for a list of early childhood trauma resources
After a long work week, I read this quote that was posted on social media by a colleague turned friend, as I ran through the growing To Do List in my mind. Iron. Grocery shop. Pay bills. Assemb…
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I'm back! I totally apologize to all my readers for disappearing for the last couple of months. I took my first real grad class this fall and had no time to breathe. Something had to give and unfortunately it was my blog. But, the class is over and I am back! I have so much to tell you but instead of one long post, be looking for short posts over the next week or so to catch you up! The class I took was TONS of work but also very rewarding. In Massachusetts, if you have even one student in your class who is and English Language Learner, you need to take a class called Rethinking Equity and Teaching for English Language Learners (RETELL). It's basically an intro to ELL and walks you through tried and true activities that helps ELLs succeed in the classroom. Being my second year in district, I found the class to be EXTREMELY helpful and my biggest takeaway is direct vocabulary instruction. I have always felt that vocabulary is such an important part of teaching social studies and last year I just knew I wasn't cutting it. My students were just understanding vocabulary on the most superficial of levels and I knew it was because I was teaching a population I had never really experienced before. In the class they taught us a vocabulary activity called the Seven Steps to preteach vocabulary. Here is a fabulous example of Seven Steps from an elementary teacher: I knew this was exactly what I needed but I decided to tweak it for my class. Now, almost every day, my kiddos walk in and we preteach a word or term they are going to need in order to understand the upcoming content (Tier 2 and Tier 3 Words). We do it in the same order every day: Introduce word and have them pronounce it twice. Ask if they know anything about the word and identify and prefixes, suffixes, and/or base words. Have them write down a student friendly definition. Tell them how we are going to use it in content. I also like to tell them how it is used in other contexts (for the word "convention" this week, we talked about the Constitutional Convention but we also talked about ComicCon). I show the kids a YouTube video that better illustrates the word or a visual. Lastly, the students are given a sentence stem that they need to finish with the students in their table groups. We then share out as a class. This method has truly revolutionized my class! Not only are the kids truly understanding the vocabulary, it has allowed me to frontload my teaching. As an example, I taught the term Articles of Confederation three days before we really learned about the Articles of Confederation. The kids absolutely love it and have been acing their vocab quizzes like champs. They can use the words weeks later in a sentence and I really feel like it has helped me make bigger connections in my content. I showed two different videos with this term. The first clip, I explained to them, is how the British knew how to fight and the second video was how the Americans learned to fight from the native Americans. We were able to compare and contrast the two styles and this whole lesson took less than ten minutes of my class. If you're interested, I have started to gather together these vocab lessons and have made them available on Teachers Pay Teachers. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mesopotamia-and-First-Civilizations-Direct-Daily-Vocabulary-Instruction-1675580 https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/American-Revolution-Direct-Daily-Vocabulary-Instruction-1672787 Head on over to TPT to check these out and look for more as I progress in the year!
I've been teaching sociology for three years, now, and almost immediately, I stumbled upon Introsocsite. It's a fantastic resource for any sociology teacher.
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It's not easy being an introvert — especially if you also get nervous in social situations. Artist Sarah C. Andersen, creator of Sarah's Scribbles, knows this feeling all too well.
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This is the excerpt for your very first post.
I've been having a hard time lately with some of the older kids I see. They don't see the point or the importance of what we are working on. I have been very frustrated, and our sessions have been less than productive. In desperation, I turned to Pinterest, and came across some UNO activities. I figured - what could it hurt? We aren't getting anything done anyway! Well, it was no less than MAGICAL!!! My most difficult student didn't want to come see me, but I asked him to give me just 10 min. We played the game, and he was happy about it. I started to pick up the cards, and he grabbed the UNO cards and starting dealing out the cards. We ended working for 30 minutes with smiles all around. Below is the activity I did today. Click on the picture for activity details. After the session, my mind was buzzing. Although the student did well, and shared, he didn't really listen to my comments. So I came up with this idea. This student needs to work on writing, so I made a handout so that he has to write down the other participant's comments. Click on the picture for activity details. There is just something about UNO that everyone loves. Here is another great idea showing how to use UNO cards in a session. Click on the picture for activity details. Thank you Pinterest for such great ideas and breaking my therapy block with my older students. I look forward to coming up with some more ideas. I'll let you know how it goes.
I don’t know about you, but my FAVORITE subject to teach is social studies. Something about the Revolutionary War and Colonization makes this girl sing! One of the big topics we cover in 5th grade is the Columbian Exchange. Per usual, our textbooks provide us with literally one sentence on this massive event. So, over […]
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"hamlet today"
The personal financial literacy math standards include challenging vocabulary and concepts. Use these 5 tools to make it easier and more fun for kids!
You could start with the term “achievement gap.” This article names what's really going on, and it's much more damaging than that.
You just never know if you will win, who knows maybe this is your lucky time. Go to my previous post and scroll down to enter or just clic...
Use this packet to create a fun flip book to help kids learn just where in the world they are! Have a fun-flipping day! You Might Also Like:What Presidents Are Made OfJust or Unjust?Hands-On Distributive Property
When a person feels that they are being blamed—whether rightly or wrongly—it’s common that they respond with defensiveness. “I” statements are...
If you are anything like me, you saw "Hidden Figures" and FELL IN LOVE! I was so excited to see the way Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson revolutionized their field and paved the
CLIENT: pre-teen with a history of family turmoil and attachment issues. I have been working with a middle school student for 2 years. The client is a 13 year old girl with a wonderful sense of s…
This handout makes a great addition to your digital Social Work Tool Box (also known as the Social Work Tool Kit). Along with this hand-out, a non-scholarly narrative follows to explain this important model 🙂 El Ciclo De Cambio Downloadables Social Work Tech Tools (this was moved to my Tools page because I’m updating these…
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When the speech pathologist at Neighborhood Charter School of Harlem told her class they would be playing a game called Pop-Up Pirate, one student was not happy. He began to whine loudly and another teacher in the room quickly interjected. Lucas, can you help us fix this problem? the teacher asked the student.
Language is like a big, colorful puzzle, and words are the pieces that fit together to create beautiful pictures, or in this case, sentences. Prefixes and suffixes are special pieces of this puzzle. A prefix is a little group of letters we add at the beginning of a word to change its meaning, like adding […]
Community outings can help teach students in a natural environment. Grab your free printables for high school students today and start practicing...
As social workers we are always putting out fires. Sometimes they are even literal fires, LOL. All jokes aside, it's important to realize that social workers already know the steps to take in a crisis, even if you haven't studied the theories recently. Here is a refresher for you and please let me know an example you may have had following these stages: Roberts is one of the founders of the crisis intervention model used by most clinicians today. Here are the steps defined: 1) ASSESS for safety/suicidality and provide a brief biopsychosocial assessment 2) Continue to develop RAPPORT by being empathetic and warm 3) IDENTIFY PROBLEM/what lead to crisis and what other problems are concerning them at that moment 4) Address FEELINGS and allow client to vent while validating and actively listening 5) Identify ways they will COPE with situation and how they have coped with difficulties in past 6) Create an ACTION PLAN with client, time to come to terms with crisis and attempt to resolve 7) FOLLOW-UP with client via phone, in-office counseling, etc.. Learn more about crisis intervention by clicking here! Find practice question about crisis intervention and a bunch more here.
