Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits
BANG! ( A fun flashcard game )
As your children go off to school, you'll often find that there are certain skills that they'll need to master with accuracy and speed. Whether it's letter sounds, sight words or math facts, if they are able to recognize the correct answer quickly, it's much easier to move on to the next challenge. For some children, they seem to pick up the skills almost intuitively on their own. When I was a teacher, I often played this game "BANG!" Here's what you'll need ~ an empty container, some blank index cards, and some markers. If you'd like, you can decorate your can with scrapbook paper, stickers, etc. Next, make up your flashcards. I wanted to practice sight words with my daughter, so I just cut my index cards in half and wrote words from the Dolch Word list. ( If you're not familiar with the Dolch List, it's a list of 220 of the most commonly used words. You'll also want to make up a few cards with the word "BANG!" Next, just put your cards in your container and you're ready to play. 1. 2.
The Picture Book Bonanza Continues!
It's part two of. . . Picture Book Bonanza! More picture books as recommended by you.(No giant asparagus included.) Becca of Whole Words uses Children Make Terrible Pets to teach plot diagram. I love that title! Fiona uses Diary of a Worm to teach point of view and voice. "Dan" uses Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street to introduce narratives. Jennifer likes My Great Aunt Arizona to help her students write about what inspires them. Nari uses Charlie Anderson to teach questioning. Tracy at Grade 3 Top Dogs uses Big Chickens to discuss story elements. Allie-Gator of And so it begins. . . likes to use Peanut Butter and Jelly to teach sequencing. Prudence likes to introduce writing workshop with Born Yesterday, The Diary of a Young Journalist. Stjstinn uses a Patricia Polacco classic, Thank You Mr. Michelle likes to use The Important Book at the beginning of the year to help the students share things about themselves. This is a list that could go on forever!
String Letters
Hi guys! Dina here from Honey & Fitz back with another tutorial. This time I’m showing you how to make some string art for your little one’s room! Rather than deal with hammers and cutting wood, I decided to do this project using cork tiles. Here are the supplies you’ll need: Cork tiles // Linoleum Nails // 3M Hanging Strips // Contact Cement Stack the cork tiles on top of each other and use your contact cement to glue them together. I really wanted the look of a white background for my string art so I decided to paint the cork. Once the paint has dried, flip your cork tile over and apply your hanging strips. Create your template using whatever font you like. When you’ve traced the entire template, carefully remove the paper. Tie your string in a double knot onto your first nail now, and start weaving in a back and forth fashion. When you reach the end of your letter, tie another double knot onto your last nail. What do you think?
Using Google in the Classroom-A Series
Today I am going to be starting a week-long series on how to use Google in the classroom. We were very fortunate this year and transitioned over to Google for our e-mail system. We got all of the perks that came along with Google, including Google Docs, Calendar, etc. I am my school's technology coordinator and I am a huge advocate for using technology in the classroom. Please understand that my district does not have a lot of money. The first post in my series is creating a library book checkout system using Google Forms. Once you are logged into your Google account, you will want to go to documents. On this page, you will create your form. In the first box "Question Title," I have Name and "Question Type" is Choose from List. On all Google Forms, you are only given sample question 1. Next, click "Add Item" again and add another text box. If you want to spice up your form, you can select a theme. Click here to see my sample form.
Our Reader's Notebooks
Today we had a 6th grade Language Arts teacher planning day. I was really excited about it, but I am bummed at the lack of things we actually got planned today altogether. I wish I could have just had a whole day to plan alone because I know I could have at least gotten a 6 weeks taken care of. I was actually excited to dive into the C-SCOPE materials because I have really struggled with not having a real scope and sequence to use this year. Well, I know what I am going to be doing over the Christmas break! I know that I have blogged about our reader's notebooks a few other times, but I just love them. Sorry for the bad quality, they are from the phone.
Paper Bag Books: A Simple Way to Teach Story Elements
Have you ever made a paper bag book? I hadn't, but I'd seen them floating around pinterest and finally decided we had to try! One of our current favorite activities is creating books. I like to staple a few pieces of paper together and have my son draw pictures on the pages and then we talk about the pictures and I write down what he says or have him write down his own stories. He can spend hours on this. There is no real plot yet in his stories... and if there is, it is really confusing and hard to follow. My goals as we created the book were to... have funbe creative togethermake a paper bag book (since I really wanted to try this)teach the basic story elements of conflict and resolution (in a simple way) These concepts seemed easy to introduce since I feel like we spend a lot of time each day talking about problems and how they could be resolved! Materials Needed for Paper Bag book:several paper bags (I think we used 3-4?) How to Make a Paper Bag Story Conflict/Resolution book:
20 Ways to Keep Your Students' Attention
As the end of the year approaches, it can be more and more challenging to keep your students' attention. Brain Breaks are important, but there are plenty of things you can do within a lesson to keep kids from day dreaming...or worse yet, nodding off. Here are some ideas:Desk Switch: Students have ten seconds (count down from ten) to find another desk to sit in that is in a different part of the room than his or her normal desk. Students stay in that desk for the rest of the lesson. Did you get a new idea?
DIY Map Magnets
I picked up this puzzle at a yard sale a few weeks ago. I intended to frame it in Matthew’s room, but unfortunately I realized one piece was missing. Bummer! I still love the look of the pieces, so I decided to turn the individual states into magnets. I used sticky magnet strips on the back of each piece. The magnets weren’t sticking well, so I ended up using hot glue to stick them on. I attached a locker door front on this little empty wall space in Matthew’s room. It’s the perfect magnet board for a narrow space. When my kids saw it they thought it was really cool, but my little two year old nephew seemed to enjoy playing with it the most! This ended up being a really fun and easy project. As for the locker door front, I love it so much as a magnet board I decided to put one in my studio too!
