Circle time. Bravo board/trophy. Number who am I. Cable tie desks together. Have you ever tried to have first graders sit in rows of 3 facing forward? I tried it *briefly* my first year teaching first grade. I found out the hard way that first graders move all day long and so did their desks. Where did my neat little rows go? With 23 students this year, desk logistics have been a source of irritation. So, I decided to wrangle these desks into submission and take charge. Say hello to my new buddy, "Cabl E. You can even put a mark on the floor so students know exactly where to realign their rows. Sound Cards Phonics Dance. Line Up Sing Alongs. Teacher tip of the week!
I am always looking for new ways to encourage great line and hallway behavior! Over the years, I have found several hallway songs that I thought were adorable, but I would always forget the songs when the time would come to line up. To keep all of my songs in one place, I made a "Line Up Sing Alongs" book! I found cute cardstock, printed my favorite line up songs on each page, then put them on a large ring that I hang on the door handle. My line leader gets to pick the line up/hallway song of the day! **Update** Here are some of my faves for those of you who wanted some of the songs!
Class coupon ideas. Whole brain teaching site. Whole brain teaching. Are you familiar with Whole Brain Teaching? I discovered it online last fall while I was exploring information on how the brain learns. This is the first video I saw on the topic: You may notice in the video that the instructor (Coach B from WBT) keeps the students totally engaged, and uses many of the important brain based learning strategies: talking, using emotions, visuals, movement, teaching chunks of information, giving immediate feedback. The above video shows students much older than the ones I work with. If you go to the Whole Brain Teaching website, or simply search "Whole Brain Teaching" on You tube, you'll find loads of videos of Whole Brain Teaching methods used with every age.
As we're finishing up the school year, I had asked the children to list their favorite memories from second grade. The ScoreboardThe Improvement WallSuper Speed MathSuper Speed 1,000 (Sight words) You guessed it, these are all straight from Whole Brain Learning! Class a vs. class b. Meacham Bee Books. True story 3 little pigs. Every year, no matter what grade I teach, I read the book, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs. I always read this story the first week of school for two reasons. First of all, it is my favorite story which I tell my class. This builds a personal connection with my students. I have found this book is a wonderful resource for conflict management. What class doesn't have a few conflicts, right? Just like my students have conflicts with their brothers and sisters, at some point this school year, they will have conflicts with a classmate or two. Learning to solve conflict is an important life skill. For other picture book ideas, visit Jeannie @ Kindergarten Lifestyle's picture book linky party.
Wake up work. Dry erase with pompom. Brain breaks. Tattle Tale Tips. Have you ever had a class where you feel like they couldn't get along with their own shadow? In reality, it's only a handful of students who want to "report" every infraction, but it's exhausting when you get this group. I've found 2 different things that help combat tattling syndrome. #1 - Warm Fuzzies This will redirect your students' focus. Suddenly, they are looking for the good their classmates are doing rather than the bad. . #2 - Kelso's Choices This is an amazing conflict resolution program that teaches children important life skills/ I set up a "Kelso's Corner".
Here's the choices that they use to solve their conflicts: Pickles and Ketchup Printable - Teach A Roo. Attention grabbers. Weekly chart for clip chart. I had read on Jodi's blog The Clutter-free Classroom that one of the best things she had ever done in her classroom was start a behavior clip chart. Well let me quote her BEST. THING. EVER. Flipping Cards-Sign the Book- Name on the board- no system at all. I have tried them all. The Clip chart is the best for the following reasons: 1. 2. 3. Click Here to download. 4. Thanks for hanging out! Back to school. Working levels. Many kindergarten teachers are afraid to attempt Cooperative Learning! It's really easy and the kids have so much fun while they are learning!
Here's a game called Quiz, Quiz Trade (Taken from my Kagan Cooperative Learning book!) This game will reinforce any skill you choose! It's great for review too! Students are each given a card. You can use flashcards or any sort: alphabet, rhyming, numbers, addition facts. Play music for about 30 seconds. When the music stops, the kids all find a partner. They show each other their cards and the other partner must read their card. Teach the kids to partner pyramid (each partner puts a hand up to form a pyramid) to signify they are done. You start the music back up, kids walk around until the music stops. You can do this with every concept and every age or grade level! Please visit my TpT Store to see all the great Cooperative Learning Games I have! Blogger is acting up... here's the direct link! Voice levels. Clip chart weekly communication. Coupons for rewards. I'm joining some of my blogging bff's over @ our collaborative blog, Freebie-licious for week #5 of our summer linky party series.
I believe it was my 3rd or even 4th year of teaching when my former principal, Mr. Ja**a** had the nerve to mark me off on an evaluation because my students were talking when they transitioned into a the line to leave. Oh, they also were too loud while adding dice...really???? Don't even get me started. Well, I don't take criticism well at all but my kids were good! In college we were taught the red, yellow, green light management by Lee Cantor. Honestly, my kids were pretty well behaved considering there was no consistency, no rewards, no positive or negative consequences for behavior...they just behaved...well I thought they did.
