Is this the year that you got the chatty class? No matter what you try, they talk ALL-OF-THE-TIME! When you go home, do you want complete silence? No, t.v., no music, no noise of any type because your ears are worn out. When you are teaching a lesson, each student feels like you are speaking directly to him or her, so each student has a comment to add to your lesson. While you don't want to temper their enthusiasm, your students do need to learn how to work and function within a group (class). By this time of the year, you have probably used several different methods to solve this problem such as role playing and rewarding positive behaviors. Are you ready to try something that is a little less traditional and lets you integrate behavior management with your language arts lessons? I have written before about integrating behavior management with your academic lesson. Click HERE to read it. If you follow my blog, you know I am a big believer in integrating lessons. It not only saves times when you have a hectic schedule, it also helps your students make connections. A reader's theater lesson is a good strategy to use when you have a class full of Chatty Cathy's. Do you remember that doll? A play script shows very clearly in black and white whose turn it is to speak. A play is practiced over and over which is the type of practice that these talkative students need. Not only are your students' fluency improving, they are practicing taking turns and only speaking when it is their turn to speak. They are learning self control. You will see some of this self-control begin to transfer over to your other lessons with some of your students. For other students, you may need to begin your lessons with a quick reminder about "just like when we are performing plays, we take turns when we speak during lessons. When I am teaching, it is my turn to talk and your turn to be audience and listen." Other times, you have a group of students that follow the rules except during certain times of the year, like the week of Halloween. With all of the excitement of the holiday, students are chatty and off-task. This is the perfect time to plan a Reader's Theater lesson for reading. This past week, I added two lessons that would be perfect for this time of the year. Magic School Bus: Going Batty: This is not Halloween themed which is great when your school does not allow Halloween lessons. Or it can be used with your mammal unit or any time of the year. There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat: This script is based on this book. I added to the story to give the characters dialogue for the script. Have your students compare the book to the script to see if they can find all of the differences. These plays can be performed live or as a puppet show. In the picture above, I attached the stage prop that comes with this packet to a file folder and then made a slit in it so the stick puppets could fit in slit. You can set this up as a center, too. There are a variety of props that come with this packet. There are name necklaces that students can wear for live performances. There are frames that students can draw their character for puppet performance. Colorful stick puppets are included for the Old Lady script (see picture above). There are extension activities included for each script. In the picture above is the one for the Magic School Bus: Going Batty play. Students will make a beginning, middle, end mini book. There are two printables for interactive journals that are extensions for the Old Lady play. One is about characters and the other is a vocabulary - dictionary skills lesson. For the Old Lady play there are 7 parts plus a narrator or chorus. There are 13 parts for the Magic School Bus play. If you have a class with 26 students or more, you could divide your class in half and have both perform this play. One group could perform this live and other perform it as a puppet show. Reader's theater is also a good way to help your students grow as writers. Put yours class in small groups or with a partner and let them write a script about a favorite book. Click HERE if you'd like to read more. Click HERE if you'd like to check it out. Click HERE if you'd like to check it out. Click HERE if you'd like to check it out. Save money with the BUNDLE! Click HERE to check it out. Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE. Click HERE to read my blog's disclosure statement.
Suffer from vertigo? Here are step-by-step instructions for a half-somersault maneuver to manage chronic dizziness.
I’m answering questions like… This little book packs a big PUNCH! There is so much about decorating my home that I find CONFUSING. Chris does a great job of CLEARLY explaining how to decorate your home and even includes PHOTOS which is great for me because I struggle to imagine things in my...
