If you think I have the answers here, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. I'm far from having any answers.
I teach reading at an elementary school. I love what I do! I wanted to share some "ways to praise" that we use in my classroom. These ...
Resources, tips, and materials to help you, help children with autism
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?
Do you teach an autism classroom? Here are my 5 must-haves to help develop your own successful autism classroom!
Attention Getters will cut out your classroom chaos and work for all grade levels. Attention getters in the classroom are the perfect solution if you are...
If you are a 1st-5th grade classroom teacher, grab these 3 highly effective behavior management strategies for elementary students.
When everything is chaotic and you don't know how to regain control, give your classroom to God and watch Him work.
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
FREE Call Backs and attention getters for the kindergarten classroom! Great classroom management tool!
Kick off the new school year with the perfect project for a young crafter or adventurer.
It’s a new year and you likely have new goals, grant money to spend, or maybe just a renewed enthusiasm for inspiring and instructing young minds! Whatever the case, there has never been a better time to gear up your classroom or home with the latest and greatest STEM gadgets and tools. We are have
This post contains affiliate links for your shopping ease. If you make a purchase using my link, Amazon credits me a very small percentage. But don't worry, it doesn't cost you any extra! One of my favorites books for teaching the difference between tattling and telling is A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue. I read this book at the beginning of each school year and throughout the year when my students need a gentle reminder. A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue is about a young boy named Josh who doesn't have many friends. In fact, everyone at school called him "Josh the Tattler." His mom grew tired of the tattling and warned him of getting tattle tongue. With the help of Tattle Prince, Josh learned the difference between tattling and telling! You can learn more about the author, Julia Cook, by clicking the book cover below. I love this book because it describes scenarios that happen in all of our classrooms each and every day. Sometimes it can be very hard for students to distinguish when they need to tell or when it is best to solve the problem on their own and the examples Julia included illustrate it very clearly. I really like the Tattle Prince's Tattle Rules--what a great way help our students become independent and proactive problem solvers! I've created a visual reminder that I display in my classroom. When I notice a student that is just dying to tell me something I remind them to look at the poster to make sure that they really need to tell me. Want to download the tattling poster? Grab this visual reminder by dropping your email address below. Click here! We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered By ConvertKit There are lots of great ideas to curb the tattling in classrooms. Some teachers have a stuffed animal that students can talk to, students can "tell the shell" and whisper into a conch shell, or create a tattle pledge that all students sign to remind them of their responsibility in contributing to the caring classroom. What are your tips and tricks for dealing with tattling in your classroom?
The Montessori Peace Corner: inspiration for home and the classroom as well as resources.
If you have followed the discussion over the past years about "21st Century Skills" or have been on this planet long enough, you know that the ability to work with others is just as important as any "content" knowledge that we, as teachers, can provide. That being said, working "cooperatively" is NOT natural for all people, especially young children, and we have to make sure we are thoughtful about how we help students learn this valuable skill. Today I thought I'd share three key things to keep in mind--and then offer a few suggestions to get your brain thinking about ways to incorporate more learning partnerships in YOUR classroom! Partnerships are the perfect "starting point" for cooperative work! Think about how difficult it is for us, as adults, to get 4 or 5 of us to agree and be productive! Young students simply haven't been around long enough to know how to do that "delicate dance" of sharing, contributing, listening, and more. Learning how to actively listen is easier with just one other person. Sharing with just one person is so much easier for student who are more shy--and it's easier to have a back and forth conversation than try to balance several people. As students become accustomed to working with pairs, then it becomes easier to add people to the group. When forming partnerships, be mindful of your students' feelings. Be careful about the "find a partner" direction--because that is SO difficult for so many students. Whether they be shy, slower thinkers, worried about other students' feelings--asking students to form partners on the fly is often a tricky situation. Think about those who struggle finding partners and make sure everything is safe for them. Ideas? Use a "people picker" like popsicle sticks or index cards. Premake partnerships whenever possible (in addition to avoiding popularity contests, this allows you to encourage students to work with MANY other students, not just best friends). If you DO have students pick partners at times, consider a disclaimer, "If you don't find a partner in 15 seconds, come to me." so you can quickly help pair off those last few students. My students get very used to working with EVERYONE in the class (males, females, tall, small, etc) and they actually REQUEST me to pick popsicle sticks to take the partnering process out of their hands. We need to explicitly TEACH partnering skills Before I ask my students to work in partners, we have a number of discussions where we talk about what partnering LOOKS like, SOUNDS like, and WHY working in partnerships is beneficial. Together we made a list that we continue to refer to as we refine our partnering skills. The students did a pretty good job, I thought! Consider making a similar list with your students to make sure they understand that partnering