DIY Classroom Voice Recording Box

This school year, I have been blessed to participate in an initiative in my county called #LoudounCreates. As a part of this initiative, my class was given a cart of Dell Venues (well, we have to share with another class) to use in the creation of digital content that we share with the world through our school's YouTube Channel. I absolutely love how engaged and excited my students are when it comes time to use the Venues. The students absolutely love creating videos and sharing them, especially when other people watch and comment on their work.

One of the biggest issues we experience with recording is all of the background noise. As I am sure you are aware, keeping a classroom of students quiet is nearly impossible. I've tried sending students into the hallway, but a school is a very busy, noisy place. As a result, many of the videos we record end up having a lot of other voices on the recording. It's not terrible, but I am always looking for a way to do it better.

One day on Facebook, I came across a post about the Chatterbox. The Chatterbox is a portable recording box designed specifically to help students record their voices in a classroom, while cutting down on all of the background noise.
As I looked at the Chatterbox, I realized that I could actually make these myself and save a little bit of money while doing it. I did some digging online and this is what I came up with.


You will need the following items:

• four pieces of acoustic foam (these are usually sold in sets of 12)
• four Velcro tabs for each piece of foam
• a 14x14x14 cardboard box (I found these at the local office supply store)

Step One: Assemble the cardboard box. I used clear packaging tape to hold the bottom together. I also put a piece of tape on the flaps inside the box to give it some more stability and to keep the flaps from moving. You will also want to cut the top four flaps off the box so that they are out of the way.










Step Two: Attach the Velcro tabs to the acoustic foam. I put one piece of Velcro on each corner. You will need a total of 16 tabs (four for each piece of foam).

Step Three: Attach the acoustic foam to the inside panels of the box. I placed one piece of foam on the right side, the left side, the back (the bottom of the box), and to the top. I put both pieces of Velcro on the panel and then pushed the panel into place. This made sure that the pieces will line up correctly. Because of the box size, the acoustic panels don't fit at snugly as they do in the Chatterbox, but a smaller box might have made using a tablet inside a bit difficult.




That's it! I was able to put one together in about 15 minutes. If you would like, you can paint your boxes before installing the foam or you can take the foam out and paint them after. I haven't painted mine yet, but it may become a weekend project in the near future.

When students want to record their voices, they just place their device inside the box and lean their heads over the device. The acoustic foam will block out most of the sound that would normally be picked up by the microphone. I tested one of the recording boxes at home with my son after putting it together. Our washing machine was running just a few feet from where we were recording and very little of the machine noise was picked up by the iPad's microphone. It was amazing.


The Chatterbox sells on Amazon.com for $39.95 and it looks really neat. However, a set of 12 acoustic panels sells on Amazon.com for $19.99. It takes four panels to make a box, so one set of acoustic panels will allow you to put together 3 recording boxes. My office supply store was selling the 14x14x14 boxes for about $3.79, but I was able to receive a teacher discount and that reduced the price greatly. As a result, I was able to create three boxes for a fraction of the cost. Granted, mine don't look nearly as nice as the Chatterbox, but they will serve the same purpose.

Do you do a lot of voice recording in your classroom? Can you make use of a product like this?

Pirate Math - Pirates vs. Ninjas!

One of the favorite activities in my classroom last year was a surprisingly simple game that I created to help my students practice comparing numbers. It was called "Pirates vs. Ninjas - The Epic Battle Continues!" The title is a play off of an internet activity where people argued about who would win in a battle, pirates or ninjas. I was amazed how many of my students knew about the activity and how sound their arguments were for each side. Then again, these were the kids who knew every character in Lord of the Rings and "Doctor Who."

The game came with two decks of cards, one for Pirates and one for Ninjas. Each card had either a 3-digit or 4-digit number. Two students played the game and each one had a deck. Each student would flip over a card from the deck and compare the number with that of his partner. The student with the largest number would collect both cards. After playing through the deck (about 24 cards), the student with the most cards was declared the winner.

To help promote accountability and to check for understanding of the skill, I provided the students with a recording sheet. The students were to write down their own numbers and the numbers of their partner. They would then use the inequality symbols (<, >, and =) to indicate if their own numbers were greater than, less than, or equal to the number of their partner. I would collect this sheet and look to see if the students had an understanding of the concept of comparing numbers. Obviously, every student page would be different from the next, but looking at the work turned in provided me with a glimpse of how well each of my students understood the concept.

