You hear it all of the time. What’s inquiry-based learning? What is an inquiry-based lesson? It seems to be all the rage in education...
Have you read this book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser?The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy in the Elementary Grades
Summer is almost over! How did that happen? Where did the last 2 months go? With a little under 2 weeks left until we go back to school my mind has been increasingly drawn to planning for the ne…
Here’s a few classroom procedures that have worked well for me – and a couple awesome ideas I’ve run across since I’ve stepped out of the classroom...
Spend quality time with kids getting creative during this pandemic crisis! Experiment and explore your inner artist with children.
These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back
A round up of over 15 great STEAM projects – where math concepts are used to make pieces of art!
This is for you Wendy Y-H. Hope you take a peek! For this seasons 4E house project I’ve decided to create a tunnel book. Each artist has to respond to the previous artist’s page, there …
Whether your students are lethargic or super-charged, adding movement to your lesson plans will help to solve both issues. Not only is it healthy to move throughout the day, but it can also help students focus and become more engaged with the content they are trying to master. Due to the nature of English classes, ELA ... Read More about 10 Ways to Add Movement in the ELA Classroom
Every year in my first year classes (12 year olds) I touch on the principles of perspective, at least in its one point form. We do a little art history, take a look at Masaccio and Mantegna. We mak…
These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back
We have another fun project for your kids (or you) to do during the hot summer months, this time we are sharing a fun summer agamograph template with you. Making an agamograph is really, really
Check out these gorgeous Romero Britto inspired art activities...
Welcome to my six part classroom management series! Today I am launching into Part 1: Taming a Talkative Class. When I first began teaching over ten years ago, talking in the classroom was not as rampant as it is today. It seems like every year, the talking just seems to become more and more prevalent and kids seem to think that it's not that big of a deal. Classrooms and teaching in general have changed so much in the last ten years. We now expect children to talk to their tables, talk to their partners and share their learning as opposed to the old school traditional forward facing students who must sit quietly and listen to the teacher lecture on and on. Additionally, flexible seating has become a huge part of many classrooms across the country. This type of seating lends itself to students being able to talk to each other. We have to learn to bend with the times and manage students in creative ways. In today's series, I am going to share with you some of my favorite ways to tame those talkers! Most of these strategies are ideas I have found from others and have adapted for my own classroom. There are a couple I will be sharing that I have not yet tried, but plan on implementing this coming school year. As with any management tool, everything loses it's magic after a time. I recommend having them all in your "bag of tricks," and pull them out when one strategy has run its course. Or just change them up frequently to keep the students on their toes! Secret Code, sometimes referred to as Secret Word or Code Word, is a strategy that I read about last school year. I was dealing with an extremely chatty class and I needed something to get those kids to stop talking and listen up! The kids LOVE this one and they beg for it! For secret code, you pick a secret word. Your secret code word can last for a short period of time or all day. You tell students the secret word. I only tell them ONE time to make sure they are really listening. Throughout the lesson, they must listen carefully and NOT talk so they can hear the secret code word. The first student to hear the secret code word raises their hand and you can give them a little treat. It can be a Dojo point, a piece of candy, a reward pass, whatever your heart desires! Your code word can be creative like unicorn, pokemon, or kalamazoo. I like to make mine a little more subtle to throw students off and really make sure they are tuned in and listening quietly. I like to pick words like whiteboard or listen. This can be tricky because sometimes I don't even realize that I've said the word and sometimes the students don't either! HAHA But this way you really have the students attention! When I did this last year, my students were on the edge of their seats listening! When one child would try to talk, they were quickly quieted by their classmates so they could hear the secret code word. I personally recommend using this strategy sparingly so it doesn't lose it's magic. Here is a cute idea the peppyzestyteacherista. You can read her post about the Code Word Strategy and how she uses it in her classroom HERE. Another strategy that you can use is voice levels. I have seen many great ideas out there for voice levels, but this is a great tool for teaching students when it's appropriate to talk and when it is NOT. Modeling and teaching this at the beginning of the year is so important or this strategy really won't be that effective. Students need to practice at each voice level multiple times. Here are some great ideas I have seen for using Voice Levels in the classrooms. I really love the idea of using the light up buttons to indicate what voice level students should use. The voice level numbers below are from Miss 5th! You can download this freebie them in her shop HERE! The chart from Miss Giraffe pictured below is another great idea for voice levels. She puts the levels on a flippable ring so that students know what voice level they are on. Beat the Teacher is really a game that you can play for any behavior that your class is struggling with, but talking seems to be the main problem in my class that we need to work on every year. In Beat the Teacher, students play against the teacher to earn points. For every lesson, we start a new round. If students earn more points than the teacher, they win that round and earn an X in the Beat the Teacher chart towards the reward they are working toward. I used this free pack from Collaborating in Kinder this past school year. I just used tallies for Student and Teacher on the board. When students won, they got an X in the first square. Once they filled up the first row, they earned the first reward on the reward chart. The reward chart is editable and I do recommend letting students help you come up with ideas to add to the chart. I tried to make the chart go from small to large. We ended at number five on a Movie Party. You can download this freebie HERE. I just discovered the idea of the Chit Chat Chart on Pinterest this week while I was researching ideas for this blog post. I am excited about trying this