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

 

 

Five for Friday or maybe Sunday!....October 18, 2013

Here I am at last...linking up with Doodle Bugs!

1. Twenty-Six Pirates  with a paper bag pirate puppet! Just try saying that 5 times! Which I did because one of my little guys lost his puppet while we walked around the school. The wonderful puppet was in a bag, but my guy is so BOUNCY, a lot like Tigger, that the pirate jumped right out! Soooo...we walked around asking various people "Have you seen a paper bag pirate puppet?"  We never found it, I'm hoping it turns up. In the meantime, I gave him my demo model. I hadn't taken a picture, so my daughter colored another for me and put it together, it is much nicer then my first one!

The pirate template is from Teacher Created Materials, I got a copy from another teacher, then covered the letter that was on the him (I think he was Pete the Pirate). We read the book, Twenty-Six Pirates by Dave Horowitz,  and we noted how each pirate name's beginning letter was somewhere on their person...on their shirt, hat or on a necklace. Their names always rhyme with the next line, for example..."Pirate Arty. First to the party!" I instructed the students to choose a letter and name their pirate. They loved this activity! 


2. Behavior Program adjustment!  Things were just not going well with my current clip system, moving the clip made everyone more volatile! I took a long, hard look at my behavior system...the token cards were working (see my September 27 post), BUT they were bulky and I had to carry three (yes, yes, I tried having them carry their own...). The clip system wasn't going anywhere, they really like getting a sticker on a chart daily when they stayed green. When the chart is full, treasure box time! So I retired the green,yellow, red light poster. I explored Teacher Pay Teachers and found a replacement for the token cards...punch cards! I chose a FREE design from http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Kristi-Deroche . There are A LOT of punch cards to choose from on that site, however, Kristi's has paw prints which goes with our school mascot and there are 10 prints.  Thank you Kristi!  I kept the sticker charts, if they fill one punch card, they get a sticker and play time. Tally marks are used when I get a point, The points transform into "reflective minutes" or timeout, take your pick. I put the punch cards on a lanyard around my neck, carry a hole puncher and a dry erase marker.

3. A new rug! 

4. I tweaked the math area a bit....

5. Preparing for Halloween! I hummed that Garfield Halloween Special tune..."what will I be, there's so many sides of me..."while I went through our boxes. My daughter and friend carved pumpkins, I'm not sure they will keep 10 more days..we shall see.

I am wearing down, working 9 weeks now without a lunch or prep time! I do eat with the first graders, so I'm not starving, but I get cranky before the day is over and I don't like to do that. My teacher assistants and I look at our schedules constantly, but there is just not an opening for me to hand kids to someone else and walk away for a little bit. This week, I'm going to talk to my supervisor about it, I hate to be a whiner and don't want that label. There is also a concern that no one will sub for me because they don't get a lunch!

Next week, I go to MANDT training! 

Paula

Star Gazing in a Camp Theme Classroom

Put some stars on the ceiling, program them with whatever you want to practice....

 

Cover windows to darken the room, my awesome assistant provided black sheets and the big dipper...

 

 

hand kids a flashlight, turn off the lights....

a fun and motivating lesson!

 

The first week we wrote individual letters and basic sight words on the stars.

The second week we added pictures with the words from our camp words. We discovered that some of our kids needed help recognizing letters by name and we wanted to give them something to call out that they knew independently. Other skills: naming shapes and numbers.

 

 

Many of our students are working on verbal expression, so an expectation is to have them shout out what they see as they point their flashlight beam on it, I write it on the whiteboard as they say it. EVERYONE can participate, the child with the communication device can push a button to share his finds!

Each student has a pencil zipper bag with a flashlight, pencil and crayons. I found the flashlights in the Target dollar aisle! The most expensive part was buying the batteries, but it has been totally worth it!

Paula