A few weeks ago I welcome my first guest blogger to MiniMatisse, Mark Rode. His Paper Dinosaur Sculptures are adoreable, be sure to check them out. Today I'm honored to present you with an Art Teacher I have admired for years. Lauralee Chambers has been an Art Educator for 25 years in Westchester, New York. She teaches over 900 students, 6 sections a day at two different schools with a total of 36 sections in a 6 day cycle. Yep, you read that all right. This woman is a rockstar! Lauralee not only teaches to the masses but also shares, shares, shares on her Instagram, @2art.chambers and on her Pinterest account, Lauralee Chambers. This is how I recently saw Larualee's latest and greatest lesson, Alphabet Soup. She was happy to share with us the process of this adoreable project right here on MiniMatisse. Lauralee writes: I have 6 sections of first grade and our classes are 45 minutes every 6 days. I begin this project by telling them that “I know first graders are alphabet experts” and ask them to recite the alphabet to me. I ask them if they know any alphabet books and I tell them that I have been collecting alphabet books for a very long time because I love letters! I share some books in my collection and show them my other assortment of letters objects that I have including my alphabet necklace. I also created a smart board document with many, many images of letters on things, with the last slide being a bowl of alphabet soup. Day One: Materials: 9x12 white drawing paper 90lb, or other for painting, with a pre-drawn pencil circle outline Oil Pastels Alphabet letter sheet visuals on tables to help them remember Process: After looking at many alphabet visuals and resources, teacher will demo how to draw letters of the alphabet in the circle (bowl) by pressing VERY HARD to put oil pastels down onto the paper. If not done thick enough, soup will cover their letters! I show students how to scatter their letters, rather than putting them in a line like they do for writing. They can go ANYWHERE, upside down, sideways, etc. Rotate the paper for each letter trying to keep them all large enough and thick enough. Colors should be repeated and if there is too much white space left after doing each letter of the alphabet, I have them hide their names in the bowl! Day Two: Materials: Liquid watercolor: I mix up a batch of broth color using yellow and orange and pour into containers for each table to share. This will wash over the letters from last class. Going outside of the lines is fine because teacher will cut circles out so they stay round! This should not take long. Put these away on drying rack and start plaid background “tablecloths”. 12x18 white drawing paper with a larger circle, pre-drawn with sharpie. I traced these circles over to one side of the paper. (This is where they will glue down their soup in next class, as flat and centered as possible.) Water based markers Water containers paint brushes, I like size 10 or 12 The Process: Add any needed letters, prep for painting, demo washing broth over letters quickly in long strokes. Put these away on drying rack and begin plaid backgrounds. Each student has 12X18 with a sharpie circle. Gather them around to demo a plaid pattern of vertical and horizontal lines leaving spaces between lines as you wish. I ask them to choose 3 or 4 colors that work well together. Students will need directions on how to JUMP over the soup bowl and continue their line on the other side. A bit challenging for some, but the irregularities add charm! Once drawn, students take a paint brush dip, and wipe, in water and trace/drag over the marker lines. Some chose to trace only over the vertical lines, others did all. Lots of options. Put on the drying rack. Don’t forget names on the back! Day Three: Materials: Soft black vine charcoal broken into small pieces Off white paper or tag board, cut to the size of a folded napkin Glue sticks Plastic metal imitation spoons Glue gun for teacher use Plastic alphabet beads, stickers (optional)-- The beads the photos are from Roylco Process: Everything comes together. Students glue their already cut out soup circle into the center of the larger circle and then glue down their napkin paper. Teacher demos the placement of shading. Students apply charcoal to the bottom and one side of the napkin and run along that line with a finger to soften or blur. Also apply charcoal around side and bottom half of the sharpie circle and smear with finger. Teacher will glue on spoons with hot glue. Before the shadow is added: After the shadow is added: Lauralee writes: The focus of this lesson combines literacy and letter formation/identification with an understanding of mixed media, using more than one art material in a lesson to create something that looks like real life objects. This lesson is truely a treasure! I adore the end result. I want to thank Lauralee Chambers for sharing and celebrating on her Instagram so often. A special thank you for being a guest blogger for MiniMatisse. It was so great to learn the process. For more on the happenings of Chambers classroom visit her Instagram or email her at, [email protected]
Learn about countries for kids with Around the WOrld Country Coloring Pages! These coloring sheets are easy way to explore 19 countries!
