Pinterest Tutorial Part 1

Pinterest is becoming a very popular website.  It serves as a virtual bulletin board for all the cool stuff you see on the internet.  It's kind of like a Facebook for stuff you and your friends like!

Why is it vital for all teachers?  Because so many teachers across the country have joined and are pinning all of the cool things they do in their classrooms, links to great teaching blogs they have found, and everyone is sharing ideas.  There is even an Education category just for teaching stuff.

Pinterest is used for EVERYTHING.  Recipes, clothes, books, places you want to travel to, crafting, home improvement, quotes, and on and on and on.  I've blurred out my name and the names of people I know.  I didn't blur out strangers' names since Pinterest is public.

Confused?  Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start!  When you read you begin with A-B-C.  When you sing you begin with...

I'll stop.

Step 1:

Go to www.pinterest.com and you will see this: 

Go ahead!  Request an invite!  Unfortunately, you won't be invited immediately  UNLESS you know someone already on Pinterest.  Have them invite you and you'll automatically be allowed to sign up!  Pinterest is no longer in its first stages, but they're still continuing to expand and work out the kinks.  They're also trying to keep it classy, thus the "invitation only" rule.  The site might also be slow or down every once in a while, but it has been working really well for the past few months.

You'll receive an email that looks like this once you've gotten an invitation:

Click on the link in the yellow box at the bottom and it will prompt you to do a zillion things like follow your Facebook friends that are already on Pinterest, install a "Pin It" button, and create your boards.  In case it does not prompt you or this is confusing, be sure to read steps 3-5.

Step 2:

Once you've signed up with an email and username, go to www.pinterest.com and log in!  You might see that same screen as the first time you visited the website, or you'll see this:

Log in, and you're ready to go!

Step 3:

If you have not already been prompted, it's time to follow some people!  You can follow anyone that is on Pinterest, but you should start off with people you actually know.  Once you follow someone on Pinterest, everything they pin will show up on your page when you log in.  If you follow 3 people, all of their stuff will appear in the order they pinned it.  If you follow 50 people, it works exactly the same. You'll just have a LOT more pins to look through!  

Here's how you follow someone:

Find the button with your name at the top right of your home page.  Click "Find Friends".

My name is blurred out and for some reason replaced with another question mark...  Anywho, it will take you to this:

Isn't that so handy?  It just uses your Facebook friends list!  The left side is to invite friends who aren't on Pinterest, and the right side is friends that are already on Pinterest.  Click "Follow" next to the people you want to follow.  They will be notified and will probably follow you back.  

Once you have a bunch of people that you follow, your home page will look something like this each time you log in with different pins displayed each time:

You can now see everything your Pinterest friends are pinning on their boards in the form of a live feed.  The left bar has a little history: who has "liked" one of your pins, who started following you, and who has repinned something you pinned!  I follow around 100 people, and about that many follow me.  You can follow just one kind of board someone has or you can follow all of their boards.

Step 4:

At some point in the registration process,  you will be asked to install a "Pin it" button on your bookmark bar.  Do it.  You'll be able to pin things left and right anytime you're surfing the web.  Do people say, "surfing the web" anymore?

If you weren't already prompted to do so, install it from the website.  Go to the "About" drop-down menu on the top right side of the screen:

Click on "Pin It Button" and it will take you to this screen:

Follow the directions...

Name it, and click "OK".  They suggest "Pin It".  I think that's fitting.

And then it will be on your bookmarks toolbar!

Hooray!

Step 5:

Create your boards.  Pinterest allows you to add as many boards as you'd like and you can name them anything you want.  To get to your boards, go back to the top right corner and go to the drop-down menu that appears when you click on your name and select "Boards".

It will take you to a page that probably looks like this:

It might have some blank boards, too.  You can easily edit those boards by clicking on the large edit button at the bottom of the boards so you can change the title, add a description, or anything else you want.

Once you start getting more into Pinterest, you'll realize you want to have a lot of boards in a lot of categories.  I try to give my boards fun titles like, "I Want To Go To There" instead of "Travel" as a shout-out to 30 Rock :)  Here is a picture of all of my boards:

Most importantly, I have "For my classroom".  103 people follow my board and I have pinned 174 things.  Here's a screenshot of some of the things I've pinned:

Cool, huh?

Here's how to add and name boards:

Click the "Add" button at the top right of the page.

You will see a screen pop up:

Click on "Create a Board" and this window will pop up:

Name it and pick a category.  Where it says "Who can pin?" you'll probably want to keep it as "Just Me".  Then click "Create Board"!

Part 2 will show you how to pin, re-pin, and how to find awesome stuff on the Education category on Pinterest.

See you soon!

