Are YOU ready…Freddy?
Every time I enter a K-2 classroom to teach enrichment, I bring Freddy. Freddy is one of my classroom management posters. I bought some clipart and added a “Ready” title to the bottom of this page. The “Freddy” part kind of evolved with the children’s input. What is great about Freddy is that he looks exactly like I want the children to look when I am teaching. At the beginning of the year, we talk about what it looks like to listen and pay attention. Then as I am teaching, I walk around with Freddy and point to him when I see children not acting appropriately. Freddy and his friends are in page protectors in a binder that I carry with me when I am teaching an enrichment class, which lasts about 30-40 minutes.
Freddy has friends, too. With the children’s help I also have named a “Ready Betty”. As time has progressed, Freddy has made friends and I have included them in the binder, too. In addition, I have included a “lip sandwich” poster. I must give credit to a teacher friend for a lip sandwich idea. We discuss what a lip sandwich is at the beginning of the year so that children know the expectation. More than anything, showing them what Ready Freddy looks like gets results whether on the carpet in “criss cross applesauce” style or when children are at their seat. My principal even noticed how effective the posters were and commented on this, and I have had teachers ask their students to get in the Ready Freddy position.
Sometimes I am able to make a story about how Freddy is watching the children and I cover my eyes for five seconds and count and say that I know they will be ready when I open my eyes. I have also told children that Freddy is friends with Elf or Santa at Christmas. There are a myriad of fun imaginative stories you can make up where Freddy is involved especially since children thrive on imagination.
Here is the poster set I made for use at my school. There are most multicultural groups represented in this set.
What Will Become of Our Children?
I am starting to see my students grow up. At times they wait on me in a grocery store or they are a waiter etc. Looking at the struggles our current students are having in school and the push of education in a direction that leaves out common sense concerns me.
- I had a cashier struggle to count a mix of bills at the checkout. I mean maybe he was stressed from the long line and thereby flustered, but maybe not. With the dependence on a debit card, will children be able to count money? It seems at least in my district that the money standards are pushed all the way to the end of the year. We all know what happens when a topic is pushed to the end…it often gets left out.
- I teach some of the brightest students, yet some struggled to tell time. Is this becoming the norm? I had a teacher friend tell me that her grown daughter has to think a minute when looking at an analog clock. The school secretary mentioned that a parent couldn’t tell time from the analog clock in the office. Has our dependence on the digital clock on the cell phone crimped our brain?
- I am all about critical thinking and math, but I am hearing teachers comment that children in grades 3-5 struggle with multiplication facts. The leaders of the math department are insisting that it is okay that children arrive at the answer by reasoning from a known fact. That is great that children can do that…but what happens with just knowing it in a second is important. Clogging up your brain with reasoning to get to the answer slows down your reasoning when you arrive at more difficult problems.
- This one is unrelated to math. Has Google broken our critical thinking minds? Please say it isn’t so! I assigned a research project recently about planets. I asked some questions such as what kind of clothing would you need on this planet? What kind of food would you need? I had a child tell me they would bring Sonic and hibachi. I asked them if they thought there were drive thru windows in space and if that would sustain them for the years that it would take them to travel to their planet. I had children literally type these questions in on Google expecting that the answer would be there. In other words, they didn’t think I was going to make them think. I gave them a lecture about how Google doesn’t know everything, and that I expected them to reason about the questions.
Maybe I just needed to rant about these things, but I really am quite concerned. Public education needs an overhaul of common sense, but these are areas (especially the research one I am going to work on with my students).
Below are some resources to teach time, money, and multiplication.
Set Up Your Cooperative Groups by Doing This
Each time I begin a year, we practice these expectations.
Number 1. We talk about how sharing materials could go badly–scattering materials, sharing germs, not everyone’s hand can fit in the container, etc.
Number 2. We practice saying all of these rules several times so that students get accustomed to saying these words and have this tool in their tool chest of ways to interact with peers.
Number 3. I let the students discuss how they will settle a disagreement. Most students arrive at Rock Paper Scissors as being the best way to solve disagreements. Students also say things like that they could talk out whose ideas was the best. I also mention who has the birthday closest to today, who is closer to the floor (shorter), closest to the ceiling (taller).
After we have talked over all of these rules, we practice saying them first thing in class for several class periods. Before long there are very few disagreements or problems among students.
I hope this helps your cooperative groups run more smoothly, too!
Have You Used These for Grading Pens?