I'll call my first several years a hot mess. Classroom procedures need to be modeled & practiced...over & over & over & over & over & over some more. As you can see I am really into teaching. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 1. 2. Tic tac toe against teacher. Behavior note home. Journaling Tips. 1. Write in your journals EVERY DAY! We start on the very first day of school and we continue every day after. I show them how to write the short date and then I give them a sentence like this: I like to eat _____________. They copy the sentence and sound out a word to fit in the sentence. 2. 3. 4. Then, as I've been Pinteresting lately, I found {this} amazing idea to color one end of your stick red and one end green. 5. 6. 7. You can download the journal shares for free {here}. 8. I know that I used to use composition notebooks for journals when I was first teaching. That's all the tips I have for you! If you have already purchased my Journals Through the Year, go and download it again!
Facebook In Your Classroom? About a month ago I got this idea to bring Facebook into my classroom. Is that weird? Actually . . . it's just the idea of Facebook status updates that I wanted to bring in. I would have had this up sooner but the poster maker was out of paper at one point and then I got really busy with grades and all sorts of other deadlines! Anyhow, I decided to create "classbook"! I got so excited about the idea that I launched right into creating a logo for it before I realized that I wouldn't even need a logo for the format of the page I was setting out to create! I know 1st graders are pretty young, and if any of my kids were actually on Facebook I'd probably think it was a bad idea.
However, I figured most of my kids would already know what Facebook was through either their parents or older siblings. What I did was create a template that looks like a status update page so that I could make it into poster size for the hallway. One student's status declared her Kindergarten the best teacher. Behavior chart. [roll and spell] Anyone else feeling overwhelmed/swamped/behind?! We have parent conferences next week and I'm freaking out just a little. With recess duty this week, ILPs tomorrow during prep, 4 piano lessons to teach tonight, math class tomorrow night (with an assignment due that I haven't started yet), and a district PLC on Friday that I get to lead, I'm kind of in a "Piglet" state - you know, where every.little.thing makes me stutter and twitch?! Clearly I need to plan better. :) I'm also concerned with about 6 of my little monsters' spelling skills. They are not passing their weekly spelling tests. They struggle with daily writing because their spelling skills are so undeveloped.
While we work every day on phonics and spelling skills, these little monkeys need more repetition. However, this is the same group where more repetition = mass revolt. Unless. . .there is variety in the repetition. This game hits that every time! This definitely is NOT my original idea. These print 2 to a page. Work with Words Menu. Word Work Center etc. Whew! It's been a crazy-hectic day! I spent a ton of time in the classroom labeling books, laminating, setting up centers, and completing a plethora of other little odd jobs. I think I rearranged bookshelves and desks at least four times. My room is finally shaping up the way I want it to be, especially since I have two more bookshelves now! I have two days of "new" teacher orientation on Monday and Tuesday, and then my first official teacher day is the 19th.
The kiddos will be there soon after that. :) So, I'm going to try to take this weekend to email everyone back who has emailed me in the last week or so. I will be addressing several questions from my lovely followers throughout the week. I will be sharing some of my other centers for the Daily 5 throughout the week. Spelling task ideas. Meacham word work ideas. Word work for us consists of VOCABULARY, SPELLING, PHONEMIC AWARENESS, and PHONICS.
Each day I try to have three separate minilessons whole group. We also do a lot of word work during Guided Reading/Writing, Modeled Reading/Writing, Shared Reading/Writing, and Independent Reading/Writing. We use the White Board, SMART Board, and Pocket Chart. We use magnet letters and letter cards. We use books, poetry, notebooks, and charts. Word work helps us become better writers and readers. I use a combination of resources to address these four areas areas: VOCABULARY, SPELLING, PHONEMIC AWARENESS, and PHONICS. This is a great little piece on Phonics and Phonemic Awareness. What is on your walls? Color and Number Word Wall (Kindergarten, 2005-2006)- Based on T.L.C. I decided to create a dual word wall that focus on both numbers and colors, because my kinders were also working on shapes, I wanted to incorporate "TLC-style" art projects.
Alphabet Frieze & Sight Word Wall (First Grade, 2007 - 2008) Math word wall. Daily 5/centers. Literacy Centers {free printable} Last year my district started using McGraw-Hill's reading series. While the station ideas for each week's main selection are good, sometimes I find myself spending a lot of time explaining the directions. After reading The Daily 5, I decided to create some generic literacy centers that could be used with any story/selection. So, drum roll please...I present to you a set of 16 centers that can be set up in your classroom with just a few materials that you probably already have on hand. I created a few stations for Words, Reading, and Writing.
Here's what is in each category: Words: Making Words Making Words Recording Sheet (The title font is called Grilled Cheese.) Spelling Activity Spelling Activity Cards can be found {here}.Dictionary Dig Reading:Poetry (lots of resources {here}, and {here}). Partner Reading Read & Respond (lots of graphic organizers found {here}, {here}, {here}, and {here}. Comic Strip Story Listening to Reading (a couple of online story sites {here} and {here}. Writing: 5 finger phonics. Centers signs with clothespins. Poetry Task Cards. Here's a set of Free task cards for your poetry center. It includes 24 cards with various levels of tasks and a template card page so you can create your own cards.
Along with the cards, I'm starting a new series to share with you: A Poem a Week. I feature a poem a week with my students and place the poem in the poetry center for the week for students to work with. Most of the poems I use are from unknown or anonymous authors that are virally posted online. So, I'm pretty sure that they're safe to adjust for the purpose of a poetry center and share with all of you. **Please note that these cards have been changed to be priced at just $2.00. If you were directed here by Classroom Freebies, please email me: dillydabbles@gmail.com. Here's the first poem set with one to come each week for the next 35-40 weeks. By the way....they'll all be Free!