"Pirates vs. Ninjas!" is really one of my favorite games. Even after we were finished with our place value unit, it was popular during Math Games and Math Centers. I get a lot of feedback on the game and many of the teachers tell me how excited they are to use this game with their boy students. I had girls who loved to play as well. You would do well to add this game to your math classroom.

"Pirates vs. Ninjas! - A Comparing Numbers Game is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store for $3.00.

For some other great Pirate products, please visit Teaching Momster to see what other teachers are using in their classrooms.

Student Teaching - What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Everyone has memories of their student teaching experience. Some are good, some are bad. While my student teaching semester was one marked by the worst kind of tragedy (my classroom experienced the death of a student), my "worst" experience happened on the very first day of "Full Responsibility."

For those of you not familiar with that term, "Full Responsibility" is the week where a student teacher is completely in charge of the classroom. My supervising teacher handed me the roll book and walked to the back of the room, where he picked up a novel and started to drink coffee.

When students are coming into the classroom, the best word to describe this is chaos, pure, unadulterated chaos. Even the most organized and managed classrooms experience this chaos every single morning. As I was standing there greeting the students and collecting notes, one of the girls came up to me in a bit of a panic.

"Mr. Pearson, I don't know what happened. I just looked down and noticed that my skirt was covered in blood and I don't know where it came from!"

Did I mention that I was teaching 6th grade? Yeah, that should set some context for this story.

I didn't really know what to say, so I looked back to my supervising teacher. He shrugged, took a sip of his coffee, and turned the page in his book. Great.

The poor girl looked like she was about to cry, so I did the only thing I could think to do: I sent her to the nurse. "Quick, here's a pass. Go to the nurse. She'll take care of it."

The girl left and I was able to get the day going without any further catastrophes. About an hour later, the girl returned to class wearing a new skirt. A little later in the day, I asked her if everything was okay, secretly hoping she wouldn't share too many details of what had been going on.

Oh yeah, everything's fine. There was a kid on the playground this morning who cut his leg open. I guess he brushed up against me and that is where the blood came from. I had to wait in the nurse while my mom brought me a change of clothes. No big deal."

No big deal for her. It certainly threw a wrench in my plans for the day. And, fortunately, that was the most traumatic (for me, anyway) thing I had to deal with during my student teaching. Interestingly enough, my student teaching experience is not at all what my actual teaching experience has been, but I guess that is the case with most teachers.

What memories of student teaching, good or bad, do you have?

Five For Friday - A Bunch of School Crafts, Comics, and Bow Ties

Another week has come and gone which means it is time for another Five For Friday. As always, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching. Be sure to swing by there to see what some other awesome teacher-bloggers have been up to this week.

I think the fact that school is just around the corner has caused me to get a bit "crafty." I have a confession to make, however. I hate doing crafts and making projects. I shared this information with my wife and her response was, "And why are you an elementary school teacher?" That being said, I made a few things this week to get me ready for the upcoming school year. First off, I made some pencil cans. I took some old fruit cans and wrapped them in duck tape. I think I got the idea on Pinterest or somewhere like that. Here are the originals and the final product.

The second product I made was a multiplication math fact center. Again, I think I saw this on Pinterest (I really need to write these things down), so if this was your idea, I apologize for not being able to give appropriate credit. Anyway, the activity involves using an egg carton to create math facts. Inside the egg carton, I wrote the numbers 1-12. I put some duck tape across the openings and painted the tops and bottom. The students will put two markers inside the carton and shake it. After opening the egg carton, the student will multiply the two factors together. Here are the pictures I took:

Another thing that I worked on this week was finishing up some bow ties. I wear bow ties every day to school and a few months ago, I started sewing my own. I'm still learning to make them look good and some are better than others.

I'm probably the only one who cares about this, but about a week ago, I was able to get a month's subscription to Marvel Unlimited, an online comic book collection. I've spent a bunch of time going back and reading old Marvel Comics, especially a set of stories called "Planet Hulk" and the old Frank Miller Daredevil comics. Some of you may recognize the name Frank Miller as the director of the movie Sin City. I've never seen it, but I hear it's good.

