Here is the Behavior Record Sheet that can be used with intermediate grades to avoid the stern reprimands and frustration and turn conversations into collaboration between teacher and student. This also holds the student accountable for their actions. I will be collecting these as evidence for parent-teacher conferences and for administrative data. Feel free to steal! In high school, one of my favorite teachers had us come up with a detailed goal through a website online. I set out to find that website as it computed a personal mission statement for you when you finished. I found this wonderful website instead! This is geared more towards elementary-aged students as it is more user-friendly and attractive to a younger audience. This sets the kids up for making their own goal with 4 examples to choose from. It even goes into what obstacles they may face that could prevent their goal from happening. My favorite part of about this website is that it can be decorated and printed out. This could be something that could be kept all year or hung up for display in the hallways. I have a strong feeling parents would love this and it could foster stronger parent-involvement if the goal sheet went home. If I ever implement, you all will be hearing about it!!
http://kidshealth.org/teen/misc/making_a_change_module.html During internship last year, my CT got a grant from Pizza Hut called the BOOK IT! Read Your Heart Out program. This was a wonderful incentive program to encourage the kids to read frequently and challenge their changing reading levels. In the beginning of the year, the students were awarded a free pan personal pan pizza if they read three books per week and took an Accelerated Reader (AR) test on the computer. Gradually throughout the year, the difficulty increased. For example, they then had to complete three tests with an 80% or higher and only books on the student's level would count towards a pizza. Later the percentage was raised to 85% as they completed for the highest AR points in the school and county. The incentive of free pizza never got old to the kids. Everyone still wanted the pizza even until the last day of school. It was also interesting to see students work extra hard to earn two pizzas in one week. Many told us they haven't turned in their coupons so they can wait until they have enough for their whole family to go all at once. (These kids are wonderful!) I recommend this incentive program as it comes with a packet per student with logging sheets and other reading materials. All the information is in the link below. Enjoy! BOOK IT! Read Your Heart Out Through my own exploration and collaboration with my peers, I have made a personal list of useful apps for any classroom that have personally made an impact on my students' learning. Oh, did I mention they are all FREE??
TeacherKit - "No classroom without it" They stay true to their motto! This app lets you have a personal desk for each student and upload their personal information including: identification picture, parent's email and phone number, grades, behavior, and attendance. You can upload assignments on a calender basis and input scores with a touch. This is handy for teachers with multiple classrooms or period because you can have multiple classrooms simultaneously working! You can also email parents straight from the app. ShowMe - for many secondary teachers, students have computers they use for studying. Instead of posting YouTube videos of your lectures, you can make videos of your physically written work, similar to what a SmartBoard would do, and record your voice as you walk students through the math problem, for instance. The students have your account information and find your videos online where you post them straight from your iPad. Personal tutorials made simple that students can rewind and repeat as many times as they please! Similar to Khan Academy but more personalized to your curriculum. Fotopedia - Okay, I don't even know where to start. This "company" of apps has about a dozen apps of varying countries and topics. The one i personally use most with the kids ins the Wild Friends as it has professional pictures of wild animals that are truly fascinating. The others include specific countries where students can explore Italy in all it's glory with just a few swipes. The apps also let you save favorite pictures in a separate folder and if you click on more information, maps with show up and it will show you the exact location of where that animal or landmark is located. Couldn't be more impressed! Timbuktu - This is great for the younger ones! It's an online interactive magazine that updates stories and activities weekly. You may buy "bubbles" which are like coins to open specific stories and activities but the free ones are still great Kids can touch grasshoppers that fly across the page and make hopping noises and change the moon into the sun by pulling a light pull. Super interactive! Common Core - Lesson planning made easy. Separates standards by subject > Grade level > specific objective. Life saver. Math Ninja - Similar to the popular Fruit Ninja, kids must think quickly to slice the correct answer to the math equation! Science 360 - This has an endless amount kid friendly "articles" that come with amazing photos and videos for kids to explore. Just hand this off to a student and they may not want to give it up! Endless ABC - Best for Kindergarten but I've also found this helpful for ELL students Letters wiggle and make the most adorable sounds as you click and drag them to their appropriate spot. Kids learn their letters and simple spelling words while laughing the entire time! **BooksApp2 - This is a true breakthrough. Enter each student in your contacts. Scan every book in your library or search through Google. You will have scanned your entire classroom library with a few touches and students can "check out" books when they please. If a student wants that same book, they can quickly see who has