isn't always easy--but it's worth it! As students start to work in pairs, you may need to stop and review some of these...and your students may come up with different ideas as well. Students need to realize that partnering isn't easy--and they will have to work at it! For some students, understanding that "balanced power" means that BOTH people have to share and both people have to listen is key--they can all relate to times they have had someone try to take over a group...and trying to work with someone who is NOT engaged or on task. So when should I use partnerships? All day long! Think about all the different ways that "Two heads" might be better than one...try some of these! Creating a climate where students work peacefully together will help increase engagement, improve learning, and increase the amount of academic discourse in your classroom. Another added bonus? As students work well TOGETHER, you are free to circulate, coach, and get a better sense of what is happening with your students' learning. Buddy reading Whether your students read with younger students or with others in your class, learning to read so others can hear, taking turns, staying on task, and using an appropriate voice level are all easy to practice with buddy reading. Try making copies of a fun poem for students to experiment with--or have them partner read an article. If you really want to dig in, have students read a novel as partners where they have discussions and buddy reading over an extended period of time. They can even complete a culminating project together! Checking for accuracy One of the first "partner routines" my students learn as we start the school year is "check for accuracy". I start this with basic math problems, math homework, and other tasks--where students work alone, then compare answers with a partner. We then practice how to handle when answers are different...and learn how to re-solve the problem together to see who was wrong and how to "fix up" any mistakes together. This really helps create a climate for collaboration, not competition and is a great way for students to check homework, to check over practice work, or to test the spelling of a tricky word! "Turn and Talk" One of the classic partner activities...and a GREAT way to get all students involved in discussions--turn and talk is a way for students to participate more frequently. This DOES need to be explicitly taught as well. If you simply say, "Turn and talk to a partner", you can sit back and watch certain students immediately turning to a best friend, other students sitting back and waiting to be asked (often ending up sitting silent)--and this doesn't lead to productive talk. Teach students to turn and talk by first checking around them to "include" students (may mean creating a trio!) and to make sure that each partner has a chance to share their ideas. This is a great way to get everyone talking--especially when asking questions ALL students should have access to. Not all students will know the answer to all math problems...but everyone should be able to answer questions related to opinions...to read alouds ("What do you think Ally should do next?")...or other easily accessible ideas. Math games Math games are a fun and easy way to teach the give and take of partnering. When students struggle, you can sit with them and coach the fair play and sportsmanship...but with games, the turn taking part is more automatic and students can work on some of the other factors such as voice level, on task behavior, using supplies wisely and more. This is one of the games in one of my "Partner Play" resources! Partner journals One thing my students enjoy once in a while is what I call "partner journals". You can do a lot of different things with this--but essentially in involves "sharing a notebook" to reflect back and forth on a read aloud, an article, a math problem--anything. Check out THIS POST for more information. It is a great way for students to realize that they write so that others can understand--and if they don't, communication breaks down. Try it and see! Challenge problems Putting students in situations where they need to solve difficult problems can be a great way for partners to learn how to make suggestions, listen to ideas, and politely disagree. When the answer isn't immediately obvious, it becomes clear that "two heads can be better than one"...and students can take their learning to higher levels. What about when students WANT to work alone? This is when coaching might be important...students need to see that other students might have great ideas, might help them find errors in their own thinking--and can make the entire process more fun! My students did a great job partnering on this back to school shopping challenge! These algebra thinking cards were MUCH easier when partners started working together! The math discussions they had were fantastic--and they found lots of misconceptions and mistakes they were making as they worked! My favorite quote? "I knew I could never do math this hard by myself!" And so much more! These are just a few suggestions to get your students working in pairs--but there are so many more! Keep stressing how important collaboration is--and how it takes practice to get good at it...but when we ARE good at it, working together can be so much fun! Follow me on... Facebook Pinterest Instagram @Fourthgradestudio Twitter @FourthGrStudio Periscope @ FourthGrStudio Teachers Pay Teachers Store Blog
Love podcasts? Check out this post in the form of a podcast episode on The Classroom Commute Podcast :
Read through our favorite classroom management hacks and then hop over and become a Plato Pack member for even more teaching tools, strategies and support.
Everything you need to know about teaching 5th grade categorized and organized by topic for easy reference.
Hey, I hope everyone has their book and has decided to join my pal, Tammy, over at Live, Love, Laugh Everyday In Kindergarten as she leads us through our Daily 5 Book Study just for kindergarten. Tammy offered up some guiding questions in her initial post about chapter one. I hope you had a chance…
I'm sharing 5 attention signals, perfect for any elementary classroom. Grab a free set of call-and-response callbacks for your own classroom!
Have you ever had a class that just tried your patience day after day? Have you ever felt like you could walk away from teaching forever tom...
