Hands On Math Activity

Found these two great ideas today on the internet.
I found a great way to make learning about place value hands-on and very motivating. This activity is a great pre-teach before introducing math manipulatives.

 
The teacher calls out how many hundreds, tens, and ones. The student places that amount of circular shaped cereal on the corresponding marshmallow's toothpick. The follow up worksheet, here, lets them write the numbers they have made.

Also found a great way to teach numerical order in a hands-on way. Put numbers on pop sticks- can be modified to include the numbers you are working on- and have students place in order by making a playdoh snake to stick the numbers into....love it!

Plan on using both next week- the place value activity with my first graders and the play doh number line with my kindergarteners. Will let you know how they go!

Differentiation Lesson

If you need a creative way to explain the need for differentiation to your students, go to Miss Saylor's blog to read how she presented this to her students. Such a great idea!

She also has some wonderful reading activity follow up cards which provide students with a question to answer after reading a book. The cards are categorized and color coded according to Bloom's taxonomy, which allows for you to differentiate which students are working on which level of thinking skills. You can download it for free on her blog!

Some Low Tech Options

Technology does not always have to be high tech to be effective for differentiating. Check out these great audio tools- Talk Point. They are capable of holding 10 seconds (this is longer than you think) of sound for playback. Can be used for a million different accommodations in the classroom!

Talk Point™, Set of 5 - ESL/ELL - Shop by Category - Teachers - Learning Resources®

Just a few ideas:
pre-record directions for an activity or center
use as a phonics tool for sound discrimination or sound blending activities
use to support struggling writers. Let them record their sentence, then go back and replay as they write the sentence word by word- supports working memory!

Learning resources also sells a similar recording device that is attached to a white board so that you can use for interactive writing activities- a little pricier than just the recorders themselves, but also full of classroom possibilities!

Technology

Technology is a great way to differentiate in the classroom. Appitic is a great resource for teachers looking for guidance in using apps in the classroom. This site actually categorizes different apps according to multiple intelligences, categories of learning, and Bloom's taxonomy. Check it out!

One of the new blogs I just discovered, Digital Kindergarten, also is a great resource regarding appropriate ways to use Ipads in the classroom. She also recommends some great free apps, describes many apps in detail, and gives general pointers on technology use in a public school classroom.

Happy apping=:)

Fa la la la la.....

Many of the classrooms in my school are in the midst of enjoying lots of new holiday-related activities. This is harder for some children to adapt to than others....which makes for some quite boisterous classrooms. Amidst all of this holiday bustle, it is wise to remember what a catalyst for learning a little change can be. Changes in routine actually increases growth of the synaptic connections in the brain. New experiences and routines create new connection routes in our brains, and activates parts of the brain that are not engaged when involved in routine tasks.

You can read more about the positive aspects of change on learning here.

Teachers as Brain Changers

I bet you didn't think of yourself as a brain changer, did you? But as a teacher, that is just what you are! A very interesting article explains just what I mean by this. So, enjoy the day and change some brains for the better today=:)

An inspirational youngster

Emmanuelle Lo
One summer day, friends gathered at a backyard concert to raise money to help a 10-year-old girl, birth blind, fuel her passion for music.  The money raised bought her a guitar and a couple of lessons. 

By winter she played "Night of our lives" to family and friends.  The song touched everyone in that way that gives you goose bumps and makes your heart feel bigger than your whole body. 

This Christmas, friends and family (disguised as musicians, producers and designers) helped Emmanuelle to share her song with a few more people than come to pot luck and backyard concerts. It took 10 days, a lot of delicious energy and too many smiles to mention.  We hope you love it as much as we do.

Feeling inspired? Please let Emmy know by leaving comments at 
http://youtu.be/bFEoDPscBNk! 

Also visit her Facebook http://www.facebook.com/EmmanuelleLo page and "like" Emmy to share this beautiful artist and holiday "gift" of song to all your friends and family.

www.emmanuellelo.com
emmanuelle ©2011 Stoneagle Music

Holiday time getting a little crazy in your classroom?