For grading pens there are many options, but I am going to tell you about one I used last year that I wished I had used before–Crayola fine line markers. These worked wonderfully for me to grade creativity tests in which there are so many components. The colors helped me keep track of each test part. Not only are they great for using because of their multiple colors, they are cheap in comparison to other pens. They can also double as colorful note writing pens. I enjoyed these more than flair pens or Vis a Vis although I have used both of those for grading also. I hope you scoop up a few extra packs at back to school season time to last you throughout the year!
Have You Filled a Bucket Lesson Fun! {Giveaway}
One of my friends calls it punting when you come up with a lesson at the last minute that turns out better than one you spent hours planning. Now, I did have a ready to go lesson and was ready to teach it when I thought this idea would be so much better. In a school where I have difficulty with the students treating one another with kindness, this idea seemed perfect. I used the idea from Have You Filled a Bucket Today? for this lesson, but I never actually got around to reading the book.
Here is what I did. I brought a bucket of sorts which actually was a Dollar Tree gift box and it was filled with red die cut hearts and puff balls. I gathered the students in a circle and threw out puffballs one at a time while saying things that kids say to one another that are hurtful. For example, “you’re ugly, your breath stinks, you’re wearing cheap shoes, no one likes you, you can’t play kickball” etc. Every time I would say an ugly comment I would drop a puffball or heart on the floor. Then I showed the kids how the box is like your heart and it is like you are hurting someone when you say mean things to them.
Next, I gave each child a puffball in the circle and had them think of something nice to say about someone else in the circle. I started so that the students had an example to follow. Then as they said a nice comment about someone, I let them put the puffball back in the box. Then at the end I let the kids see how the box was filled up because they said nice things about one another.
Note: It is hard to get young children to say something nice about someone that isn’t about their physical appearance, so this requires modeling or else the children will say that johnny has a nice shirt or that they like someone’s hair. After we sat on the carpet and did all of this I had the children write something on a paper heart that they would say nice about someone else. Then I collected all of the hearts and made a bucket to post on the wall so that the children could be reminded of what we had talked about.
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
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Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
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Are You Having Girl Drama In Your Class? Try This!
About this time of year, it seems the girl drama erupts. The winter time has set in and it seems none of your students can stand each other. A lot of times this begins with someone saying something about someone else and then no one thinks they are liked. Or it may start with a pointing finger. He did ____ or she did _____. There is always blame. Discontent ensues and no one likes one another. I have used this quote to help students get past this mindset and it works as long as the ideas are fresh in their minds. In other words they will need reminding of this…
No one wants a small mind and so this quote gives students a lot to think about and makes them act the right way. When you hear them discussing people, you can just remind them to not have a small mind. :).
Here is a printable for your classroom.
Wish I Had Known About the Brain!
A couple of years in a row now my partners at other schools have begun the year teaching about the brain and mindsets. I was like, “Yeah, that sounds great.” BUT, I had already planned something else in my mind. They shared their lessons with me and they all revolved around this book…Your Fantastic Elastic Brain by Deak Ph.D., JoAnn and Sarah Ackerley.
Here is a brief sketch of what I did with my students in 1st and 2nd grades this year. These were three 30 minute enrichment lessons. Most of this I cannot take credit for since I didn’t write the lessons, but I adapted them for my own use.
Day 1: I read the first few pages of the book and we learned the parts of the brain here as we touched the parts of the brain on our heads, we talked about each part’s function. We did a coloring sheet in which students colored parts of the brain like are on this page of the book (sorry, but I am not at liberty to share the coloring page).
We also sang with this Story Bots You Tube song.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnl7DLSNFV8[/embedyt]Day 2: We read the next few pages of the book and reviewed the parts of the brain. We acted out different scenarios which were pre-prepared (I didn’t come up with them on the spot in other words). Students had to guess which parts of the brain they thought were being used to perform the actions that the children were doing.
Day 3: We read the last few pages of the book, and made neurons with our arms, palms, and fingers. We talked about how electrical impulses travel down the neurons to tell the body what to do. Then I talked to students about how mistakes are the biggest teacher (reiterating what the book says). I brought up the idea of a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. I held a balloon and blew it up. I said this is like a growth mindset. I also held up a flat balloon and said this is a fixed mindset. Then I asked students what they could do to make it easier to blow up the balloon. I wanted them to tell me to stretch it (like their brain). From this point, I found a random fixed mindset/growth mindset poster on the internet and read it while holding the balloon. I had students check phrases they had said before on both the fixed and growth mindset side. This website has a good chart about characteristics of fixed and growth mindset patterns.