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Well first off my little bloggy venture with Ffion from The First Grade Jungle is up! Please go check it out and enter in our giveaway! We are super excited about it! Second, since I have been absent for sometime now I figured I would catch you up and unload everything I have been storing on my camera. This means picture overload! Sorry. Generating Questions before reading (inspired by The Inspired Apple) Character Glove thanks to inspiration from Debbie Diller. I use this during small group as well. New workstation I added this year: Overhead. So far my students can write their words, make their words with magnets or letter tiles. I will be added sentence strips I made which I will print on transparencies and students can fill in the blanks. (Hopefully I will add this to TpT soon!) I just purchased the clear tiles and then wrote letters onto the tiles. Very simple and the kids LOVE this work station. Writing/ Handwriting Workstation. This will be transitioning into only writing next week. Another new workstation I added was the Non-Fiction Reading Station. I really wanted to promote my students to read to find out new information about a topic. I added a variety of books on various levels. I discussed with the students that they would still need to use the "good fit book" strategy to find books to read during this time. This year my kids REALLY love the Poetry Work Station. They get upset if they do not have time to finish and illustrate their poem. Love it. ABC/ Word Study Workstation Library Work Station Anchor Charts: Behavior Chart And a little reminder… Happy Monday :)
Helping K-2 Teachers Like You Save Time, Grow Instructional Skills, and Teach With Confidence!
classroom kindness banner worksheet activity
Working together to meet a goal builds classroom community & encourages teamwork. As a PBIS school, here are our favorite nonfood, low-cost rewards!
Whole class rewards are perfect to encourage classroom culture and a team approach to learning! I have the perfect (and super easy) printable to be used as a whole class reward system... STAR JAR!
This spring is presenting new challenges for teachers all across the country. Some of us are getting ready to go back to the classroom for the first time this year. Some of us have been in person all year, but we are about to get new virtual kids. Some of you have been in the ... Read More about Classroom Management and Expectations
Subitizing, being able to quickly identify the amount of objects in a group, is a very important skill for early learners.
Looking for some new ways to get the attention of your class? Here are 25 Class Callbacks-Attention Grabbers ideas for you to try out!
I used the Class Dojo app just to try it out at the end of last year for about 2-3 weeks to see how it works and if I wanted to use it next year. The kids
Do you use visuals in your classroom? Visuals support students understand what you are trying to teach them. They encourage students to associate pieces of information with visuals. Visual learning helps you to store information for a longer period of time. It is said that videos and images are directly processed by long term memory. The visual ... Read More about Classroom Visuals
I love to see my students work together! So I use a Whole Class Rewards system where students do that. This is a whole class rewards system that teachers...
Welcome back for the second part of my ELA blog post series! Today I am sharing all about my reading center routines and activities. If you missed the first post about my reading whole group lessons, you can click HERE to get caught up. Let me start by reminding you of my entire ELA block schedule. Center
Continuing our school celebration of Black History Month last year, my 1st grade students created Faith Ringgold story quilts. We started off the lesson by watching a Reading Rainbow video of Tar B…
I didn't realized these were as big as they turned out to be but that's what made them really fun. I got this great idea from Third Grade Love . She has a free glasses printable on her blog. I just ha
This spring is presenting new challenges for teachers all across the country. Some of us are getting ready to go back to the classroom for the first time this year. Some of us have been in person all year, but we are about to get new virtual kids. Some of you have been in the ... Read More about Classroom Management and Expectations
Engaging activities for the primary classroom.
The back to school dreams have started, my room is almost ready, and summer has come to an end, which can only mean the first day of school is upon us! I wanted to spend some time today talking about all things Kindergarten, especially the first few weeks of school… The Good, The Bad, and...
