Time Saver Tip for Teachers: Amazon Share A Cart

If you have ever wanted to send your Amazon cart to someone, boy do I have a tip for you!
No more having to give someone your Amazon Login or making a special wish list.

With the Amazon Share A Cart Chrome Extension you can easily send a shopping cart to someone else.  I use it all the time to send a list to my secretary, so she can create a purchase order and order my items. The great thing about Amazon's Share A Cart is that it includes amounts of each item. When I have shared a school 'wish list' before, it never allowed me to indicate if I wanted more than one of any item. I would have to include that in an email. Making the process more complicated and inefficient.

Here is a 2 minute tutorial on how I use this extension. I hope you find it useful!

Paper Circuit Teacher Name Tags for the First Day of School

Paper circuits are an excellent way to bring technology and science into any lesson or activity. At the beginning of each school year, I focus staff PD on learning new ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. This year we tried paper circuits and even made light up LED name tags to wear on the first day of school to welcome students.

A paper circuit is a low-voltage electronic circuit that is created on paper or cardboard using conductive copper tape, LEDs and a power source such as a coin-cell battery.  Creating paper circuits is a good way to teach the basics of electricity and how circuits function. In addition to being educational, they can also be a fun makerspace project that helps to bring artwork and paper craft to life.  By adding sensors, buzzers, and motors to your circuit, you can also add another dimension of interactivity.

For a recent staff development, my teachers used the Simple Circuit Template and to create their own paper circuit.

Then they used their knowledge of how to make a paper circuit to create a fun name tag to wear on the first day of school.

Here are some of our creations:

     

        

Here are the paper circuit materials we used. We added craft supplies to make the name tags.

Then we explored ways to use paper circuits in a lesson or activity about ELA, Maths, Social Studies, or Science.

Here are some examples:

Doing math with paper circuitry.	Paper Circuits - a 4th grade lesson	1st Grade Mapping Skills
6th Grade Students Illuminate Poetry	Exponents with Paper Circuits	The Great Big Guide to Paper Circuits

Teachers selected an idea to try with students during the first trimester.

Activity/Grade Level(s)	Supporting which standard?
First Grade mapping skills.	Social studies standard H/S 1.2
Where are we? 3rd - 5th Local map making with circuits	History-Social Science Standards: 3.1.1. and 3.1.2.
We are doing the Design and Modeling Unit (PLTW) for science. (grades 6-8)	SCI PS 1.8 & PS 3.A (transfer of energy) Math 8G.1-3 (geometry)

We had a lot of fun doing this activity together and learned how to troubleshot and deal with issues that might come up with students trying this activity. I can't wait to see the paper circuits our students create!