What Fun It Is!

I wanted to get another post in before our break--when I'll be out of the country-- so here we go!

Work Tasks

 

Many of the students in the classroom are working on one to one correspondence so this is a task I created to help them work on that while also working on fine motor skills by clipping the clothes pin onto the circle.

 

If you'd like your own copy, you can download my file here.

 

 Another skill we're working on is sequencing color patterns. I made this task out of part of an egg carton and halves of notecards! What I like the most about this task is that it can be individualized for each student. If the student is not able to sequence yet, they can color match the chips, but putting the chips on top of the color instead of into the carton.

 

Classroom Organization

 

Something important for our students, especially those who are non-verbal are picture schedules. This helps give a clear idea of what to expect for the day and helps eliminate any distress from unexpected changes in the normal daily routine.

 

I created this daily schedule that I refer to throughout the day and move over the picture as that activity is completed.

 

Timers are also helpful in assisting in making transitions easier for students.  We have some timers that give visual cues, changing from green to yellow to red, and others that require audio cues-- usually a verbal reminder.

Winter Wonder-crafts!

 

Of course, one of my favorite things is getting to do crafts with the students. We have done more than what I have to post-- but here are some of our highlights!

 We have been doing some watercolors in class!

I found this free download from teachers pay teachers with the light bulb patterns. I printed it out on cardstock and used a white crayon to write different messages like "May your days be bright" or "Happy holidays to all" or "It's time to deck the halls." They turned out really nice and it was a very simple craft if you're looking for one!

I was very excited to try out this next craft with my brother Tommy. It was a great practice at measuring the ribbon with a ruler, cutting with scissors and then stuffing the ribbon into the clear ornament. In some of the ornaments, we put colored pom poms into them to fill extra space.

 

I think they turned out great as well and would certainly recommend trying it out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of Learning!

 Anchor Charts

I never underestimate a good anchor chart. I often see students look to it to double check themselves and

even after I've taken one down they still look in the direction of where it was hanging as if they can see the invisible words still there.

Lately, we've been working on on -ed and -ing suffixes and it gets pretty confusing because there are a lot of special cases, but I think this really helped clear some things up. 

The biggest thing I've been trying to do lately is have interactive anchor charts. I think this makes the class pay even more attention to what the message is because they are interacting with the chart and building to it as the week progresses.

For this biography chart, all the students were reading different
biographies and looking for commonalities that were in all or most of the biographies that they'd read. This was a great way to help prepare the class for our biography research project that we're working on now!

Text structure was a real struggle until I started this anchor chart. I'd gone through my classroom library, chosen books that fit into different categories, copied the cover and then had the class work in small groups to read or reread the books and categorize them. The pair or group would have to then defend their answer to the class by giving examples from the book that fit into the category. It was great practice and the class loved doing it!

I plan on having at least one interactive anchor chart going on in my room at all times! It's so great to see them enjoying building up their learning :)

Subtraction with Regrouping

This is always so tough for 2nd graders, but this anchor chart was on pinterest and it shows a neat strategy that I really used this year that helped the class a lot. We used highlighters while working on our subtraction problems and after we'd highlight the larger number in the ones, then we'd say which rule it followed "More on TOP no need to STOP," "More on the FLOOR go next DOOR and get 10 MORE" or "Numbers the SAME zero is your GAME." 

I highly recommend this strategy. I plan to use it for next year for sure!

Martin Luther King Day

I added to what I'd done in the past for MLK day (see previous post-- in tags). I still had the students watch Dr. King's speech and write a summary of his speech and create their own dreams, but this time I put them all together in a class book. The class has really enjoyed being able to read their classmates dreams of how they want to help make the world a better place.

We started by brainstorming a list of people who still need help today and then talked about how to could help those people-- what did they need help with. As always, there are some very caring and creative students in class :)

I also used symbaloo to create a bunch of video and text resources about Dr. King that I then posted on the class Edmodo so they could watch any of the videos again or look through pictures or read his biography. Here is a link to that if you're interested in checking it out: MLK Symbaloo.