one out! I have seen a couple of different variations, but basically students each get three cards or pieces next to their name on a chart. When they talk during class, they lose a piece. If they have a piece left at the end of the week, they receive a treat or special note home. You can decide how you want to do this. You could also do this daily. If students have all three pieces at the end of the day, they get a special treat like lunch with a friend. If they have two left, a piece of candy, and one left they get a reminder note home that says something about how they need to work on their talking. If they have none left, you decide the consequence. You can adapt this however you see fit for your classroom. Quiet Manager was another favorite of my students last year. All you need is a sand timer. I recommend having one between 3-5 minutes. You would want to use this strategy during independent work time. I usually use it while I am working with small groups. It helps me not have to worry about keeping tabs on who is talking and the students LOVE the responsibility of being the teacher! You choose a student to hold the sand timer and walk around. Their job is to look for students who may be talking. If a student is talking, they write their name on a whiteboard they carry around and immediately show it to me. I usually don't say anything to the student right then. If it is the same student that continues to talk, then we have a discussion after. Also, students who are talking cannot become the Quiet Manager. When a students sand timer runs out, they are asked to choose a new student who has been working quietly to become the new quiet manager. Students love this and ask me to do it every day! Last year, the wireless doorbell hit Instagram and I had to have one. I bought one on Amazon Prime and I love it. Mine has 50 different ring tones and songs. You can us them for getting students attention. When students are too chatty, I ring the bell to get their attention to quiet them down. We practice this at the beginning of the year so they know when the doorbell chimes, they immediately quiet down and get ready to listen. Some tones are longer than others and I try to change it up frequently so students don't get bored with one. The last strategy I want to share today is kind of a no brainer. I think it is just so important for us as teachers to give students many opportunities to talk and share their learning as much as possible. When students come in each morning, I think we need to consider ditching that traditional morning work and allowing them time to do something like STEM bins and have time to socialize. Their brains are going to be busy all day with learning, so that morning time should be relaxed and stress free. I purchased Booke's Stem Bins last year and planning on implementing these this school year. You can purchase them in her TPT shop HERE. Additionally, doing collaborative activities like gallery walks and group projects during the day is a great way to allow students opportunities to talk and share. I love using the turn and talk in my classroom as well. Getting students to share their thinking is not only a great way to let students talk, but it's an awesome way to have students share their knowledge with others. Your lower students will be able to gain so much from your higher students through turn and talks and collaborative activities. I partner my students in different ways to make sure they are getting the most out of their group and partner work. You can see my examples below. My PB&J partners are on level partners, the Cookie and Milk Partners are High-Low, and My Happy Meal Groups are High-Medium-Low. You can download this freebie HERE. I hope you were able to take away at least one new strategy to tame those talkers this year! I will be back next week to share Part 2 in the Classroom Management Series on dealing with blurters. They are a special kind of talker! Don't forget to check out other posts in the series: {NOTE: They will not be linked and live until they have been posted in the coming weeks.} Part 2 {Blurting} Part 3 {Tattling} Part 4 {Following/Listening to Directions} Part 5 {Transitions} Part 6 {Classroom Organization} What is your favorite strategy for taming those talkers? Please share in the comments!
We'll be watching the opening ceremonies in PyeongChang on February 9, and these fun Olympics crafts for kids should help get them excited too!
Monopoly is a game familiar to everyone around the world but this version has teachers super excited. This version uses Math strategies to take you around the board. This game is aimed at 7+ years…
Van Gogh Projects for Kids - 10 Inspiring Ideas to try with your kids, celebrating 'Inspire your Heart with Art Day' starry night, sunflowers, art & craft.
Earlier this year, my co-worker Jayne found the idea to make a collaborative school-wide paper mural based on the artwork of Thank YouX. The idea for a student mural originally came from Jenell Novello and you can see the lesson plan write-up on Artsonia. She also so generously provided the lesson plan and templates on Google docs. Thank You X got his name by accident. In 2009 Andy Warhol’s spray painted portrait was spotted on a city street in L.A.. … Read more... →
I'm working on developing several Animal Themed art projects for my Art Camp this Summer. I have always thought a Rousseau inspired project would be fun so I decided to give it a try. Rousseau's Paintings are very dreamlike and primitive. He painted several jungle scenes even though he never traveled outside of France. He wasn't formally trained in art and simply taught himself how to paint. I'll show the students a few examples and then we'll do a directed drawing of the Tiger in pencil on Watercolor Paper. It's pretty simple if you break it up into simple shapes: a circle for the face, rounded triangles for the ears, triangle for the nose, etc... We'll discuss what parts of the tiger are white and what parts are orange, also the stripes down the forehead, across the cheeks and across the chest. They'll outline their final drawing with black sharpie and then using just the orange, paint the outside of the ears, the face and chest, leaving the appropriate areas white. I am going to have them paint along with me - I'll demonstrate and then they can do theirs. I'm not trying to have them copy me, just that they understand how to work with the watercolor. After the orange is dry they can go in with black paint on a fine tip brush and go over the stripes with a ziggy zaggy brushstroke. While they are waiting for the orange to dry we'll cut some leaves and flowers out of tissue paper. The eyes and nose are yellow with a drop of orange put in while it's still wet. If they get it too orange I'll show them how to squeeze the water out of a brush and use it to remove excess color. Now they have practiced a watercolor wash, wet into wet, and removing excess pigment. The final step is to use a glue stick and tissue paper to surround their tiger with jungle foliage. A fierce and fun mixed media project!
Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step how to draw a Minecraft Self Portrait & Minecraft Coloring Page. Stop by and grab yours for free.
In a self-paced classroom, each student is given an appropriate level of challenge and grows at a steady pace throughout the school year. Here's how it works.
I just wrapped up a super fun and VERY COLORFUL Fauve-inspired self-portrait lesson with my fourth grade kiddos. This lesson included so many things: drawing a cartoon or caricature version of ourselv
When I took this second grade position, I had many things on my to-do list. However, the first item on my list was classroom management ideas. Any teacher would agree that the most important skill in running a class is classroom management. There are so many strategies, but my go-to is Class Dojo! The Benefits
Geometric Art
Today I'm sharing one of my favourite tasks for building community in the classroom. Students are able to share an important aspect of themselves (the story of their name) with the class and with me, their teacher. Through this task we are also working on important skills, like reading comprehension, writing, and reflection. Day 1 To begin, I asked my students to write any name they wish they had on a sticky note. They then placed it in a mason jar. I read my class the story "The Name Jar" by Yansook Choi. We stopped at several points in the story to predict, make connections, infer, and ask questions. At one point, we paused in the story so that students could journal about the name they wrote down on the sticky note earlier: - Did they choose their own name? Or another? - Why? - If you chose another name, where did you hear that name before? Day 2 At the end of Day 1, students were given homework. (Stick around to the bottom of this post for a chance to get your own copy of this sheet.) I make it very clear, that while names all have meanings, your family may not have chosen your name for that reason. They might not know the meaning, and you can choose to look it up with your family if you wish. I also focus a lot on nicknames and your own feelings about your name. While I've never taught a student in foster care, or one who was adopted, I do think it's important to mention that this could be a touchy task in those situations, so be sure to know your students first, and modify as needed. Students use the homework task, and the journal write from the previous day, to write "The Story of their Name". Some possible options to include are: - who you are named after - the meaning of your name - a name you'd rather have - your feelings toward your name - nicknames you may have - the person (or people) who chose your name - how your name was chosen This piece of writing is then self, peer, and teacher edited, and a "good" copy is made. Day 3 I found this excellent step-by-step self-portrait from "Art Projects for Kids". I modified the task so that instead of drawing the left or right side of their face, they would draw the top half. Students find that folding their page into quadrants as she suggests is very helpful. Under the document camera I demonstrate each step, and students copy, adapting to their own facial features. Each student gets a mirror to look in to help them personalize. The final pieces are put on a bulletin board for display. Students also coloured in a bubble letter version of their names to complete the display. (I used the font KG Red Hands Outline for this.) Day 4 Once we've completed the task, the last job is to reflect on our work. I pulled some elements from our Arts Education curriculum (very relevant regardless of where you teach) for students to self-assess on. I've used the proficiency scale language our school has moved to for all reporting. A few students found it helpful to complete their reflection while looking at the finished product on their bulletin board, but most didn't need this. Want a copy of both my homework and reflection pages? Follow the image or button below to grab your copy. Take Me to the Free Download Pin this post.
In this “classic” Calvert project, sixth graders first learned about the history of tessellations (and artist M.C. Escher, who is famous for his unique tessellations like the one pictured here) before creating one of their own. Tessellations, which have been around for thousands of years, are a special kind of pattern/design made from repeating shapes called polygons (closed shapes with three or more sides). In tessellation designs, congruent polygons fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces that repeat again and again- they could go on forever! Students painted their unique tessellation designs using acrylic paint in a warm or cool color scheme of their choice. To create the portrait, on a separate piece of paper, students traced the light and dark areas of their faces using a projected digital photograph. Using the opposite color scheme from their background, they painted their portrait, making sure that the light and dark areas were highly contrasting. Here are the colorful finished pieces!
Integrate math and art with these symmetrical pattern coloring cards. This is a great math art project that kids love doing!
As a teacher, I am always on the hunt for the perfect tools at the cheapest prices for my ELA classroom. Taking care of our students and keeping our learning
Inspired by pinterest... I took photos of the children a few days before starting the lesson. Use a white background when taking the ...
Corkboard Connections is a blog written by Laura Candler who enjoys connecting terrific teachers with amazing resources!