The last thing is that this is the beginning of my last week of summer vacation. It is shaping up to be a busy one, beginning with a doctor's appointment. This appointment was rescheduled from an appointment I was supposed to have in April. My wife has been bugging me to go to the doctor for a check-up, especially now that we have five kids. I am very excited about the beginning of the school year. Each new year is a new adventure and I am ready to get this one started.

Thanks for checking in from another week. I hope you all ready for the fun to start. Those kids are coming soon, if they aren't with you already.

Five For Friday - Five Things I am Thankful For

It's time once again for Five for Friday, hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching.

This week, I think I am going to write about five things I am thankful for.

My beautiful family. If you recall from last week, my wife just had a baby. She is a beautiful little girl, a true answer to prayer. In addition to my daughter, my wife and I also have four boys and they are just as amazing as you can imagine. Yes, they can be a handful at times, but they are wonderful little boys and I couldn't ask for a better family. Right now, as I type this, I am sitting in the garage, watching them ride their bikes. I am beyond blessed. And, while I don't want you to leave my blog, here is a link to my wife's blog where she wrote about our daughter in a much more beautiful way.

My health insurance. If you turn on the news, you are probably aware that healthcare and health insurance are big news lately. I have no desire to make political statements here, but I do want to say that I am thankful for the health insurance that my family has. Right now, our daughter is dealing with jaundice. I know that's not a serious thing, but her levels have been slowly increasing each day. As a result, she has had to have daily blood tests at the hospital and has been wrapped in a blue light blanket almost every hour of the day (I'm not a doctor, so I don't know the name for all of these things). Anyway, without our health insurance, I can't imagine what the costs would be.

Our trip to Disney World. This is a strange one for me to be thankful for today, but hear me out. I love Disney. I love Disney World. My wife and I took our boys to Disney World in June 2013 and we had a blast. We rented a van and drove from West Virginia to Orlando. That was an adventure in itself. Right now, we are planning another trip in June 2015. Yes, I realize that it is a little less than a year away and that I have an entire school year to get through between now and then, but it is giving me something to look forward to. Having a goal (and a pretty heft one at that. Have you seen how much it costs to go to Disney recently?) is helping to push me into working harder and to be a little more frugal with our funds. My wife and I have a goal of paying off our credit card before the trip and my desire to get to Disney is causing me to work on that even more. If you are interested, I recently wrote a post on ways that I am saving for my Disney trip. It might help you start saving for a trip of your own.

Running. I have mentioned running in each of the three Five for Fridays that I have participated in so far. Today, I am thankful for running because I am able to do it without it hurting. Earlier this year, I developed a really, really nasty case of tendinitis in my lower left leg. It hurt to walk or even stand up sometimes. Do you know how difficult it is to be a third grade teacher and not be able to walk? I kept trying to run and had to wear fancy compression sleeves on my leg in order to help alleviate some of the pain. Fortunately, most of the pain is gone. I ran almost 4 miles today and don't feel any discomfort. It's a great feeling. Now, if I could just get a little faster and go a little farther.

My Teachers Pay Teachers store. I am incredibly thankful for my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Having this store has done two things for me. First, I think it has made me a better teacher. By creating materials for the store, I have really "upped my game" because I want to make certain that the materials I am posting of top quality. Everything that I make for my store is something that I use with my own students and I want them to have the very best. Second, the money that I have made has helped as we have been paying off our credit card and saving for different things as a family. I am incredibly humbled that there are teachers who spend their hard-earned money on products that I have made and trust me to make products for them to use in their classrooms. It has been and continues to be a wonderful experience.

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So, another week is in the books. Hard to believe that a few more of these and we will be back in school. I hope you enjoyed reading about the things I am thankful for. I would love for you to share something you are thankful for as well. It reminds me of that song we used to sing in church. "Count your blessings, name them one by one..."

A Very Special Five for Friday

It's been quite a week, so here's a very special Five for Friday (hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching).

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Running: In my post last week, I mentioned that I needed to be running more than I was. Well, I guess that was a bit of a motivator because I did quite a bit of running this week. I ran Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. I was pretty proud of myself on Thursday because I was able to break the 3-mile hump and ran 3.55 miles. Granted there was some walking in there because I was doing intervals, but I was pretty happy. Now I just need to continue increasing the size of the intervals. In time, in time.