Reflection

I'll try to post again soon! I'm really enjoying my new school, but I continue to come of with more and more ideas for next year and how I want to keep growing so I'm not great at keeping up with this. I know this summer though that I'll be posting a lot! I've already started planning some projects so be looking for that!

Math Strategies

Math

We've been working on lots of different strategies with the new Math Envisions program.

In topic 7, we worked on mental math strategies for addition and subtraction. I taught the class to circle the ones place (because ones starts with an O) and underline the tens place. This way, students make sure that they are adding the right numbers together when they can use mental math.

This strategy was also helpful in comparing numbers using <,>, and = symbols to help make sure that they are looking at the right number at the right time.

Another strategy that one of my co-workers showed me was using dots. For the greater than (>) symbol, you start by putting the two dots next to the bigger number and one dot by the smaller dot. Then you connect the dots.

This is a great strategy for students struggling knowing which way to point their arrows (if the alligator trick isn't working!).

Also in the Envisions program they teach how to subtract on a hundreds chart using addition. So when subtracting 74-58, you're supposed to start with 58 and then count over the ones until you're above the ones place of the first number and then count down the tens.

It was a difficult concept for students to get at first, but I think it is helpful in the long-term because it helps students see the relationship between addition and subtraction.

Too much to tell: Strictly Photo Update

Technology plus Inquiry

Wow! I've been so busy that I haven't gotten to updating this for a month! A lot of exciting things have been happening in the classroom-- we've had birthdays, the walk-a-thon, a field trip, writing projects, centers, and most importantly, FUN and LEARNING!

Sumdog

Technology

I've had the chance to use much more technology this year, including a lot of wonderful FREE sites like Edmodo which is like an educational facebook.

For math I've also started using Ten Marks and Sumdog which are great tools for challenging advanced students and giving extra practice.

For reading I'm using the Lead21 curriculum site (which has virtual books and vocabulary building Star fall (which focuses more on phonics) and Game Goo which is a bit of everything.
activities),


Game Goo

There are many more sites I'd love to have students on, but sometimes those s
ites have games that aren't really educational so I'm always looking for more!



Symbaloo

I've been really happy using Symbaloo. Instead of going to a favorites tab, it shows images and then takes you to whatever you click. I use it for my home page on my computer, but you can also use it to organize resources for units. Like this Life Cycles Symbaloo I created has resources used in class and additional ones for students to learn from more. I uploaded it to my edmodo account for them to keep on learning even after we're done. I love it!

Inquiry

I'm new to inquiry lessons, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Our first question, we all chose the same question which was "What do my different roles say about me?" Here are some examples of our finished product!

 This time our focus is science in the community so we had a brainstorming session together and had the class pair up by interests and each pair is doing their own project (probably a poster this time). We'll see how it goes since the inquiry questions range from black holes to car motors to weather! Hopefully I can keep up with it all; I know the students will keep up the good work!

First full week of school

We are wrapping up our first full week of school. We've spent a lot of time on placement tests and getting things organized and routines in place, but I'm also happy to share some of the fun things we've gotten to do!

Reading Centers

We've practiced the Daily 5 rotations which are: Silent reading, Reading to someone (partner reading), Listening to reading, Writing (which is actually done in our writer's workshop after centers) and word work.

The students have gotten very good at moving through the centers and had a lot of fun today working on the different word work stations.  The word work stations put a focus on phonics, sight words, and sentence construction AND they're always very hands-on so they are always a crowd pleaser. I'm hoping to create more this year too!

Math

We started math with a math about me project to display for meet the teacher night. This was my first time doing this project, but I was very pleased with how they turned out.

We also started the new Math Envision curriculum. I've been very pleased with it so far and the students love the workmats that come with each lesson, interactive videos, and center activities.

Science

We studied nutrition and the food pyramid as well as building well-balanced meals. We put this into our science journals-- we also saw a very good explanation of the new food pyramid, but it was through United Streaming so I can't share that link.

Very soon we will kick off our research unit on insects!

Social Studies

We just started looking at communities and will start looking at urban, suburban, and rural communities and then we will move into leaders.

