One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. – Carl Jung
Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the end of the school year is approaching. These are all occasions where students can express their appreciation for others. When students make others feel good they also are uplifted. We want our students leaving our classrooms knowing the power of technology to uplift others. Many free web tools and apps make it easy to be able to show appreciation. See my slideshow and infographic below with ideas, mobile apps, and resources. Find additional resources and ideas in my article, Children Celebrating Their Parents: Activities & Tons of Resources. If you like these ideas then be sure to check out my new book published this summer with more ideas, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom.
Get your copy of my books, The 30 Goals for Teachers or Learning to Go. Ask me about training your teachers, [email protected]!
Slides
Clickable Infographic
Ideas and Resources
Get your students to express their appreciation with the following ideas and resources:
- Students can create adult coloring books with their images. Check out these web tools and apps, Really Color, Crayola Lights, Camera, Color! iOS App, Color My World Lite iOS App, and Colorscape iOS App.
- Students can create word clouds and print these on posters, cups, t-shirts, or ties. Discover web tools for creating word clouds here, Shellyterrell.com/wordclouds.
- Students can make digital slideshows with Photopeach.
- Students can produce videos of memories with Kizoa, Biteable, Powtoons, Magisto, and iMovie. Find video creation web tools here, Shellyterrell.com/video.
- Students can make a digital book with web tools, like Storybird, Little Bird Tales, and ToonDoo. Find storybook creation web tools here, Shellyterrell.com/ebooks.
- Students can create coupon books with chores, hugs, etc. Find a Google Draw template to edit here and a coupon generator here.
- Students can send digital greetings with these web tools and apps- Yakit for Kids, EduBuncee, Animoto, Fotobabble, Red Stamp, and Sincerely Ink.
- Students can create games. Try Hopscotch, TinyTap (iOS/Android), Scratch MIT, Zondle, GetKahoot, Stencyl, SketchNation, GameSalad, Purpose Games, ClassTools, Game Maker Studio, Sploder, Gamestar Mechanic, X-Note, What2Learn, Kodu, GamePress, Adventure Games Studio, and Quest Text-based Adventures. For more resources and ideas check out ShellyTerrell.com/games.
Challenge: Get students to create one of these digital gifts.
If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers or my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics.