Ode to Scholastic Book Clubs

These opinions are 100% mine.  As much as doing Scholastic Book Clubs benefits the company, it REALLY benefits teachers and is a cheaper way to buy brand new books easily.  It's kind of a long post so you probably won't be interested unless you're considering doing the Scholastic Book Club thing.  


I have to say, my kiddoes L-O-V-E LOVE book orders.  They have physical giddy reactions and immediately start picking what they want.  Not all of them get to order stuff, but some clearly get to buy whatever they want.  It all depends on the parents.  It doesn't seem to bother anyone who can't order, and I always remind them that since I get free books, really, we all get new books whether we order or not.  The following is a little summary of the ordering process.


First of all, we probably all remember getting the catalogs in elementary school:

Yep.  They look exactly the same.

Same colorful options showcasing beautiful book covers with tiny summaries, crowded onto thin, translucent paper mysteriously bound together.  I used to just pick the pretty books and I was lucky enough to have parents that would pretty much buy whatever I wanted in the Scholastic Book Orders.

I was more than happy to do this for my students since I loved it so much as a kid, so I glanced through the ginormous catalog I received in my mailbox last year.  As a first year teacher, I could barely handle the minimum requirements of my job description.  Overwhelmed at the mere sight of the ordering form, I gave up and didn't try it.  My chickadees last year whined about not being able to do the book orders, but they survived.  I tell my kids "I'm sure you'll survive" a LOT.  

One of my fellow 4th grade teachers spoke about all the "points" she got for each kid's order.  She bought books for her classroom with her points at no cost to her.  She also got book bins and all sorts of classroom supplies.  That was the first time I realized I could benefit from doing this.  I decided to try it this year.  A daunting task at first, it was all worth it when I got the points.  After two months AND ordering over 10 books using my points, I have this balance:

Whaaaaaaat?

Some books are only 75 points.  You can get a huge set of Magic Tree House books or Geronimo Stilton books for 500 points.  When I started last year, I inherited a huge library- I can't even fit all of the books in my shelves.  But many of the books are pretty outdated, some are totally falling apart, and probably only 5% of them were published in the past 2 years.  I am now able to slowly add to my library completely for free.  I also get crazy coupons with each order.  When a parent orders online, I get $3 per order (not per each book ordered, but the total).  Each order generally comes with 3 free books, and they sent me coupons for $10 of free books for each month.  

The more books they buy, the more stuff I get, so I always give them 2-3 different catalogs.  There's usually a promotional catalog, plus the monthly catalogs organized by grades 4-6 and grades 2-3.  They also have Pre-K through 1, ELL, and a zillion other varieties.

I started ordering using the paper order with checks.  Imagine getting a ton of these all filled out with checks stapled to them:

You can either fill out one giant master paper form with all of the orders, or GO ONLINE!  Online wins.  It tracks the numbers and money for you, and automatically converts things into points.  I also started letting the kids order online at home.  I thought it would be too confusing or wouldn't give me points, but it does!  If they enter the activation code, I get all the points that come from their order, and as I said earlier, $3 per online order.    The only way for them to order books is to enter the activation code anyway!  I was worried about the kids that don't have internet access, but they can still do checks/paper and it all combines flawlessly.  The online orders are shipped with the check/paper orders, and parents can view the paper catalogs I give out in class online, as well as ordering any other books on the site at any time.  Did I mention that basically every book ever is on their site and it's really nicely discounted?  As in $1 books.  $3 books.  They have all of the Harry Potters, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Captain Underpants, and plenty of silly toys and diaries and "spy kits".

You choose which catalogs to be displayed online.

You can pick books by Guided Reading Level, DRA, and a few other reading level measures.

To input your paper/check order, just press the plus sign and it calculates it all for you.

You decide which catalogs parents see and when, create a wish list, and it tells you how many parent orders there are, what they ordered, and who ordered them.  They pay online as well.  

It totals it all up, you submit the order or save it if you're going to add more.  You submit checks via an envelope given in the catalog.  Parent online orders are already on there, and you can add stuff with your points and coupons here as well.

Organization:

I keep all my Scholastic information in a handy folder in the file holder on my desk.  There is still a lot of paper and random fliers even though I'm mainly online.  I suggest keeping a Scholastic folder.  This was a tip from my mentor.  The most important thing to hang on to is the check envelope.  Since I still have a lot of parents who don't order online, I'm submitting quite a few checks.  There's specific information to fill out on each envelope, so don't forget it!  

Keep your login username, password, and class activation code in that file.  Also, be sure to set a clear due date each month so you have time to use your monthly coupon!  There's a place on each order form for the darling cherubs to copy the activation code and due date, so I always make sure they have a pen and the information is on the board when I pass out the newest catalogs.

Information overload?  I promise I'm not getting paid for this!