A helpful tip: Serious Vs. Silly

Happy Tuesday! 

I hope all of you that started work today had a FABULOUS day.

I had some ideas to share with you all and I thought why not give it a name and make it a LINKY? Soooo...

Thanks for stopping by for...

This year I had a student who was having trouble during our whole group lesson time. Part of the problem is that he has quite a bit of language already. He still needs some ELL time, but he is more advanced than the other kids in his group.

I understood that he required more of a challenge during his work and I gave it to him. However, during instructional time I still wanted him to sit quietly and listen to what I was demonstrating. I didn't want him to continue to get in trouble and miss out on valuable instructional time. PLUS, and this is the more important one, I wanted him to stop disturbing his peers, who DID need every little bit of what I was teaching.

He was basically being VERY silly and giggly all the time. When I discussed him in my PLC group, another teacher suggested I make a Silly/ Serious sign so that the expectation was clear. This was brilliant!

The next day the class discussed what silly and serious meant. What it looks like and sounds like to be silly and what it looks like and sounds like to be serious. We talked about why it is important to be serious during whole group lessons and about how sometimes it is ok to be silly.  Demonstrations are VERY important for ELL kids, so we practiced this.

I let them know that I would help them learn when it was ok to be silly and when when have to be serious. Then I took their picture. Now, I don't know if you know this, but Kinder Kids LOVE to have their picture taken. We took several pictures with silly faces and several more with serious faces. I took the picture as a whole group because I did not want to single this particular student out. Not to mention that it is good practice for all my kids. 

So here is how it turned out.

I printed it up as two separate whole sheets. Then laminated and taped them together. Inserted a Popsicle stick and Tada! I added the word up top because I wanted to connect it to print, but you don't have to.

Best thing is that now all I have to do is show the sign and they know right away what kind of behavior is expected of them.

Just in case you were wondering we used our silly voices and faces to sing and echo. Occasionally when we share, I allow it to, but the rest of the time we are serious.

Because I love to share you can pick up a Serious or Silly words to go with your sign. Click here for your freebie.

Have any Teaching you wanna share? Feel free to link up below or share via a comment box. 

Buddy Room Bags

Hi everyone,

Several months ago, maybe longer, I wrote about BIST and today I am back to share a stolen, borrowed idea I am using in my room next year that will help with a  component of BIST, the Buddy Room. The best part is that you don't have to know or use BIST to use this with your kids. All you would need is a partner teacher who is willing to help you out.

So a brilliant teacher I work with came up with this idea and it is such a great idea that when I saw these bags...

...at target I thought they were a perfect fit. I got them at Target, and was able to get the matching pencil pouches too.

So the history behind the Buddy Room is that when a student is being particularly disruptive in your room, you have given them a redirect, have gone to the Safe Seat in your room and is still struggling to get it together you then send the student to the Buddy room.

A Buddy room is just a classroom outside of their own but where they are still in a learning environment. They are to sit in the Safe Seat in that room until they show they are ready to return to their own classroom.

They don't go with nothing though. That is where the Buddy Room Bag comes in. So in each bag I have...

1. a spiral notebook.

2. box of crayons

3. pencils (2)

4. eraser

4. scissors

5. some leveled readers

Basically anything that the student will need to calm down and/ or complete their assignment. I would put all the small items in the matching pencil pouches so they don't slip out of the bag.

So I thought that these cuties were perfect for the job.

For when a student is upset I got "Mr. Happy."

 For those talkers I got "Little Miss. Chatterbox."

 For when someone is hurt I got "Mr. Bump."

 And for those naughty moments I got "Little Miss. Naughty."

Because I teach multiple grades and levels I was thinking of having books with different levels in them but I think I will just put a variety of levels in each bag. So it won't matter which bag a student picks up.

On a completely different note I finally ordered my classroom goodies for this coming year and have received 1 out of 2 packages. As soon and the second arrives today, (YAY!) I will link up with Kristen's Summer Shopping List Party. So keep an eye out for another post from me... soon.

Hope your having as fabulous and quiet a summer as I am.