Ms. K
Do Manipulatives Make too Much Noise in Your Class?
Clink, Clank times twenty-five students can create a deafening noise in combination with twenty- five low voices, so try this to quieten your classroom. There is the obvious use of the less durable, new foam manipulatives. Then there is the option of giving every student a sheet of felt to soften the noise of plastic or wood manipulatives. However, if you use felt, it has a tendency to slide around too much on students desks. Recently a fourth grade teacher shared an idea with me which I had never thought of…use the foamy-type liner (without the peel off sticky backing) that you buy to line your kitchen cabinets. Cut each student a rectangle to use for their desk. This type of contact paper doesn’t slide!
Countless Quality Teacher Blogs
Prepare to be inspired! If you are looking for quality teacher blogs, you will find countless quality blogs at the following link here. The blogs are grouped by grade levels preschool- twelfth grade. Special education blogs are even included. Some blogs are not grade level specific but address a specific content area. Happy reading!
Are Your Students Struggling with Traditional Long Division?
Generally it takes students a few weeks initially to learn division– especially long division with multiple digits. Marilyn Burns’ book Extending Division has several helpful hints within her lessons. In place of the traditional method for division, she shows how to teach students with the ladder method in which students divide a dividend with multiples of ten rather than break the dividend apart like the traditional method. The ladder method helps students understand numbers more effectively because they are estimating and thinking of the dividend as a whole. See this example to gain a better understanding of the ladder method.
Add all of the numbers to the right (the ladder) to find the quotient.
Can You Hear Me Now?
Verizon offers a teacher discount off of your cell phone service. Try signing up at the following link: http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/employee/emaildomainauthentication.jsp. If the previous link doesn’t recognize your email address, just show your pay stub or teacher id when you walk into your local service store and they will help you obtain your discount.
Pushing Three-Year-Old Students to Learn before Kindergarten
The New York Times recently wrote an article about a new learning center called Kumon which is emerging on the horizon of U.S. education. Kumon is similar to a Sylvan learning center as it gives students individualized sessions to meet their areas of need. They also help school aged children (K-12) become more advanced in math and English skills. Some controversy surrounds the learning center because they accept three-year-old students or any child “out of a diaper [that] can sit still with a Kumon instructor for 15 minutes”, states Joseph Nativo, the CFO for North America. Many parents believe that a child that young should learn by exploring and playing instead of the drilling methods to learn letters and numbers that Kumon uses. Kumon believes that learning basic skills increases children’s self esteem which leads to success in their learning. To read more about this article, see the following links: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/pushing-kids-in-public-and-private/ and http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html “Fast Tracking to Kindergarten”.
Molding Cooperative Groups into COOPERATIVE Groups
In a former post I introduced using a classroom economy (Bonus Bucks) to teach responsibility and self management. Click here to read this post. There is also a larger size of Bonus Bucks which you may use for cooperative groups. The size of this Bonus Buck is almost the size of a sheet of paper. When groups are displaying appropriate cooperative behavior, walk by a team and place one of these large bucks in the center of the table while complementing the team’s behavior. This large reward display encourages other teams to display the same appropriate behavior. To avoid arguments, allow the team captain to hold the buck until the buck can be cashed in for smaller bucks for each team member at a designated time. To see more about Large sized Bonus Bucks click the bonus buck below. I have placed Bonus Bucks, a parent letter, a cooperative Bonus Buck, classroom job tags, and directions for using Bonus Bucks in your classroom on TPT.
Are Your Students Struggling with Telling Time?
When teaching students to tell time, first have students make paper plate clocks with only ONE hand–the hour hand. Approximate time can be told with only an hour hand. Discuss that when the hour hand is half way between the numbers on the clock that it is on half an hour. For example, if the hour hand is halfway between the two and three, we know that it is 2:30. If the hour hand is between the two and three and closer to the three we know it is probably 2:45 or later. Then show students different times with only the hour hand and have them tell if it is before or after whatever hour. Giving students quality time to learn the function of the hour hand will help dispel misconceptions that may form from learning time with two hands at once and not truly understanding each hand’s function.
Want To Know Where Trump Stands on Education?
Donald Trump’s lack of political correctness is refreshing in a culture where political correctness is the mode of operation in the political arena. Who knows? Maybe a lack of political correctness is just what America needs a jolt of. Reading the blunt truth of Trump’s views of education couldn’t help but bring a smirk across my face. He says what other politicians seem to avoid–the cold hard truth. Here is one of his quotes from his book The America We Deserve, “Our schools aren’t safe. On top of that, our kids aren’t learning. Too many are dropping out of school and into the street life-and too many of those who do graduate are getting diplomas that have been devalued into “certificates of attendance” by a dumbed-down curriculum that asks little of teachers and less of students. Schools are crime-ridden and they don’t teach. How long do we think the U.S. can survive schools that pretend to teach while our kids pretend to learn? How can a kid hope to build an American Dream when he hasn’t been taught how to spell the word “dream”? To read a few more of his quotes visit: http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/donald_trump_education.htm.
Build a Classroom Economy to Teach Responsibility
I learned this valuable classroom advice from a former colleague who learned it from her master teacher. Set up your classroom using Bonus Bucks. Bonus Bucks are the size of Monopoly money in the denominations of $1, $5, $10, and $20 bills. Bonus Bucks can be earned from rewards of good behavior, classroom jobs, turning in homework etc. Students must be responsible enough to save money for paying desk rent at the end of the month. The rent is equal to the number of days in school for that month. So, for most months the rent would be about $20. Students are required to pay for privileges such as getting a drink of water, going to the bathroom, getting a new sharpened pencil, extra recess, trips to the treasure box, etc. Students may also be fined as a consequence for bad behavior. If students don’t have enough money at the end of the month to pay for rent, they must be in debt and find a way to work it off such as picking up trash, or helping the teacher, etc. Students learn the importance of saving their money and some bring in their own wallet to keep their Bonus Bucks in.
If you would like to purchase the Bonus Bucks Classroom Economy System, I have placed Bonus Bucks, a parent letter, a cooperative Bonus Buck, classroom job tags, and directions for using Bonus Bucks in your classroom on Teacher’s Pay Teachers. Click the image below to see more.
Find Your School’s Test Scores Easily
If you want to find your school’s test scores easily, try this website: http://www.education.com/ and click on “Find a School” on the top green bar. Then input the school’s zip code to find your school. This will give you a list of schools. Just click on your school and scroll down to the section that says test rating. Here you will be able to compare your schools test scores from 2007 to present against the state and district test scores.