This worksheet deals with First conditional. It consists of 4 different exercises which can help you to teach or revise this grammar material. Key is given on page 2. - ESL worksheets
I posted about these songs about a year ago on my Instagram feed and so many of you asked if I would be putting these in my TPT shop to sell. At the time, we had only written three, and I just didn't feel like that was enough to make a whole resource with. Since then, I have been working on writing new transition songs that are sung to some of our kids' favorite tunes! Singing CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT SONGS AND CHANTS during transitions makes moving from one thing or place to another almost seamless. Songs and chants keep students engaged, focused, and excited to learn, which in turn will save valuable instruction time. It also helps eliminate unwanted behaviors by giving your students the structure, consistency, and support they need. Most of the songs included are parodies of popular songs most kids will know. The words have been changed to help students transition in a positive manner. I printed the songs on cardstock and laminated them. I used a binder ring to attach the set together to hang on my board for easy access. There are also three different color options included. :) Let's go through a little breakdown of when and why we sing each of these songs: The Carpet: We sing this when it's time to transition to the carpet. I start they song, they join in. They have to be on the carpet in their assigned spots by the end of the song. Works like a charm every single time! I even added in some little hand motions that end the song with their hands in their laps. All I Do Is Freeze: We mostly use this when students are working in groups or with a partner. Sometimes, I need them to stop what they are doing, so that I can give them a direction or clear something up. It's a great way to get their attention! Clean Up Chant: This one is pretty self-explanatory. I do not instruct them when it's time to clean up; I just start the chant. You may want to add a timer to it afterwards if you need them cleaned up in a certain amount of time. Let's Line Up: Will kids ever get over Frozen? Probably not. If yours are still obsessed, too, they will love this line up chant. It gets them lined up quickly and without distractions, which saves so much time! Back to My Seat: We sing this when we transition from the carpet to their seats. We usually sing it a couple of times to give them plenty of time to make it to their seats. It's a really quick song! Partner Up: This song probably takes the most practice. Anytime you need students to get with their partner, you can sing this song. It also reminds them what to do when they are with their partner. Learning Math is Awesome: Sing this song to signal that it's time to begin math. I can guarantee it will get stuck in your head afterwards. Sorry. We Can't Stop Reading: This song can be used to kick off your reading block each day. It gets them excited about books and where those stories will take them! Quiet Time: I may or may not have sung this one the most. It works so well! I sing it in a calm, quiet voice, in which students will mirror. It immediately calms the room. Sing it a couple of times if needed! See!: I had to incorporate some Taylor Swift in these songs. We want students to be proud to share their thinking and comfortable talking with a partner. We also want their partners to be respectful and value what they are saying. This song is great to sing before students share with a partner or to close out a lesson by sharing what they learned or took away from the lesson. I just added some NEW songs!!! Like It Was: This is another clean up song. You could sing this one at the end of centers. It's really good about reminding students to put everything back in its place. Good For You: This is a song that you can sing as a class to celebrate someone! Maybe someone had a really great idea or accomplished something amazing, you can sing this to pump them up! We're Amazing: I am all about incorporating mindfulness into our day, so I knew I needed to create a song that encompassed that. This is another one that is going to take some practice to get down, but you can always display it as you sing. Some of the songs might take lots of practice to get down! But don't give up! After you sing it over and over, you will eventually get it. You will sing them to the tune of the chorus from the songs. I have added links to the actual songs in the PDFs. You just click the blue arrow at the bottom of the page. Always check these first NOT in the presence of students. I have gone through them to make sure they are safe, but you never know when things can change. A few of these parodies are straight from my students. I asked them what songs they wanted me to write transition songs for, and these are what we came up with. This group in particular had difficulty this year with transitions because they were all best of friends and LOVED to talk, which in turn got them distracted. I LOVED that about them, but we were losing valuable time trying to get refocused. Once I introduced a song or chant for them to do while transitioning, the difference was crazy! It keeps your learning environment positive, too, which is super important. You can check out the resource by clicking HERE or on any of the images in the post. Let me know how your students do with these songs or if you need another song added! I love your feedback! Happy transitioning!
Save to Favorites 4 Favorites X Save to Favorites Please Login or Register to save content. Grade Level 5-6, 7-8 Duration Classes are 46 minutes long. Project took 6 days from intro to end. Materials -construction paper -tempera paint -bubble wrap -paintbrushes or brayer to apply paint to bubble wrap -foam board cut into small […]
Knowing how to build classroom community is one of the essential components of a successful school year for teachers and students.
Get your students moving with a fun activity called Scoot! Scoot is a whole class game where students rotate between stations and do a task at each station. These cards also make great centers and task cards! Packet includes: *Directions *16 Task cards (Pronouns I And Me) *Scoot Recording Sheet *Answer Key More Task Cards: Lesson 21: "Subject Pronouns" Task Cards Lesson 23: "Possessive Pronouns" Task Cards Lesson 24: "Indefinite Pronouns" Task Cards Lesson 25: "Contractions" Task Cards Grade 1: Unit 1 Bundle Grade 1: Unit 2 Bundle Grade 1: Unit 3 Bundle Grade 1: Unit 4 Bundle Grade 1: Unit 5 Bundle Grade 1: Unit 6 Bundle Grade 1: Units 1-6 Bundle See my store for more Grammar scoots: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jen-Goasdone
Well…I did it. I survived the 2nd week! HA! In all honesty, I have a pretty sweet little class. I feel like they’ve picked up so much in just a short 2 weeks! I’m so excited and anxious to see how much they progress this year. This is one of the reasons I love Kindergarten …
The ultimate roundup of free back to school coloring pages for preschoolers and older kids - Free coloring sheet downloads!
This was a challenging project, but I’m very pleased with how fabulous the whole thing turned out. With out my parent help in the classroom, I would question the success rate of this project…
Check out these great ideas for helping your students feel like part of a classroom community during distance learning & social distancing.