Behavior

 

As shown in the previous post, I am using a clip up system for individual monitoring. I like that it's more positively focused and it gives students the chance to turn their days around (not "stuck"on red). I don't have a picture of the exact same calendar I've been using as a recording sheet, but here is an example one.

Many students got the chance to "cash in" their 5 good days today (green or better). Some of the things they can earn are: a hat day, no shoes, positive note home, prize box, bring in a stuffed animal, show and tell and if they save up for 10 days they can do lunch with me-- I usually go outside if the weather is nice :) They seemed very excited about "cashing in" today!

I hope this has been an insightful update!

Smart Board Interactive Websites!

Okay so this is going to be a really short post, but I was very excited to share some news. All of the teachers at my school are getting smart boards! I am busy looking into great resources to use in my classroom with my smart board. I just wanted to share some of what I found and if you have any suggestions for more ideas feel free to post. BTW all of the sites are FREE!

I am very excited to use this as a classroom management system. Class Dojo is this awesome site that lets you create little icons for each of your students and during class you can give points to students to reward them for being helpful, participating, doing well with partners, etc. You can also take away points for negative behaviors. I LOVE that parents can also log on at any time to see how their child is doing. I'm planning on using it to reward students once they reach a certain amount of points.

I'm also looking at working on nouns, verbs, and adjectives soon and I found this game that I thought would be great to play as a class. It's called Noun Dunk. I think they kids would be excited about getting up to play the game. It's fun to check out if you have the time!

The last one that I think I'll have to try out is mainly for science. I've used it before hooked up through my Document Camera (through the computer), but being able to create the static electricity and do the different experiments by actually touching the balloons together on the screen would be a ton of fun! The main website has tons of science interactive demonstrations where the students need to move items to create reactions. The site is called Engineering Interact and I recommend it!

One more goodie that I want to share has to do with place value. It's like Pacman, but with place value! Looks like a super fun game that we could play together and then I could have them practice on their own on laptops! It's called Place Value Eaters!

I hope you enjoyed all of the goodies! I am very excited for a smart board and excited to let the kids use their hands with this technology for learning!

Ideas, not yet creations

Since I am off to Ireland on Friday and working on packing for our move to our new house, this post is more of a list of things that I hope to make as soon as I get back from my trip or maybe just before I go (some of them will be easier to make than others).

Reading Groups

First here is a blog with some wonderful ideas for word work using a modified daily 5 (she does the daily 3 for 5th grade). I'm interested in using the daily 5 in my classroom next year. I'm not sure how to modify it for 4th grade yet, but this daily 3 blog may led to more ideas. I was particularly interested in the word work post.

I haven't heard of all of these options, but I will do more reading to find out!  That is the first project I plan to accomplish right before or right after my trip!

Grammar

Now this is something that I would think I can handle making before we go. One area that I really want to hit a lot harder next year is grammar. I plan on changing the sticks to match spelling words for students as well as high-frequency words-- as the end of the year I am hoping to even add adverbs and proper nouns! 

Math

I am planning on creating these early in the year next year because my kiddos certainly needed a refresher before they were ready to move on to the big money problems.  I think this could be great for many age groups (maybe not 5th and 6th), but a good review and practice.

I will probably need to adapt quite a bit of these activities to be school/age appropriate (some are religious). The original source is from here. 

I hope this gets some of your idea gears turning! Hopefully I will be feverishly working-- it's just hard to get going knowing that I will be leaving for Ireland in 3 days! I'll post when I get home; perhaps even with some pictures from Ireland :)

The Start of the Summer!

While I was planning on doing more things for school, Mr. Kietzman and I are buying a house this week! I still thought I should share some of the things I've been working on.

This is a game that I created a while ago to help students work on prefixes and suffixes. They toss a bead or coin into the muffin tin and whatever it lands in, the student then says a word that contains that prefix or suffix and then the meaning of the word (using the definition of that prefix/suffix). There are also 2 "free spaces"--the prefixes spot allows them to choose any prefix and suffixes spot allows them to choose any suffix.

It is very easy to make and the kids really enjoyed playing it this year-- it was also great for me to assess which ones were a real challenge for students.

