Five for Friday...promethean board....books and Mother's Day!

It is time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

 

 

 

This is a great book.......

 

 

 



 

 

and leads into a great activity and bulletin board/display.

 

 

As I was teaching a lesson last week on the promethean board, I told the kids..."a while ago I was teaching lessons on a chalkboard and now we use this amazing thing!" The kids know about sidewalk chalk, and have seen the little chalkboards,  but they couldn't imagine a large one on the wall. Ha! (after all, we had whiteboards in between) Anyway, I have been putting more effort into learning how to use my promethean board and it can really help in advanced planning! For example, instead of writing every detail in sub plans......

 

 

I add specific teacher instructions for those unexpected sub moments!

These set ups take a little time to create, but are worth it. The sheep sort was made a couple of years ago and luckily I remembered where I saved it!

 

Another advantage to setting up a flipchart for each day of the week...

I don't FORGET skills I want to review!

 

 

I presented it this way for two reasons:

1. They are getting very antsy right now and they don't groan because we are only doing two letters.

2. They know that snack is NEXT, and so are willing to do what I want to get to that very important event!

 

A co-worker has promised to teach me how to attach videos and/or music to a page so we can listen and sing a months of the year  or days of the week song.

I know it is probably EASY...baby steps...baby steps...

 

 

 

This time of year is so stinkin stressful!

So tired of working late, working, working, working!

Along with it other WORRIES...

will my leg heal soon....will I have to go to jury duty....are my lesson plans ready....can I pack for ESY by the deadline....

AHHHHHH!

This little quote and picture is a good reminder....

it's allllll good and will get done when it gets done!

 

 



 

 

Happy Mother's Day Mom! If you have Wi-Fi in Heaven....

I love you and miss you everyday!

 

 

 

That's all I got...

 

 

Later,

 

 

Paula

 

 

Interactive Notebooks

I have  been looking at other teacher blogs and considering the Interactive Notebook. Here are just a few......
Everybody is a Genius

All Students can Shine

Bright Concepts 4 Teachers
It seems to be the thing now a days!  My groups have very mixed skills and these notebooks look like a great way to individualize as well.

I think what really helped me understand their purpose was when All Students can Shine said students were building their own text book. I finally got it!

There are basically two ways to set them up, use a spiral type notebook or a binder. Also some teachers use a composition notebook instead of the spiral because the wires can be a pain in the backside. I went with the binder idea, I love binders...they are awesome, help me organize stuff and I want to teach my kids how to organize independently.

Of course, I checked out Pinterest and started a board! There are millions of ideas there!

After searching on Teachers Pay Teachers I decided on Lori Vine's Reading Notebook. Lori is from Conversations in Literacy and she has a lot of great ideas.

I decided to stick with reading and writing. I also wanted the students to build their own notebook so maybe they could better understand how it is organized. I gave them each section and provided a short description of what it was for. Each section is also color coded, so when I said, "This goes in your word work section", I also would add "the purple section".

So here are some pictures of what we are doing with our Interactive Notebooks!

 

The envelope is for those pieces that have been cut out and we ran out of time to glue down.  Thank you again All Students Can Shine!

 

This one is my own creation. You can get it free here.

 

This sort is from "Words Their Way". The chart is with Lori's Interactive Notebook packet.

 

I created this one also. They like the flap!

Lori included sound boxes in her packet and the kids love to work on them! They asked if we can do it everyday! They are in plastic sleeves so they can write and erase easily.

This is from Lori's packet too!

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The word wheels adapted to the notebook.

 

 

We made pocket pages for the booklets with our reading program.

 

 

I thought this would be so fun and appealing, but honestly the kids weren't that impressed. You just never know!

I plan to use this strategy next year, with some more thought and planning going into it and depending on the needs of my students. Each school year brings new challenges!

What have you done with INBs? Feel free to leave a comment with a link!

Later,

Paula

Five for Friday!! Spring Here we come!

Doodle Bugs Teaching!

Wahooooo! A whole week off from that place of learning and structure! Now should I plan my week off or just let it flow? If I don't plan things, nothing will get it done! If I do, it will be a lot like work!

There were many special events this week! Our schedule was off, grades are due, special ed. progress reports due..... and the students were vibrating...you could feel the hummmmmmm when you entered the building!

So the regular stuff wasn't working, who wants to sit through Reading Mastery lessons when  it's almost Spring Break?

We read The First Dog by Jan Brett....

They loved the book, I asked them what happened first, and then next and so on and typed it on the Promethean board as they reported each part.

The next day I  printed out their sentences, folded up some paper, stapled it...and set them loose on it! They did awesome of course!

The NEXT day, we read another book about dogs and a cat....

Danger the Dog Yard Cat

by Libby Riddles

(dog sled musher/ Iditarod Champion extraordinaire and first woman to win the 1049 mile race)

and made these simple and fun puppets.....

(they LOVE puppets)

and of course....Dr. Seuss.....here's our hallway bulletin board.....

It's a collage of Dr. Seuss characters from years past, and a  "Read across America" vintage poster with Garth Brooks! I've had THAT awhile.(he is still awesome!)

Our WINNING DOOR!

Great Day for UP by Dr. Seuss

The idea is to have the students do as much as possible....They cut the grass tufts, they decorated their own balloons and baskets, cut out the clouds, cut out the mini UP signs and of course posed for the pictures!

....with the upcoming break we thought the faces of the adults who work out of our classroom 

belonged on the bed next to the ending quote from the book.

There are so many creative people in our building! Here are some more doors and hallway art. I didn't get upstairs to take pictures so there are some missing.

and now I'm watching the Iditarod ceremonial start on TV! 

It's a good start to Spring Break and it's been snowing for a couple of days! Feels normal.

Later,

Paula