It seems like every day there is an endless stream of students reporting behaviors or incidents that happen in the classroom. On one hand, we want to help our students feel heard and validated so they know we are a safe person for them to talk to. On the other hand, we certainly don't want to feed into the tattle machine. It's a fine line to walk. So how do we handle tattling in our classrooms?
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Why Teach About Choices Each Person Has Control Over?Recognizing what is in our control helps young (and older!) people cultivate a strong internal locus of control and sense of self-efficacy, which are important building blocks for self-esteem, compassion towards self and others, having a growth mi...
I had a conversation recently with a colleague, and we agreed that in order to have a classroom with fewer behavior problems, all teachers have to do is enforce two rules: respect yourself and resp…
Ramblings of a stamp, ink and paper addict
The fear of imperfection. The fear of not being good enough. Crippling inaction. Stuttered words. No self-worth. The fear of failure causing failure. Not inability, talent or a lack of opportunity…
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On the first day of school I always guide my students to create the classroom rules. I base this off the Ideal Classroom activity in the TRIBES book and it really helps the students understand the importance of having classroom rules (to keep us safe and help us learn). Usually the students come up with A LOT of rules and I help them narrow them down to five (and they are usually very similar, if not the same, year to year). This year, though, I was quite impressed with the rules that my students came up with, and they couldn't narrow it any further down from six. I always write the rules on a poster board and the kids sign this "contract" for the year. We have been working on our first week time capsules. Yesterday the students wrote their first day letters to themselves and today they worked on a posted that includes: handprint, footprint, thumbprint, and list of favorites. I went around the room and cut a piece of string to the length of each students' height. All of these are placed in an envelope and sealed until the end of the year. I got some free envelopes a few years ago and loved the black ones, but never had a chance to use them. I figured this was a perfect opportunity. They put their photo on the front of their envelope and wrote on them in white crayon/pencil. We have a few more items to add to their time capsules before we seal them up! Here are a few from today.
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Ok, just because I've been gone from 'blogging land' doesn't mean we haven't been working hard in 4B. I've definitely been documenting a lot of what we've been doing! To start, it was clear to me that our old way of peer conferencing just wasn't working. Kids seemed to be goofing around, not really helping each other, and it was a waste of everyone's time. It frustrated me when most of my one-on-one conference time was spent managing unruly PEER conferences. I knew something had to change. I decided to revamp our workshop so that our peer conferences would hold both the author and the peer more accountable AND work on our 6-traits language. I introduced our 'new' method for peer conferencing using this anchor chart to document our process. After students finish drafting, they are to grab a 6-traits peer conferencing sheet and assess themselves by circling all the descriptors for each trait that they feel match their own writing. Mind you, we did a lot of whole-class practice with scoring writing based on the 6-traits criteria so students would feel comfortable doing this process on their own (and being HONEST!). Through our mini-lessons we've learned that it's possible to have high scores in some traits but lower scores in others. That's how we grow! Here you see Devin circling where he thinks his writing falls on our 6-traits rubric. (Note: The link to the 6-traits peer conferencing sheet above will bring you to an even more updated version than the one shown in this blog posting! Just FYI!) Here's another student assessing her own writing after she's drafted. This student has finished assessing her writing using our rubric. She decides on a final number score and circles it to the left of the descriptors. Then it's time to meet with a peer. (We have a peer conference sign-up sheet in our room which helps students know which other students in the room are also ready to peer conference.) Here you see this author reading his story to his peer. After he's done reading, he will explain to his peer the scores he gave himself and why. It's important for the peer to listen carefully to the author because it will soon be her turn to assign a score to this author for each trait . On the lines on the rubric, she will write to explain the scores she gives him. The peer needs to follow the following sentence stems in his/her scoring response: * I give this a writer a ___ because... * This writer needs to work on ... This process requires peers to truly work together, hold each other accountable, and it gets the kids using our 6-traits language a lot more. The second sentence stem helps the writer establish a goal for what to work on when revising! To see more of this peer conferencing process, watch a clip of us practicing this stage! Our focus lately has been on the trait of organization. We've been looking thoroughly at different beginnings and endings of both student and published writing. Here is our anchor chart documenting what we noticed! In other Writer's Workshop news, these are a few additional anchor charts we have in our room to help keep our writing organized. This anchor chart reminds us of powerful words to use to spice up 'said'! In reading we have been working hard on purposeful talk.This is so very important to the social construction of knowledge in any classroom! It's essential to teach students purposeful talk behaviors before even considering literature discussion groups (LDGs). The majority of kids talk like...well, KIDS! So, if we expect kids to talk like mature young people about different texts they read, we need to explicitly teach them how! Talking about Text by Maria Nichols is a great place to start if you're interesting in learning more about purposeful talk behaviors. I taught each of the behaviors individually through two separate mini-lessons - one day to explain 'hearing all voices' in a concrete way (without text), and a second day to practice 'hearing all voices' using text. Then I taught 'saying something meaningful' in a concrete way without using text, and the next day we practiced 'saying something meaningful' using text , and so on. Eventually all of the purposeful talk behaviors kind of blended together and kids started to discover that we often need to use all of these things at the same time in order to truly talk purposefully about anything! We did a lot of practicing, and I've been taping students in this process. Here is a clip of students practicing their behaviors while they talk about their families. (We had read a few books about different kinds of families to foster a safe environment to celebrate the fact that we all have different kinds of families!) We also had students practice their purposeful talk behaviors while discussing their best or worst memory in school (which helped warm up their brains for a timed writing activity we did during writer's workshop). Here is a clip! As a class, we watched these video clips to analyze our body language and other purposeful talk behaviors. I think taping and analyzing is a very effective way for students to learn how they should look and sound in an LDG. 