No opt out is an all or nothing strategy that requires the students to answer questions that are asked of them correctly. Incorrect or partially answered questions should be corrected by other stud…
Ayer fue el Aniversario del gran Saul Bass y hoy me encuentro con la ilustradora y diseñadora independiente Chris Piascik que cumple a rajatabla una de las premisas del trabajo de Bass, "Work? it´s just serious, Play!
Oi vey, it's kind of late and I have a nice 8:30 am professional development tomorrow- BUT- I have caught the zebra fever and I just had to ...
A Music Fortune Teller is a great way to review musical concepts learned. If you have forgotten how to play, here is a link that describes in detail how ..
I begin this digital escape room by reading students “The Wreck of the Zephyr," by Chris Van Allsburg. Read and discuss the story and then give students the directions for this ENGAGING task! This escape room requires the materials included in this pack, as well as access to at least one computer per group. It would be helpful if each of the groups working on this have access to their own computer or an iPad. As students complete the clues, they can type their answers into the Google Form that is embedded into the web site provided. Students will not be able to pass through this Google Form until they get all of the questions correct. This is the digital lock box students must conquer before showing success. Of course, you could have students give you all answers, and if they are all correct, you could let them know they completed the mission. However, it is much more fun if the students can type in the answers into the answer checker in the online site. You can give your students as many or as few clues as you would like. You may also want to give students 2 hint cards. When they feel SUPER stuck, they can give you a hint card to become “unstuck.” There are 2 hint cards included in this pack. Time frame: 1 hour Set a clock for this amount of time (projecting this would be the best) To print/put together: Print one packet for each group of students. I suggest groups of 4-5 students. I like putting all of the clues inside of a manila folder or pronged envelope. There is also a cover included for the folders to set the mood! The QR code included can be placed inside of this pack if you would like. This takes students to the site they will need to find the clues and Google Form. If you want to simply give students the site, you can do this too. Just take out the QR code when printing materials. This pack is sure to engage students after reading The Wreck of the Zephyr, by Chris Van Allsburg. Again, I would highly suggest reading the book before the escape room experience. I hope your kiddos enjoy! -Dan
So, are you itching for winter break to get here or what?!? I am drowning here, people! Between report cards, conferences (for my students and my own kids!), shopping, baking, parties, wrapping... DROWNING!Don't get me
Are you looking for a calm classroom theme? I have five beautiful and unique classroom decor bundles that will help create a peaceful, engaging, and beautiful home away from home in your classroom! These five bundles will be a perfect way to create a calm classroom vibe!
An education blog about teaching third grade math and science and all the crazy things only teachers understand!
When going through a STEM Activity, it's nice for students to have a visual guide of the design process to reference. Download this STEM poster set for FREE!!! Each poster contains one of the steps in the Engineering Process along with a cute monster illustration. I hope you enjoy these posters! Please also check out the STEM Activity Challenges in my store!! Thank you :-) Science Demo Guy Store 6 Individual Process Step Posters: • Ask • Imagine • Plan • Create• Test • Improve Great for: • Bulletin Boards • STEM Binders • STEM Night Displays • Science Lab Decor This set also includes one process poster that has all 6 steps. Science Demo Guy Store STEM Activity Challenge Bundle: 36 Challenges {Kindergarten, First and Second Grades} STEM Activity Challenge Bundle: 36 Challenges {Third, Fourth and Fifth Grades} STEM Activity Challenge Bundle: 36 Challenges {Middle School}
I have so much to share with you about writing interventions, but first things first: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW BLOG DESIGN?!?!? Please share your thoughts! Every year, I meet lots of middle schoolers who struggle with writing. And every year, I play around with lots of different interventions to meet their needs. Last year, I made establishing sound writing interventions one of my big goals. I spent lots of time (and money!!) on resources that I could use, and by about March, I had something that I thought I was pretty happy with. This year, I'm starting off with those interventions that worked so well last year and I couldn't be happier with the results! In fact, I'm so pleased with how they are working, I feel confident enough to share my practice with my blog readers. I can say that these are definitely KID TESTED, TEACHER APPROVED!! Creating a Time and Space for Intervention within your Classroom I teach by myself. There are no aides, special ed teachers, BSI teachers... just little, ol' me! So, when I want to create and manage small groups, I'm on my own. This is hard. It would be so much easier if there was another adult in the room to help, but there is not, so I just have to deal! It's work, but it absolutely can be done! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Power of Bell-Ringers. Establishing a quiet and smooth transition into writing class is a great way to get started, but it also provides me with a window of time where I can pull a small group! By mid-October, my bell-ringer time gets extended to 15 minutes. The kids get started immediately and are clear on the expectations during this time. Now the environment for working with small groups is set: the room is quiet and engaged, allowing me to focus my time on the handful of kids in my group. I pull my kids to a table that I have set up in front of our classroom library. I have a "teacher station" at one end where I do my instruction. I usually stream some jazz or piano music during this time so my group doesn't distract the rest of the class. Establishing Interventions In my district, by middle school, there are no longer district-mandated interventions in place. There are no clear resources for teachers to use or personnel to help. So, when we have a struggling reader or writer in 7th or 8th grade, it's the job of the classroom teacher to meet their needs. In my tenure of working with middle schoolers, I've found that there are two types of students who need more support than my writing curriculum provides (and please remember... I am not a researcher/specialist/writer of books/etc. I'm just a teacher, like you, who loves my job, tries to do the best by my kids, and is compulsively reflective about what I see happening... to me, teachers are the best EXPERTS, but I know that we are hesitant these days to trust a "lowly" teacher and rather find ourselves relying on big publishers and educational researchers to show us best practices... I don't have lots of "data" to support what I'm sharing with you... just my actual observations I've made while working with real, live kids in an average classroom setting!!). Type One: Students Who Struggle with Structure The first type of students who need intervention are those who struggle with structure. These are the kids that can't organize their thoughts in a way a reader could follow. They simply write whatever their brain thinks at the time. They can generally stick with a broad topic, but because they are just writing whatever pops into their head at the time, there are lots of places where their writing veers off track and becomes confusing. Here is an example written by a former student struggling with structure: My dog Henry is my most special treasure. He is always there for me whenever I need him in sad times and happy. In many ways, he's my best friend. He has brown fur and a white chest. He is such a good dog to have around when you are sad because he always knows just how to cheer you up. His eyes are brown, like a Hersey bar. His favorite toy is a yellow tennis ball. Once he almost got hit by a car chasing the ball down the street. I have loved him ever since he was a puppy and we first got him. I was only 4-years old when that little ball of fluff was brought home by my parents to be best friends. His soft fur is always so smooth and warm when you pet him while watching TV on a cold night. He is my best friend and that is why he is my special treasure [sic]. This student is clear about his topic - his dog, Henry - but he cannot organize his thoughts. He is thinking about his dog and writes down everything he knows about his buddy exactly as it comes to his mind. Clearly, he has mechanical and conventional skills, and you can see evidence of where he is practicing what we learned in our mini-lessons and from studying our mentor pieces. But, because there is no organization, it is too difficult to follow and all of the skills he has are lost to the untrained, teacher-eye. Kids who write like this need an intervention that focuses on structure and organization. Typically, I LOATHE teaching step-by-step process writing, but in cases like this, I'm left with little choice. The lessons that I put together for kids in need of this intervention consist of learning how to write a well-organized paragraph. Together, we will work on writing topic sentences, creating strong and clear supporting sentences, and finish up with writing a closing that sticks with our reader. My favorite plans for this type of writing come from Michael Friermood. His Fact-Based Opinion Writing products are geared toward teaching elementary students (grades 3-5) how to write a good opinion paragraph, and they are PERFECT for my struggling 7th graders. They also lack a lot of the "cutesy" images that you find with products for this age group, so my big kids don't feel like I'm making them do "baby stuff." (I do not use the stationary he provides for the final writing piece... it's adorable, but it would be pushing in with my kids! So, we just do our paragraph writing in our intervention notebooks!) My plan is to pull the intervention group for one week (at 15 minutes a pop, this comes to 1 1/4 hours of learning). Long before I ever pull a group, I work hard to make sure that my lesson is broken down into five succinct 15-minute increments. Since time is so precious, you need to make sure not one minute is wasted! I can say that it takes me much longer to plan for a small-group lesson than a 50-minute whole-class lesson because efficiency is so crucial. The first few times you plan a small-group lesson, don't be surprised if your timing is mess. It definitely takes practice to be an effective small-group instructor! After their week is up, then I send them back to completing the bell-ringer at the start of class. I will watch them closely and