I work with angry kids every day I go to work (and sometimes at home with my own 3 kiddos). We all feel anger. Anger is not bad in of itself; it's what we do when we are angry that matters. Anger is a secondary emotion that is displayed in an effort to protect the person from feeling other emotions that may be more uncomfortable or less socially acceptable. For instance, it may be easier to feel angry at someone who shared a secret rather than to feel embarrassed. This poster is a great visual aid when explaining how anger works
Be inspired by these 25+ Beautiful handmade ornaments so that one can soon be made by you. Don't you just love pulling out the sweet handmade ornaments every year when you decorate your tree. They're such a timestamp of years gone by. Whether they're a gift from a friend or handmade by you or your kids, they just seem to be the most cherished ornaments on the tree. What better way to personalize your Christmas tree this year than by adding a few new handmade ornaments? Whether you make these for yourself or for a friend, they are sure to
Have you ever made plans … only to watch them unravel? I’m not talking what-are-we-having-for-dinner kinds of plans. I’m talking about what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life kind of plans. I’ve had life plans unravel. Evaporate. Combust. Let’s see …
Love Japanese stuff? I do, too, and that's why I decided to live in Tokyo. But when I was living back home in Australia, it was difficult, if not impossible, to buy all the goods I wanted from Japan easily. Not everyone gets to live in Japan just because they like Japanese cosmetics, sushi, matcha, Evangelion or Hello Kitty, like I do.So here is what I think is the 5 Best Ways to Buy Goods From Japan. Going to Japan is not the only way to purchase Japanese things of your dream. One word of caution before we start, though.There are quite a lot of products out there that are made to look like Japanese. I've met many people who paid a premium price for "Japanese" products" that were produced by non-Japanese companies overseas. Even if Japanese companies are producers, many of them are also produced outside Japan.If you don't mind where they are made, or who produces, as long as your ramen looks like Japanese, that's okay, too. But if you are a devoted fan of made in Japan goods, then, be smart and always check the country of production before you purchase from Japan and elsewhere.
"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey."
Don't try this at home! OK, Go ahead. What's the worst that can happen! Size: Small: 3.57"w x 3.81"h (90.7 x 96.7 mm) Large: 5.1"w x 5.47"h (128.2 x 139 mm) (Size Large Shown This Embroidered Patch can be added to almost anything. Use your imagination and create your own style by adding this patch to your favorite item. The design is embroidered with thousands of stitches. It will not fade, peel or wash away! This is an actual picture of the patch. Not a stock image that might look different in real life. This comes with a Industrial Strength "Iron-On" adhesive that's so easy to use. You can also stitch this on with a sewing machine (if you choose). Instructions are included in each order. It can be added to any item that is safe for ironing! Think: Purses, Towels, Denim Jeans, Backpacks, Aprons, Skirts, Hoodies... Plus more. This Patch is embroidered to order so it won't ship immediately. It will ship very quickly and you will get a tracking number when it ships to guarantee delivery (USA only) *** Wholesale quantities? Of course we do that! Just email FIRST and I can help with a custom listing.
If you are interested in learning bushcraft skills, don’t hesitate to get started. Here are some of the more hardcore bushcraft skills you can try. Don’t worry if you don’t get them on the first try.
Are you a medical coding student? Here are a few tips that you should do as a medical coding student to put you on the path to success.
30 Ways to Make Your Life Less Boring. How to make life more interesting. Simple Ways to Make Your Life More Exciting. How to live a more interesting life. Ways to Make Your Life More Fun. my life is so boring and lonely. bored with life need a change. my life is so boring i have no friends. bored with life at 30. bored with life depressed. my life is so boring and depressing. i need to change my life but i don't know how. how can i change my life with no money. i need a change in my life what do i do. i need help with my life please. i need help with depression. i've had enough of life. need help coping with life. bored with life at 40. bored with life need a change. bored with life depressed. bored with life at 50. i'm bored with my life what should i do. Quarter life crisis.
One of the worst feelings as a teacher is that feeling of being unprepared. Check out this list of 5 things you can do before you go home each night, so that you can be more prepared when you start the next day.