What I love when teaching about the brain and fixed/growth mindset is that in essence you are teaching children the power of choices to let their mind expand or stay stagnant. With my older students, I also discussed how when you let your mind go a certain direction over and over it makes a deeper pathway similar to when you walk on the grass a whole lot. I ask the students what helps the grass to stop being dead in the same spot. Students invariably are able to say that you stop walking on it and when the rain comes it grows back up. So it is with anyone’s brain. They stop thinking the worst and the grass grows back up. Their brain stops having that pathway.
I hope you get a chance to teach about the brain and mindsets in your classroom. You won’t regret it!
Hanitizer That Doesn’t Dry Out Your Hands?
Hanitizer is affectionately called so for students’ simple naming convention. A few years ago I tried out this hand sanitizer I’m about to tell you about and absolutely loved it. Now, of course, I have used all of the different types of hand sanitizer…Germ-X, the Kroger Brand, the deliciously wonderfully smelling Bath and Body Works brands, but they all left my hands feeling dry and cracked especially in the winter since they have alcohol in them…Well, enter the best hand sanitizer ever which fixed that problem. Thieves hand sanitizer made by Young Living. I have small ones for my purse and a large one at school.
After you use the hand sanitizer, it keeps your hands feeling soft and pleasantly scented. When I buy the large one, I use it to fill up my small bottles for my purse so that it is more cost effective. Pictured above is a small purse sized one. Also, even better is that it only takes a very small amount–smaller than a dime size to sanitize your whole hands. This sanitizer is made with essential oils, which is what naturally kills all the yucky germs, and it doesn’t have any harmful chemicals in it like normal hand sanitizers. Give it a try! You will LOVE it!
To get this hand sanitizer, just go here to YoungLiving.com and order. My sponsor and enroller number are 2600343.
How Can You Get Kids to Manage Time While Working on a Project {Giveaway}
I recently had my students do an extended project on Greek Mythology, but this idea could work for any subject. The students had to do several steps to get to the movie making part. They had to research different myths, gather details, make an outline, make a story board, make a costume, and make a prop. Then they had to learn the iMovie software, including how to edit, include a sound effect, and include music. In the end the students’ projects turned out wonderfully, BUT to get multiple students to work together and not fight without a project going ON AND ON, there has to be some sort of time limit. Students of the 9-10 year old range have to have some sort of deadlines.
I incorporated two methods to help them stay on target while working.
- As a class we talked about the due date before they had been working very long. We planned together on their student calendars different due dates for each part of the project to be done. Now these weren’t actual due dates. These were just dates to help students pace themselves.
- Next, I wrote each student group on a sticky note–one of those sticky- on-the-whole-back notes. Above the sticky notes, I placed the items that were necessary for them to complete (on white cards above). As a group finished the task I moved the notes along. This puts a little positive pressure on the kids to get finished with each item because they don’t want their names to be left behind on the wall. Above I blurred out their names for privacy.
Now go forth and do great projects!
Guess what! It is giveaway time!
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card
Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, Mrs Wenning’s Classroom, The Chocolate Teacher, A Plus Kids, Kamp Kindergarten, Samson’s Shoppe, Helping Kids Shine, TheBeezyTeacher, Kelly McCown, Catch My Products, The Cozy Crafty Classroom, Chocolate 4 Teachers, Jackie Crews, Star Kids, The Fun Factory, Sandra Naufal, The Best Days by Julie Santello, 180 Days of Reading, Roots and Wings, Globe Trottin’ Kids, Priscilla Woodard – Tasked 2 Teach, Ms. K, Glistening Gems, Josie’s Place, The Froggy Factory, Mickey’s Place, and Guide Teach Inspire.
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 5/13/19 and is open worldwide.
Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!
a Rafflecopter giveawayHow Can You Manage Peer Help?
I am currently having my students make videos. This is the third year I have done so. I don’t mind students helping one another if one wants to be in the video while another holds the camera for the rest of the students. However, what I do mind is when the students seem to be spending too much time helping someone and then forget about themselves. Kind and caring kids seem to have this happen often. To help avoid anyone being taken advantage of, I made these time sheets. These would work for any task–not just video work. In the past I have also had that problem with students helping others with math problems
I have developed a solution to this problem, and you can have it here for free to help you manage your students, too! 🙂 At the top you tell students how many minutes they are allotted to help others and they keep track of the time they have helped others on the sheet. Have them keep this page in an easy to reach place, so they can easily pull it out when they are helping other students.