'Keeping the lines of thinking alive' is a tough concept for many youngsters. Sometimes what happens is that students take turns talking, but they don't really build on what the person before them said. In other words, they don't really DISCUSS, they just share and listen. We applauded the first group in this clip because they had good body language and were respectful as listeners, but we discovered their conversation needed to be more 'alive' by asking questions and making connections to each other's ideas and thoughts. Mrs. Pierce and I taped ourselves doing a weak LDG and a strong LDG. As we watched each example, we used dots and lines to 'map out' our conversations (see chart below). In the weak LDG, we discovered Mrs. Pierce and I shared a lot of individual thoughts. The thought started, and then it stopped. There was really no discussion about anything we said; and Mrs. Pierce wasn't even looking at me during part of our time together! How rude! ;) In the strong LDG example, we mapped out a lot of dots and lines that were connected because we took each other's ideas and built on them. We truly discussed the text to dig deeper. We introduced several conversational moves for students to use to help get their voice heard in a conversation. Students also have these conversational moves on a bookmark that they keep in their LDG books. After we learned the respectful ways to speak and act when discussing with others, it was time to teach our kids how to flag their thinking. This is a crucial step to holding a successful literature discussion group because it allows the kids to track their important thoughts while reading so they have ideas for discussion the next day. Here are the 'codes' we use to track our thinking on post-its. We encourage students to use one of our codes to categorize the kind of thought they have and then write a few words to trigger their thought. This helps them when they get into a discussion group; they'll actually have pinpointed ideas to discuss! Students kept a chart in their Thoughtful Logs with all of our codes on it for easy reference. Here's a clip of our students as they practice flagging their thinking for the first time. The next day, students put all their new learning to the test. We put them in small groups to discuss the text "Slower Than the Rest" which is a short realistic fiction story out of Cynthia Rylant's book Every Living Thing. On another day, we used a high-interest two-page non-fiction text about leeches to continue practicing flagging our thoughts. Here's a clip of our kids flagging their thinking just after we modeled it during our mini-lesson. Below are some pictures of the kids' flagged thoughts. In addition to purposeful talk, we've also been studying the historical fiction genre. We've read several mentor texts, including Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner and Dandelions by Eve Bunting. Our first round of literature discussion books are all within the historical fiction genre. Here are a few of our historical fiction LDGs hard at work: Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail Scraps of Time: Abby Takes a Stand The River and the Trace (I think I put my finger over the microphone at minute 2:00!) Oftentimes, historical fiction books will have a flashback in them. One group's book, called A Scrap of Time: Abby Takes a Stand by Patricia McKissick, has a flashback that occurs towards the beginning of the story. I photocopied some of the pages to try to explain this technique during a whole class mini-lesson. In the first section of the book, three grandkids are spending time with their grandma in her attic. They find an old menu and ask their grandma why she saved it. Chapters 1 through 12 flash back to 1960, where 'grandma' is just 10-years-old, living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time of a lot of civil rights protests. The menu is from a restaurant where a lot of sit-ins took place. Through the flashback a reader learns all about life during the 1960s. In the final section of the book, a reader finds him/herself back in the present - in grandma's attic, where the three grandkids ask their grandma some questions about her life during the sixties. There was also another flashback in the story Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner. We also read The Wreck of the Zephyr by Chris VanAllsburg as an example of a flashback in a fantasy book! In other reading news, here is a picture of the anchor chart that stored all the non-fiction text features we've learned. In social studies, we've been studying the economy of the five U.S. regions. Students have been reading small sections of non-fiction leveled readers to summarize a product or industry that is important to each region's economy. Students are typing up their summaries and we're calling those summaries 'articles' as they each create a magazine of our economy. Through this project, students have learned to: * Summarize main ideas * Center and left-justify their cursor * Use the tab key to indent * Change font size, color, and style * Bold, underline, and italicize * Safe image searches * Copy and paste * Cite their picture resources Here is the inside of one student's magazine. Next week we will be using this site to create magazine covers! Lastly, we had a chance to meet with our second-grade buddies earlier this month. We split the buddies up into two groups and one group stayed with Mrs. Adams to play holiday bingo. The other group was with me in the computer lab. Buddies used this site to play a variety of math and English games. One of the most popular games to play was called 'Story Plant' where students could click on different leaves to create the beginning to a unique story. Depending on what leaves were clicked, you would get a different combination of characters, settings, problems, etc. The computer generates a beginning to a story that the kids can print off and finish during writer's workshop! Have a wonderful weekend!