This is the time of year when students get a bit out of control. Routines change, holiday activities ca become overstimulating, too much sugar...you know what I mean. Time to put a little calm into your routine. YogaKids (R) is a wonderful way to help your students get back to calm. Linking together several poses, like the routine posted below, is an effective method for allowing them to get their "wiggles" out and slowly working them towards calm bodies.

And don't forget to reinforce those concepts of calm and peace throughout the holiday hype. YogaKids has shared a free lesson plan focusing on the concept of peace which you can find here. 

Have a calm and peaceful holiday season!

Keeping it Fun!

Sometimes the biggest challenge when working with kids who have learning challenges is how to keep them motivated...Let's face it, everything they need to learn is not always fun...in fact some learning can be pretty dry. For example, learning your sight words. This tends to take a lot of "drill and kill" methodology, right? And I can totally understand why a 6-year-old might make that face at me when they see "those flashcards" again! My students tend to need even more repetition with these words than the "average" student, which makes keeping the motivation level high particularly important.

So, to keep it fresh, I designed a system that gives the student a concrete way of monitoring their own progress with learning their sight words. The school that I work at calls the kindergarten sight words "popcorn words" because they have a tendency to "pop"  out at you everywhere you look! These are their popcorn work folders:

To help track progress in a non-judgemental way, I have benchmark icons that they progress through on their way to mastery. For example, when they first learn a word, they are in the "turtle" stage...they know the word but it may take them a few seconds to identify it. After 5 correct times of identifying the word, they progress to the "Rabbit" stage...they know the word more quickly or "quick like a bunny". After 5 times recognizing their bunny words, they progress to the "Fox" stage because foxes are very wise! and finally after recognizing it 5 more times it moves onto their personal word ring.

The board works sort of like a gameboard. Each day, instead of pulling out the sight word flash cards, they open their folders...now when they read one of the sight words to me they get to move it to the next space on the board. I also have them practice spelling the sight words 1-2 times per week by either building them with letter tiles or writing them on white boards. By the time they have reached the end of the board, they have read each word 20 times!! and practiced spelling it 6-8 times. The words that graduate to their word ring are words they truly know!

I have made each folder different by decorating the front with different sticker themes. This way, I do not have to put names on the folders and they can be reused year after year. One person has the snowflake folder, one the smiley face folder, etc...

You could use the same idea for letter identification, number identification or any other rote skill that you want to make more fun!

I had to post this video that I saw on Facebook because it reminds me of my students. Watch to totally appreciate the process here. Obviously, the cat is thirsty. His method gets the job done, but is this the most efficient way to do this? Disabled learners need to be directly shown the best way to do something. This poor kitty needs a trip to the learning center!

I have to admit that when I initially watched this, I laughed out loud...but what if instead of watching the antics of this cat trying to get a drink the hard way you were instead watching one of the students in your classroom doing twice as much work and getting half as much accomplished? Not so funny anymore, right?

You certainly don't want to leave the student to their own devices. Think of their peers reaction to their ineffective learning strategies...they would probably be pretty similar to your reaction watching the cat. Not good. So, as a teacher what do you do?

Start with what they know. In the case of our cat friend, the cat obviously knows he is thirsty and need water. He also recognizes running water as a source of water. Great! Smart kitty!  Next steps....slow down the force of the water flow. Put a plate under the tap at the cat's drinking height. Get the cat used to seeing the water accumulate on the flat surface. Slowly shape the cats behavior over time, so that they associate the water on the flat surface with getting their thirst met. Dip the cats face into the water on the plate while the water is still running...slowly weaken the force of the running water over time to the point where you can now put the plate of water in the sink, run the water to fill the plate surface (activating the sound of the tap in cat's memory), and leave the plate in the sink for the cat to drink from. Over time, you should be able to fill the plate with water and put it in another spot for the cat to drink from.

Seems like a lot, right? Nobody said teaching would be easy=:) If you have a student in your classroom that the cat reminds you of, tell me about them.

Yoga For Kids

Yoga For Kids is one of the most powerful regulation tools for the classroom. Children often need to directly be taught what calm feels like. Yoga helps with self-regulation skills, attention, focus, self-esteem and confidence. Yoga's impact is often portrayed in the news. Tonight, Nightly News focused on inner city youth in Baltimore who's lives have been positively impacted by being turned onto yoga.