Kids need to know what they are expected to do in the classroom, and they need to know why they are doing it. When I first began teaching, I didn’t really understand this. I would just do stuff with my kids, and not really talk to them about it beforehand. And I didn’t always explain why something was important. However, I figured out pretty fast that I needed to make a change. 🙂 Now I understand that when my kids know beforehand what they’re going to be doing and why it’s important, their behavior improves, and they’re more successful with the learning task. Think about it this way: Imagine that your principal randomly announces a meeting. On Friday afternoon. Before a holiday break. You just want to go home, right?! And even worse, your principal doesn’t tell you what the meeting is about. The focus isn’t even clear after the meeting starts. And when the meeting ends, you aren’t sure why it was necessary. That would be frustrating, right? Well, that’s what can happen when we don’t tell our students what learning activities we have planned for them and why those learning activities are important. In this post, I’ll share some simple strategies for communicating the “what” and “why” of our instructional activities on a daily basis. Since I’m a literacy specialist, I’ll refer mainly to literacy instruction. But you can apply these ideas to any subject area! Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Strategy One: Conduct a Morning Meeting I read The Morning Meeting Book (Kriete and Davis) about 7 or 8 years ago. While I don’t remember a ton about the book, I do remember that it was instrumental in making morning meeting a daily part of our classroom routine. Morning meeting can include a variety of things. For me, it includes: Good morning song and greeting classmates Morning message Stretching A discussion of the day’s schedule and any special events Morning meeting is fabulous for a variety of reasons. But back to the main topic of this post: morning meeting is great for letting kids know what will be happening during the school day. I like to post the day’s schedule somewhere in the classroom, and we briefly discuss plans during our morning meeting. During morning meeting, I don’t go too far in depth about why we will be doing certain activities—it’s more about establishing the what at this point. Strategy Two: Post Schedules, Goals, and Visuals Morning meeting is just the tip of the iceberg—I still need to consistently communicate the what and why to students as we move through different instructional activities in our day. Before we start an activity, I try to preface it by saying something like, “Now we are going to do some partner reading. Since you’ll be rereading books you already know, this activity will help build your reading fluency.” (Assuming that the kids are already quite familiar with the concept of fluency.) If it’s an activity that we’ve been doing for a while, I try to ask students to explain what our goal is and why we are doing a particular activity (without my help). Notice that I said “try.” Even though I’ve been doing this for a while, it’s a constant challenge to make time for it—and actually remember to do it! It’s SO easy to get swept up in a hectic day and forget to communicate these concepts to students. So if you struggle with this, I’m right there with you. But it definitely does get easier once you’re in a routine. And speaking of routines, here are some ways to help yourself and your students consistently return to the what and why throughout your day: #1: Post the standard(s) you’re working on. Many of us are required to do this by our schools, or for our evaluations. Just posting the standards themselves isn’t all that useful to students. So I like to put them in kid-friendly “I Can” terms, and I like to use these posters because they have a visual representation of each standard: We also have to remember to discuss the standard(s) with students as we address them throughout the day. Example: “Today we are working on ______. This will help us _______. Let’s read the ‘I can’ statement together to remind us of our goal: _______.” Having the standards posted in this way can remind us to discuss them and can give our students a visual reminder of what they are working on! To see the posters I use for this purpose, click HERE (I have them for K-3). #2: Provide more specific visuals tied to specific instructional activities. Sometimes standards can feel too general. We may be working on one particular part of a standard, or a skill that will allow students to eventually achieve the standard. So I like to provide even more specific visuals. This is an example of a visual I use during guided reading or small group instruction. I can put this right on the table and visually reinforce what we’re working on. It helps the kids remember to use the strategy as they read too! And the nice thing about this particular stand is that it has multiple sleeves. I can load it up with different strategy visuals and just flip, flip, flip as the day progresses! The visuals can be found in my guided reading packs, HERE (they are also in my reading workshop toolkits) and the stand-up chart can be found HERE. I think using these types of tools is even more important for students who struggle academically or with behavior. Here’s a photo of what I’ve started to do recently with students in intervention: You can get an editable file to create your own cards like this by clicking HERE. (You will need to make a COPY of the file so that you can edit it. You can also download it as a PowerPoint template. And the font I used is KG Primary Penmanship, which you can get HERE – it’s free for personal use.) #3: Have a student helper remind you to use the resources suggested above. Honestly, I am quite forgetful. So I set myself up for success by
No one wants kids to play on electronics all the time. The BEST Boredom Buster Jar for Kids can be created for your home and I’m going to show you how.
Stop me if you’ve been here before. You finally got the kids to bed. And I mean, FINALLY. (There was a struggle.) Now it’s, what, 9pm? And you’ve had a ... Read more
From self-care days to entertainment, date ideas at home to learning something new, try this list of things to do when you're bored at home!
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You're not done decluttering until the clutter is out of your house! Here are 4 options to help you figure out what to do with the stuff you're decluttering