that book. The teacher can set due dates for certain books and checked out books are grayed showing they are unavailable for check out. Fabulous! Math Sprint - another on your feet math game that gives students an extended amount of time to answer as many math questions as they can. medals are awarded along with unlocked levels. Futuba - a game show theme that is great for ELL learners. Up to 4 players (one fore each edge of the iPad) players join and race to tap the object's name that spins in the middle of the screen. Best of three rounds wins. If you purchase the full version you can create your own questions for the game. This is suitable for all subjects and I've heard wonderful reviews form my colleagues although I have not purchased it myself! A wonderful article given to me by my literacy professor and content coach, Becky Powell. She always knows where to find the best resources! Enjoy! Here is a wonderful article by Nel Noddings shared with my by Lindsay Persohn. Lindsay was my professor for Children's Literature who has fabulous ideas with anything related to children. She is to blame for my successful read alouds and SSR time with my third graders. I respect her opinions and reading choices greatly. Two on my favorite quotes from this article were: "We can give students opportunities to think well in any course we offer, provided the students are interested in the subjects discussed. Algebra can be taught thoughtfully or stupidly. So can drafting, cooking, or parenting." and "Our focus thus far has been on the students. But what about the teachers? Are they encouraged to think?" In Windham, NH dodge ball has been banned due to a complaint of bullying. The school board voted 4-1 on the ban. Some parents and students are outraged, others are all for it. I struggle to make a decision on sides here. I can see how the violent act may lead to bullying and I also see the kids' perspectives of a game simply being a game. What do you think? Is dodge ball an age-old game that should continue? Are some being overly sensitive to the object of the game? Should we let "kids be kids?" Read the linked article for the details and make your own decision. I am just as lost as I was in my original BULLY post! Recently, while watching a CNN special, the documentary BULLY was being highlighted. The movie first came out in 2011 but the major parts of the movie were played to again raise awareness of the epidemic. I am very upset that I still have not seen the film. But I am going to get a few of my colleagues together to buy the DVD. Apparently there is a PG-13 version so I’m wondering if there is a G/PG version out there so I can show my future classes the film. There is also a teacher guide to the documentary which is book so this is also something I would like to invest it. The entire concept of bullying could be a standalone unit in civics or citizenship. In CNN’s shortened highlights of the movie, a black screen of a statistic: 7 in 10 teachers are NOT trained in bully prevention. This hit me hard. Why isn’t the well-being of students just as important as learning to read? Is it as important and I am just not seeing that? Is my own education preparing me for bully prevention and solution? What would I do if I had a bully and a victim in my future classroom? It’s very easy to say that you wouldn’t tolerate bullying, but in what ways would you make sure this doesn’t happen? My initial prevention would be to create a comfortable community in which all of my students are free to share their feelings without being penalized or mocked because of it. If this community fails, even after reinforcement from me, as the teacher, then what will I do? I found myself stumped sitting on the couch as the film proceeded. After bringing up this experience of puzzlement on the issue, I asked my professors if bully prevention would be a part of our curriculum. They are currently working with me to incorporate this into my final internship and I am very excited about it! This is something I want to know how to fix because it happens all too often. I also have to take into consideration all perspectives: bully, victim, bystanders, educators, parents, bus drivers, friends, family, and siblings. Each of these views in an issue regarding bullying can change a situation completely. Who do you talk to first? Do you hand the problem off to the next higher up? What if a parent approaches me about their child being a victim and I had no idea the matter was occurring? If you refer back to my weekly reflection post “Weekly Reflection Apr. 8 - Apr. 12,” you will see that I struggled with a girl situation. While I would not call this bullying, I was definitely lost in an appropriate solution for these girls. I can only hope that my instinct was correct with the way I handled that particular situation. I will post updates on my bully-free teacher education as I believe that optimum learning environments equate for the best learning. Although this is a lot easier said than done, I also believe that it is worth it to create a safe learning environment for not only my students, but all who enter my classroom. Other Resources: The Bully Project U.S. Department of Education As a person with a major interest in STEM fields, this is something I found very interesting. This video highlights MANY successful people who share their reasoning behind the importance of learning to code for software. Many schools have magnet programs supporting this but usually it is only offered at the high school level. Why? Maybe it is because of the focus on reading and standardized testing. Regardless, if I had more time, I would love to learn to code. It is the the most basic form of using any website of software. I wish I was exposed to this opportunity in school. This is definitely something to look into and to keep in mind your students' interests. They may never know they are good at something until they have been given the opportunity to try it! Enjoy!