Another things I've been busy focusing on is creating file folder games for students to work on skills. I found this game on the My Second Grade Journal This fraction game has cards for identifying fractions, but I am going to create my own cards for more advanced levels of fraction practice.

Click here to download Pizza, Pizza.

I'm happy to say that I am making some progress on organizing my resources (homework, units, paperwork, lessons, etc.) I've started making binders for each subject and then subdividing it within.  So far I have math and science done. I'm hoping to get to reading and social studies this week!

I recommend organizing resources because it's already made a big difference in helping me find things! With this and my filing cabinets, I feel unstoppable!

Now I just need to get to cutting out the laminated card resources for my reading groups...

Here's a bunch of links for the things I've found:

This is making inferences with comics: here

Matching character emotions with situations: here

I have who has math cards: here

I hope you enjoy checking out the resources!

And of course, just for fun, here's a picture of my helper for the day. My sleepy 2-year old Jack Russell mix Riley.

Have a wonderful day!

Math, Reading, and Science Goodies

As promised, I took some more pictures of my classroom and the things I've been working on so that parents could see what we've been working on, teachers could get some ideas for their classrooms, and my family and friends could see the work that I've been doing! So let's jump right to it-- these are mainly foldables, lapbooks, and bulletin boards.

Math

So these are lapbooks. They are all the rage now at my school. The way I've described them before it 3-D scrap books filled with information students are learning.

These are lapbooks our class made about angles.  The right side is a simple note-taking form that we filled out as a class where students filled in the blanks with the definition of the 3 types of angles as well as practiced drawing angles.

The left side was what I used as my formative assessment. Students had to come up to me putting the popsicles sticks together to form the correct angles- for blue they had to show a right angle, yellow an obtuse angle and red an acute angle. Then I hot glued them together after I checked their understanding and hot glued them to their lapbooks (where they then had to label the angles one more time).

One of the other teachers told me that she's thinking about creating a lapbook for next year that has something on the inside so that students could practice moving around the angles to make different shapes. That may even be my summer project this year so that students could practice that when they finish an activity early or something. I may even turn that into a learning center activity (since the file folders aren't the most durable!

Another lapbook that we made that does allow students to review and practice was for transformations.

We had already talked about the definitions so we filled out the left side as a class with the definitions for a translation, rotation and reflection.

Then we glued or taped graph paper to the other side of the folder.

Then the students were to cut out specific shapes out of construction paper. The pentagon was for a rotation (or turn), diamond was for reflection (or flip) and rectangle was for translation (or slide). To practice a rotation, I had the students poke a brad through the shape so they can practice turning it and seeing how the shape looks. To practice a flip, students taped one side of the diamond to the graph paper so they could flip it over and see how the shape looks. To practice a slide, the rectangle is paper clipped to the top of the folder so they can take off the rectangle and practice sliding it around the graph paper. Very easy and cool lapbook.

Reading

This was an Easter left over of a bulletin board I had in my room. For fourth grade, students have to know the prefixes: ex-, non-, anti-, dis-, and under-. They also have to know the suffixes: -less, -ness, -ment, -en, and -ful.

To help the students review the meaning of the different prefixes/suffixes, I created an interactive bulletin board and turned it into one of the the kids' learning centers.

There are notecards in the pocket below the big egg and to either side I have string set up for students to hang their "EGGxamples" (and yes, the kids do appreciate my corniness!).

So here are some samples of what the kids made. They also had to write the meaning of what their word meant (using the definition of that prefix or suffix in their definition).

This also gave me a good chance to see which prefixes/suffixes my students are comfortable with (-ful, -less, non-, anti-) and which ones they shy away from (-ment, -en, ex-, dis-).

Science

Here is an example of a foldable we just made in class. I used this same concept in 1st grade (I just had the definitions already typed up for the kids to cut out and paste) so for all you teachers out there, this can work for intermediate or primary.

The stem of the plant is a foldable about plant parts and includes a description of the job and a drawing for what that part looks like.

The top part of the plant is about plant needs. I used the acronym PLANTS. Place to grow, Light, Air, Nutrients, Temperature, and Soil.

Sorry this got to be so long! I just had so much to share! I'll be sure to add more next week :)