Hello again! Today I am linking up with tons of great teacher bloggers for Five for Friday. I may be a day late, but hey, no judgements right? We just finished up week 5 and you know what that means- back to school germs are full swing. It amazes me every year how many gallons of hand sanitizer and cases of tissues we seem to go through in just a few short weeks. Now that my turn with with germs is done, I can finally see straight long enough to share about our week :) We began Monday with our school's annual Pinwheels for Peace event. Every student in the school creates and decorates a pinwheel in art class. The music teacher also teaches everyone a song about peace. Our entire school community gathered in a circle to watch the pinwheels and sing for peace. Something about all of the children dreaming about a peaceful world always brings a tear to my eye. It's such a powerful event and one I look forward to each year. Last week I got a little "Pinspired" and made a bunch of anchor charts for writing. Now like I tell my students, I went to teacher school, not art school, so they're not perfect. But, I do think they got the job done. I love using anchor charts with my students as a tool to help them recall important information. I usually end up creating basic charts with my students during my lessons, but occasionally I like to fancy them up a bit. Other times I start the basic frame (cute part) before the lesson and create the remaining part with my students. They love having ownership over the work hung in our room and tend to see more value in it compared to something like a store-bought poster simply hung on the wall. After using Pinterest as inspiration for my writing anchor charts, I decided to try my hand at creating my own. This week in science we continued our unit on Force and Motion. Our focus was on the difference between push and pull. We spent the week talking about real life examples while searching our classroom and playground. I introduced the concept of a hard and soft push/pull by having students pass a balloon, koosh ball, and kickball. They could see the amount of force needed to keep the ball off the ground differed.We also used an example of the amount of force it would take to push a baby on a swing compared to an adult. Their favorite example was when we pretended to be super heroes stopping the world from a meteor- they pretended to use a huge amount of force to push it away. The unit 1 theme for our literacy standards focuses on ABC books. We spent the last few weeks reading dozens of them. Who knew there were so many! My students are really enjoying the different books. The unit works well for reinforcing beginning letter sounds and brainstorming words for each page. I am also tying it into our writing standards by focusing on the concept of topic and details. This week we are using the ABC books as inspiration for our own class book. Students chose to create a class ABC book about animals. After brainstorming a list of animals for each letter, students each began creating their own page. I will add pictures next week once we get past the rough draft stage. They are also using informational texts to research additional details about their animal. Although I have enjoyed reading many of these books, I have to say one of my favorites is ABC of Jobs by Roger Priddy. Each page shares a different job description, the clothing required, and a fun fact. My students loved learning about the different career options and it tied in perfectly with preparing students to be college and career ready. I don't know about your class but my kiddos seem to go through pencils at an unbelievable speed. Keeping pencils sharpened seems to take up more time than it should each day. I set up a system where students put their broken pencils into a cup and take out a sharpened one. Now that I had a system in place it was time to find the perfect pencil sharpener. I heard about "the best classroom pencil sharpener" from Classroom Friendly Supplies. I placed an order for the cool blue one and it came in this week. I absolutely love how sharp it makes each pencil. The fabulous reviews are true and it was well worth the money. I am happy to officially welcome fall. In honor of the cool(er) weather, I created a new word problem set. My focus was on addition and subtraction word problems with numbers up to 10. What I love about this product is the ability to use a QR Code reader to self check work. My students are loving the integration of technology! I am having to read the problems out loud for now (lots of non-readers) but they still enjoy it. Thank you for following the randomness of my week. I hope you have a great Saturday!
This is a checklist of things you should see inside of an IB PYP classroom...
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Class Openers for Elementary Music. Organized Chaos. Fun ways to establish a routine for the beginning of each elementary general music class as a warm-up and allow student leadership as well.
Save your voice for better things...like actual teaching.
Student centred behavior self management
If you have learners who struggle to isolate beginning sounds, these free phonemic awareness games are the perfect fit! Use them in preschool or kindergarten. Use them in literacy centers or small groups. #phonemicawareness #preschool #kindergarten
I hope by now that you have heard of my best selling behavior bracelets and how they can be used to alter student behavior when used correctly. What you might not know is that I have a whole line of learning bracelets that are sure to make learning more concrete and “in your face”. I […]
What can you do to help children learn to listen to a lesson without interrupting? How can you give a lesson without allowing children...
Everything you need to know about teaching 5th grade categorized and organized by topic for easy reference.
This worksheet is the perfect ice-breaker for EFL-ESL students! This All About Me poster enables you to do a complete lesson on
Hey everyone! Hope you are enjoying your Saturday. Mine has been spent cleaning, doing laundry, and of course, catching up on more school...
Ready to bring STEM to your classroom, but not sure where to start? This post outlines 10 MUST HAVE STEM materials for your classroom.
Song Index
I had the opportunity this week to observe a truly gifted teacher. She was teaching a lesson to kindergarten students, many of whom she had never met. And they were mesmerized. They were engaged and eager to follow her every direction. But what made ... Read more
Have you ever had a class that just tried your patience day after day? Have you ever felt like you could walk away from teaching forever tom...
Give students a visual to assist them in advocating for themselves while self-assessing, and keeping students engaged in their learning.
