I am so fortunate to have such good friends! Let me kinda relate a little of the history. We have all known each other since elementary. One of my best friends lives on a beautiful ranch. (We've been friends since we were four.) It is sometimes my "get-away" spot. She and her hubby are empty-nesters, so lots of room, always a puppy to play with, and now a beautiful pool and "cantina." It was so much fun to see my friends. One came all the way from Scotsdale, AZ. Three of us are teachers! Here's my "Smilebox" I sent to them to kinda commemorate our trip.
Here's the link to my "thank you card."
Have you used Smilebox? I LOVE it for just about anything special I want to send. I did a big slideshow to bluegrass music for my dad for Father's Day. I love to send thank you's (like this one) and birthday cards (perfect for when you didn't get one in the mail on time!) I plan to send them to parents this year because they have newsletter-type, teacher-friendly templates. More on that to come!
Treasure your friends!
This year at our parent meeting, I'm using QR codes to help parents with the details of the presentation. If I were reading this post a year ago, I wouldn't have known what a QR code is. So don't feel behind, I just explored it this summer and plan to use them now for all kinds of things in the classroom! I use a Power Point at my parent meeting to hit the important topics for the year, but embedded in the Power Point are the QR codes I created so I don't have to run off tons of copies of what I'm sharing. I created QR codes for my email address, important dates this year, my phone number, testing schedule, etc... If you haven't explored how to use QR codes, let me tell you it is EASY. I'm self-taught and I had no trouble at all (which is unusual!) I recommend this user-friendly site : http://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/
All you have to do is type in your information and boom, you have a code...free. Once you've typed in your information (text, URL, or phone number, etc...) and they have created your code, you just click "save," then save it to your desktop as a png file (it should already be in that format.) I created a desktop folder and just keep them in there. If you want to put it on a form, just copy and paste, or insert it into your Power Point as a picture.
Of course for it to work, your audience has to have a code reader! At the beginning of my meeting, I'll offer time for parents to download a code reader from their app store. I'll recommend i-nigma because it works really well and it's free. Any code reader should work with your codes.
Want to try it now? Just download the i-nigma app to your phone, center the red frame over the code, and there ya go! I feel like a secret agent, very cool, right?
