Techie and Tried it Tuesday!!

It's Tuesday and it was a cold morning here in south Texas...so weird! Today I am linking up with Technology Tailgate for Techie Tuesday and Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday!

My Techie Tuesday is this great site called GeoGuessr. This is a fantastic site for my GT kids!! Geoguessr is powered by Google and is ultimately a game played with Google Maps. When you go to the site it will drop you in a different location. The purpose is to use the surroundings visible in the picture to determine where you are. You then click on the map to pinpoint your location. You get points depending on how close you were to the correct destination, then you move to the next location. Here is a screenshot of one location...Can you guess where it is??? I will post the answer tomorrow!!!!

I love this "game" so much and the kids do too! I think it is a fantastic way to supplement any geography lesson! 

As an added bonus to Geoguessr, kids can also create their own Geoguessr challenge by using Geosettr!!! They can choose locations in the world and have their friends guess where they are. The kids really love this because they get to try and trick their friends!!!

Now for my Tried it Tuesday...yesterday I finally got the nerve to start centers in the library it was a super duper success!!! My only regret is that I didn't start them sooner. The kids were so well behaved and engaged, I could hardly believe my eyes!! Thank you to Elementary Librarian for the guidance and great ideas throughout this process. 

As most of you know this is my first year as a librarian, and while it is the GREATEST job in the world, it has been a somewhat difficult transition for me leaving the classroom and moving to the library. I have never really liked centers because no matter how much or how long I trained my students, the moment I started a small group all you know what would break lose. I spent most of my time getting the others to quiet down so I could concentrate on my reading group. In theory, centers are great, but for me they never really worked. All that to say I was a little reluctant to start centers in my library. But, then it hit me that I wasn't going to be pulling a small group, which meant I could devote my time to making sure they were doing the centers correctly and help other patrons locate and check out books. 

the next problem was finding centers for each grade level, K-5...this is what I came up with:

Kinder- letter matching (a little too easy, I think I will change it to site word match or rhyming match. See picture below).

K-2: Theme reading (depending on the theme for the week. See picture below). This was going to be just a Kinder center, but I decided to use it for K-2, because I figured they would like the books.

K-2: puzzles (realized I needed 2 of these and now I think I need to make one harder than the other...on the hunt for fun/cheap puzzles now. See picture below)

K-5: Independent Reading center with stuffed animals (they love this! See picture below)

2 and up: Library Assistant (students had to shelve books on a cart in alphabetical order, see picture below). I think this may be a little hard for 2nd grade, so next time I will have them match call numbers with author names. 

1-2: Book Recommendation Center (for this week I put the cute heart recommendation form out from this great resource that I found from the elementary librarian's blog and it's FREE...check it out here)

and here

Here are the ones I used...

for 1st grade:

for 2nd grade and up:

aren't they great!!! 

Here are the pics from my centers...

Matching Center:

Theme Reading Center:

Independent Reading Center:

Library Assistant Center:

Book Recommendation Center:

I am starting to plan my centers for 3-5 for next week...

I would love recommendations!!! Thanks!

I think that is all for today! I hope all of you have a Lovely Tuesday and stay warm, wherever you may be:)