conference with them lots to make sure that I am seeing a transfer of skills. If I don't, then it is likely that I will put them back in an intervention group in a few weeks to practice again. This intervention model will continue all year. Right now, I have 8 intervention students in one writing class, and 6 in another. By the end of the year, those number should reduce to 3-4 and 2-3. Never in all my years of working with small groups, have I had 100% of my intervention students "graduate" from small group. Don't be frustrated if this is the case! If you can improve 50-60% of those kids, then consider that a huge success!! Type Two: Students Who Struggle with Motivation The next group of kids that I work with are those who struggle with motivation. These are the students who complain a lot about not having anything to write about, spend more time doodling or coloring in their notebook than writing, and who will write the absolute bare minimum for any writing assignment. Many times, these kids produce too little for me to gauge whether or not they also need help with structure. But typically, once I can get them writing, they will likely find themselves in a small group for structure work :) Come October, after we've spent lots of lots of time list writing, the kids who are still struggling to get their pencils moving find themselves using a very special Interactive Writer's Notebook called "Musings from a Middle Schooler." This product contains loads of interactive writing pages that will motivate even the most reluctant writers. The pages can be printed out and glued into a marble notebook. (Most often, I'll have the kids create their own... I don't always have them use all the pages, rather I let them pick and choose the ones they like!). Cover Table of Contents page Table of Contents cont. and an "All About Me" page "My Life Story in Two Pages" My Favorite Thing Comics I created this project just last school year and it's been an absolute smash! The kids (especially my boys!) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In absolutely no time, they are writing like crazy. And once I can get their pencils moving it doesn't take me long to get them producing some actual pieces. I don't necessarily pull these kids and work with them in a small group. The first few days, we will assemble our books all together at the back table, but then they go right back to the big group. Rather than do the bell-ringer with the rest of the class at the start of the period, they will work in their "Musings" notebooks. Fifteen minutes of that is usually enough to get them into writing mode for the rest of class. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * So, that's how I make writing intervention work in my classroom. Phew!! That was long, folks!! I apologize for my wordiness and I am grateful if you stuck it out until the end! Also, I'm sure that I've left out some crucial details of my practice, so please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you still have! Do you have any good intervention tips or strategies that work for you? I'd love to hear about them. Drop me a comment and share! Happy Teaching!!
Corkboard Connections is a blog written by Laura Candler who enjoys connecting terrific teachers with amazing resources!
How could changing the lighting in your classroom help with behavior?! Well, as you may know, I spent an entire summer researching ways to dramatically improve my behavior management plan after a truly horrible year. With this research, a topic kept coming up that I knew would – an influx of students with autism. I […]
I am the type of teacher who uses recorders with my students throughout the year. Sometimes we use the recorders every lesson for several classes in a row; sometimes we don’t. Because I use my recorders in this way, asking the children to take them home and bring them back each class does not work
This week in Science we have been learning about Earth's Land Features. All week we took notes, learned hand gestures, and watched a video, and then we made a landform flipbook. I have to say, it came out SOOOO cute!! I got the idea from an AIMS lesson and adapted it for the SC landforms. Here is what it looks like completed! And here it is in action! You can download it HERE!
oh Boy 4th Grade is a blog full of freebies for the classroom, fun ideas, and all things Farley.
These STEM classroom decorations are easy to put together, are purposeful and add a sense style. Scroll down to see the different options to add...
Check out these 5 No-Prep Reviews Games for any classroom or any subject! Click to see what no-prep review games you can add to your teacher toolbox!
Clap Clap Clap Your Hands
No windows? No problem! Get inspired by how we transformed this small middle school classroom with world history themed decor!
This is a little moving paper toy. I thought it could be a nice (free!) Christmas gift to make maybe if any of you have
5 Activities to Teach Angles
Be sure to visit my store for the back to school sale on 8/20! All of my doodle notes (even already reduced ones) are on sale for 25% off! The code is BTSBONUS19 Name Tags Yes, you need them and no they aren’t “so elementary school.” I have around 130 kids to get to […]
Social Studies Interactive Notebooks are a great tool to reinforce learning in any classroom. Give your students a forever resource this year by ...
A Chris Van Allsburg author study is an excellent way to engage third grade readers and teach tricky literature standards. Check out my favorite titles!