Learn more about Katie Garner, M.Ed., an internationally recognized literacy consultant, keynote speaker & author of Secret Stories® Cracking the Reading Code with the Brain in Mind.
Did he seriously just say that? How often has one of our students with Autism, ADHD, or other difficulties said something completely inappropriate to a peer or adult, but not even realize that what they said was inappropriate!? This activity provides a way for students to learn that some thoughts should be kept to themselves! Students ...
Face proportions If you divide your face to three horizontal parts, you will find that one of the parts is relatively larger than the other two parts. This dominant part can tell some information about your personality and thinking style. The three...
Winning can make you feel really happy, and losing can make you feel sad or down. The way you act after you win or lose is very important. Remember to use good manners and try not to be a sore loser or winner! Spanish Version Included with Download (pg. 2)!
I’ll be attending the SCBWI conference in NYC at the end of the month — hope to see some of you there!
Why I Picked It Up: I will have to come clean here. I honestly don’t remember why I have this one. It probably came in a package of multiple books that I ordered one late night, when I proba…
She was rare and he knew he would never compare her to other women. Hand typed on stationary by Poet Alfa. This is one of my most loved poems. Perfect for: Strong Women Resilience Starting over New beginnings Motivational Empowerment Self Worth Breakups This is a typed poem created on one of my vintage typewriters. It's perfect for framing on cream or white stationary. It depends on what I have on hand. Approximately Sized 5" x 4" - 5" x 7". All poems are signed inside by the author. Look at my other listings for more poems-prose-thoughts on other mediums and different sizes. If you see a particular poem you would like typed up, please refer to this listing below. I can type anything you see on social media. https://www.etsy.com/AlfaWorldwide/listing/491780186/any-typed-poem-quote-or-passage-seen-on?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1615566614946 Look for me on Facebook at Alfawrites, Shewearspainlikediamonds, Ineededaviking and Ifindyouinthedarkness. My newest page FB is Simply Poetic home where I will share home décor and easy crafts inspired by a poetic lifestyle. Instagram at @Alfa.poet @Shewearspainlikediamonds @Ineededaviking @ifindyouinthedarkness @simplypoetichome Pinterest: alfaholdenpoetry I am starting a blog here: www.simplypoetichome.com I have written 8 poetry books and I have some signed copies in my Esty store. Shipping: I try my best to get all my items out as quickly as possible but due to the pandemic (and many USA cities having trouble receiving mail due to undeliverable addresses) I cannot guarantee shipping speed. Please keep in mind that right now most shipping times are beyond my control. However I do ship purchased items the next day in most cases. _____________________
Emotional triggers can put you in a great mood, launch you into a state of rage, or set your recovery goals back to the stone age. I'm a person in long-term recovery. I practice emotional sobriety. I work with sponsors in two 12-step programs to help me get along peacefully with other people and the world. I still made someone cry this past week. It was not intentional and I felt terrible.
In 2016 I wrote a blog post about 10 Techie Themed Read Aloud Books and my list keeps growing! I wanted to compile all of the elementary picture books arranged by topic in one area. Let me know if you have any recommendations we can add to this list! **All links are Amazon affiliate links** Also be sure to check out my post: 5 Reasons to Use Technology Themed Picture Books to Help Reinforce Digital Citizenship. *If you are unable to view the Amazon widgets below, try installing an Ad Blocker extension.* Responsible Use of Technology Online Safety Reliable Sources Digital Footprint Cyberbullying Screen Time/Technology Addiction/Unplugging Coding/Programming 3D Printing Drones Email Etiquette Other Books with "Techie" Themes Thank you to the following educators for introducing me to some of these titles: Mrs. Haglin Sandy Liptak Jennifer Elizabeth Mary Ledford Kim Field Renuka Senaratne Calandra Jackson Renuka Senaratne Eat Pray Travel Teach Ramona Recommends Storymamas Follow me on Pinterest to get more techie ideas:
Discover fun and engaging idioms practice activities for your classroom! Explore popular idioms and creative idioms lessons while...
I bought this wonderful oversize book called The Bumper Book (1946) at an estate sale this weekend for $5.00. There are many stories, poems and fabulous illustrations within. Wynken Blynken and Nod is a special favorite of mine and I know that many others like it too. Illustration by Eulalie.
Want to increase sibling kindness rather than fighting and competition? Turn siblings into teammates and play this game together!
Performed by Zendaya and Zac Efron, “Rewrite The Stars” is a simple melody played over many octaves, so an interesting challenge for beginners and intermediates on most instruments. This is now the 5th “The Greatest Showman” song I’ve done, I hope you enjoy this and the others and that’s probably enough for now! 🙂 …
Trust building activities are a great way to build trust between people that have just met, and get them to form a bond, loosen up and have fun. Here are 3!
This freebie is a reminder that sometimes I-messages can be tricky because they can often come off as blaming and accusatory. Just because a sentence starts with "I" does not make it an assertive, non-defensive I-message. .Assertiveness means expressing your point of view in a way that is clear and ...