Making Bow Ties: I am a bow tie guy. I wear bow ties almost every day at school. It is part of my "look" and students actually get upset with me if I don't have one on. Last year I got tired of wearing the same bow ties all the time, but they were too expensive for me to buy news ones. As a result, I started learning to make my own. This week I started on a new batch of ties. I finished one, but as you can see from the other pictures, I still have quite a mess in my work area (read: my wife's dining room). (The internet in the hospital room where I am currently working is too slow to handle Photobucket, so there is no picture of the mess). Most of them turn out fairly good. I just wish I had confidence enough in my abilities to offer them for sale.

It is probably cheating to make numbers 3-5 our new baby girl, but this whole week has been about preparing for her arrival. Tuesday morning my wife woke up at 4 am with pretty severe contractions. They continued to be strong and regular (every 10 minutes) for next couple of hours. We got up and got dressed, called the daycare parents to let them know my wife would not be taking any kids that day, and got our boys ready to go to grandma's house. Then the contractions stopped. We went to Hobby Lobby to walk around to see if we could get things going again. Nothing. No more contractions.

My wife had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and that is when we got the news that she was going to be induced on Friday morning. So, as you are reading this and I am typing this, my wife is laying in a hospital bed receiving the necessary medicines to encourage our little girl to come out and play. It's kind of a surreal feeling. I have four boys already and I don't remember there being so much anticipation as there is with this baby. Maybe it's because it's a girl. A girl. I'm about to be the daddy to a little girl. Holy cow.

So that's my week in a nutshell. There will most likely be pictures in the near future, so please come back if you are interested. (Shameless self-promotion alert). You can follow me on Instagram at http://instagram.com/johnnyp5379 or on Facebook at http://facebook.com/mrpearsonteaches3rdgrade to see pictures there as well.

Five For Friday - My First One!

This is my first go at participating in a "Five for Friday" from Doodle Bugs Teaching. Let's Go!

#1 - The Lion King at the Kennedy Center. For my wife's birthday, I got us tickets to the Lion King at the Kennedy Center. It was pretty exciting because my parents came to stay with our boys and we were going to have a night away in a hotel. The only hiccup in the night was that my wife is 9 months pregnant and she started having contractions...every 10 minutes! I spent more time worrying about her than I did paying attention to the show. Turned out to be a false alarm, so no baby yet. My wife loved the show and I got to wear a new bow tie, so it was a good time after all.

#2 - Coffee. For Christmas, my wife got me this pretty cool contraption. It is a Cafejo My French Press. The French press comes with a K-Cup adapter, so I put my own coffee in and enjoy a delicious cup of coffee. Sometimes I use actual K-Cups (Coconut Mocha K-Cups are my favorite), but most of the time I buy bags of coffee from Target and fix my own cups. Good stuff!

#3 - Written Form Matching Cards. In preparation for the upcoming school year, I have been working on some games and activities for my class and to make available for purchase in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. This time I not only made a set of games, I created a sampler of the cards so that folks can try them out first. I also made a fancy pin to share about in on Pinterest. I would love for you to check it out and download the sampler to see if it is something you can use in your classroom. The full set is also available in my store.

#4 - Our new baby girl. As I mentioned in #1, my wife is nine months pregnant. It took forever to get to this point and now it seems like it will never end. Monday was a day of a lot of potential excitement...and a lot of disappointment. My wife had a doctor's appointment and they sent us to the hospital for a non-stress test because of her blood pressure. My wife is the only person who is more relaxed in the hospital than anywhere else. So after getting my hopes up that the baby might be coming this week, nothing happened. So no baby this week.

#5 - Running. I love to run, but I have not done any running at all since school got out. Maybe the summer is making me lazy or the heat is just too hot. Whatever my excuse is, it is a pretty bad one. Hopefully I will get my butt in gear again soon because I'm starting to look a little doughy again.

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So, there you go. That's what's up for this week. Maybe I'll do another one next week...and some big news to share about the new baby! You never know!

I would love to hear from you. Please leave comments below and, if you haven't done so already, please follow me on Pinterest and Facebook.