levels of technology integration with the characteristics of the learning environment, it does it for each subject area. You can see a video of integration with a procedures.