Code Academy - For ALL ages and levels! Code.Org I have a student who attempted to write their name in cursive on a few papers that were turned in.
After inquiring where they learned the few letters they had, I was told that on their name tags they have a cursive alphabet. I asked my student if they would like me to find them practice worksheets to do at home and they were very eager to accept the challenge! This is a PDF I found from http://www.aquariancharterschool.com out of Anchorage Alaska that is great for introducing to intermediate grades. It has them first practice the letter and then actually use it in a word, making it relevant. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did! While running our Morning Meeting on Monday, two group members and myself found it beneficial to share resources and cute "teacher tricks" we have observed in our classrooms so far. The issue of getting carried away with story-telling among 24 females and 1 male has been addressed so we changed the "sharing" part of our morning meeting to resource sharing. Anything from classroom management skills, attention-getting routines, creating classroom unity, and teacher-friendly websites were shared. Here are some of the following:
HaveFunTeaching.com BusyTeachersCafe.com - FREE lesson plans, classroom ideas, and management strategies! BrainPop.com - A new story everyday! GigglePoetry.com - Cute poetry website for all grade levels StorylineOnline.net USALearns.org -- For parents that are having trouble with their own English skills and want to help their kids with homework! Set up like Rosetta Stone, yet starts on a higher level; not to be used by young kids. Nces.ed.gov Wordle.net - Create your own word cloud for FREE with a simple copy and paste. This turns your most important words into the center of attention! InterventionCentral.org - interventions for all things from academic to behavioral (Given to me from Jennifer Ward) FCRR.org - interventions regarding reading skills (Also given to me from Jennifer Ward) http://www.nettrekker.com/us/ - For all subjects and can be specified to grade level. Better for intermediate but great online resource that it filtered for students. Reduces internet browsing issues in the classroom! (Given to me from Dr. Michael Berson) https://www.teachingchannel.org/?national=1 - Great website! Should be under every teacher's favorites! (Given to me by Dr. Michael Berson) http://www.socialstudies.com/c/index.html?nocache@10+s@TvVW3oUF2BM2s - Will send you free catalog if you ask. All Social Studies lessons and ideas to teach specific topics. (Given to me from Dr. Michael Berson) CoreStandards.org - Will be using this frequently in the near future. WorkSheetWorks.com - I made a daily calender on this and it is completely customized. You can also make webs, maps, whatever you can think of! NBACares.com - To prove that they are "bigger than basketball" Microsoft.com - I came across this helpful website which lets you create grade books, seating charts, quizzes, and more all on Microsoft! P.E.Central.org - This is a website primarily for PE teachers, but can be used across the curriculum for classroom teachers to get their kids moving. Wonderful for integration activity for all level and ages. TwiceAsNice.com - An educational consignment shop for teachers. All items are extremely discounted and gently used. ReadWriteThink.com - This has great writing-related lessons that can easily be differentiated. PecLogIt.com -This is something I found through PECentral. It gives a class set of pedometers for FREE and each student can log how many steps they walk a day. This also allows you to enter a nation-wide contest and see which class can stay the most active! RoomMom101.com - A website to encourage the cuter side of teaching. Mostly door decoration ideas and baking ideas for the kids but definitely something to look at for ideas every now and then! ReadingRockets.com - This is great for teachers to recommend to parents of struggling readers. It has resources for teachers, librarians, parents, and most importantly, students! MindsInBloom.com - 20 minute Brain Breaks for all ages! Globio.com (Earth Day) - I found this while looking specifically for Earth Day lessons but found it has great resources for anything related to geography. This is great because it is geared towards the younger grades rather than middle or high school. IXL.com - For all grade levels; math activities perfect for whole group or individual practice at home. 123Certificates.com - FREE printable birthday cards that are completely customizable from font to background! SoftSchools.com - Create your own multiplication math worksheets and more! **These are all linked and I will update frequently so please feel free to "steal" some of my resources that I have learned from others!** |
AuthorThis is a collection of online resources, quick tips I found through the grapevine, and stories to inspire anyone. Enjoy! My Favorite Websites:
CoreStandards.org InterventionCentral.org WorkSheetWorks.com FCRR.org MindsInBloom.com IXL.com EdWeek.org RoomMom101.com Categories
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