Post-It note ideas...

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Today's teaching tip is something I've seen LOTS of teachers do. I've already showed you how I teach and practice Handwriting in the Hallway. I've also shown you my Sight Word Pass Word.

Now I want to reveal a little bit about myself and admit to my addiction. Post-It Notes. Ok, it's not a huge secret, I mean what teacher DOESN'T puffy heart post-it notes. I have a serious addiction though. I have tons of these suckers in every size and color in my cabinets. Yikes!

To justify this obsession, here are some ways in which I use Post-It notes in my room.

To identify Book Boxes by grade level. I wanted something cute and found these nice ones.

 The blue is used by 1st grade the white has red accents and they are used by the Kinder kids.

To mark the days of the week and months of the year. These are star sticky notes. :)

I just LOVE these, they are Post-It labels and I print them out and use them to label my kids cubbie boxes. Wanna read more about how I do this? Click here, or on the image, but only after you finish reading my post. :P

As book marks! Read about it here.

 

And my new favorite... for my Class Password! Thanks Greg for the BRILLIANT idea.

Red/pink is Kinder and blue is 1st grade. Kinder keeps their words all week. The 1st graders get one or two words every day

453

Speaking of Class Password, here are how other teachers in my building are doing their classroom passwords.

This is a 1st grade room and they change the word every day.

 This is a Kinder room and they change the words weekly.

I hope to be back tomorrow with my 12-12-12 post, and linking up with Hadar's and Kristen's Linky Party. :) But before I go in case you were wondering, here were some 12-12-12 ideas I shared with the teachers on my k/1 team for tomorrow.

-Students describe themselves in 12 words.

-Work as a whole class to use 12 words to describe 12 things in in a theme. You can make a class book of them afterwards.
-They could work on a sires of assignment for 12 minutes at a time.
-Have them take random 12 min reading breaks.
-Pick 12 friends to write a post-it note note to. The note could be 1 word and they just randomly stick them on each others desks.
-Add things to 12, or subtract things from 12.

If there are typos, or mistakes please forgive me. I am quickly finishing this up before I run out to one of my favorite places... TARGET! Have a great night!

Bulletin Board Tip & a Giveaway

Thanks for coming back for another installment of...

Today's teaching tip is something simple that I try to do whenever possible.

Create Bulletin Board Displays on the ground!

I don't always use bulletin board space for the million items I have up on the board. This board was not the final product. These anchor charts were placed on my board and were framed with ribbon. This board was them re-purposed for my guided reading groups display. But when I created it I knew I wanted it this size and I just had to make sure it would all fit.

 By laying it on the ground I was able to lay it all out and not not to staple or tape anything down. I have some commitment problems. LOL

 I was glad I did it this way though cause there was some tweaking involved.

 Sometimes, especially if it is a theme bulletin board and will only be up for a week or two, I just slap my students work on some paper and decorate that. Here is an example of what we did for the Election.

 Again I had to move work around until I got the configuration I wanted just right. Once it was all glued and taped on I just grabbed the sheet and slapped it on the wall.

And because I am just LOVING all my Instagram photo's here is a picture of my kinder kids eagerly awaiting our election results last Tuesday.

Want to follow? I am under... MsK1ELL

Obviously this is not an option for ALL your displays but it is something that you might want to do for those displays you want to get JUST right. I know it has saved me a lot of heart ache and pain.

On one last note, do you know Melissa from, Fashion Craze and Learning Days? 

You don't, well why not? Ok here is the deal, she is Kristen's sister. Yes that is right the fabulous Kristen from Ladybug Teacher Files. You remember that sister she is always raving about? The one that lays down the super wonderful contact paper on those fantastic tables? Yes, that is Melissa. She is equally fabulous and has a blog that I consider one of the best kept secret of the teacher blog world. However, I can keep the secret no longer, I have to spill the beans, as my kids would say. She is having a beyond wonderful (I am running our of adjectives here people) giveaway. I considered not telling so that my odds of wining were larger but this product is just to great to keep secret. So head on over there to check it out and enter. That is right I am not telling what it is. You will have to check it out.

Finally I will leave you with one of Melissa's other products, one that my ELL kids just absolutely adore. Her sentence frames. Can't tell you what a life saver they have been for kids that don't have the language to create full sentences on their own. And yes even my Kinder kids use them.

 Have a great Tuesday!

Teaching Tip Tuesday: Reading Boxes

Hi everyone,
Sorry this is late on Tuesday. Hope your Tuesdays was as quiet as mine. Thanks for coming back for another installment of...

So today's tip is not so much a "teaching" tip but a a great find. It goes without saying that so many teachers are very creative and thrifty. However, sometimes I think sometimes we, at least I do, get carried away being cute and matching our these we miss some great finds right in front of us. So here is my find of the year.

 Inexpensive Book Boxes.

So many times I get caught up in my class theme or in getting something cute that I forget about my pocket book. For years I refused to buy those magazine boxes for my students because they were too expensive and I never liked the look of them. I would buy other baskets that would break, or didn't fit in the space I had. It was the source of some great frustration.

Then this summer while on the Polka Dot Market's website looking at paper lanterns I found these adorable gable boxes that Melanie is always using in her classroom designs.

I knew that my students would tear these boxes up and $1.50 was something I could live with. I has been 9 weeks and they are still in great condition! My kids know they won't get a new one, so I think they are afraid, for now. Let's see if they make it past January. *crosses fingers*

I chose the aqua polka dots, and here they are all lined up on my counter.

I attached the student names with clothes pins so they could be easily removed, but I am thinking of changing it to something more permanent.

Each box is shared by two students. Here are two lovely ladies reading out of their box.

They are big enough for a ton of our little reader and guided reading books. Here is a peek inside.

I am afraid I did not make them terribly cute this year because of lack of time. I also didn't know how long they would last and didn't want to invest too much on ribbon or tags. I did add a Surfboard name plate for the student names.

So do you have any inexpensive items that are not teaching items you have use in your class? Please share.

What is going right? (Teacher Tip Tuesday)

This morning during one of my Data Team/ Planning meetings my admin commented on how well things were going in our teams rooms. Then she turned to us and said... (and I am paraphrasing here)

"What are you doing that is going to so well?"

We all had to stop and think about it. So often we feel like when we have a good day that we got lucky, or that it was just a "good day" but the truth is that something happened. It may have been the planets aligning, an extra reminder or just good procedures. Whatever it is we have to take the time to figure out what they are so that we can do them more often. Really it is so that we can do them when things aren't going so well.

One teacher on my team said that she had been giving herself time limits, ie: we are only spending 10 minutes on this activity. Because of this the class knew the expectations and were able to move through the routine smoothly and quickly. It is not something she had associated with the day going smoothly until she was asked to identify it.

For me? Well, I always go back to routines. I, myself, NEED routines. So my class is super packed with routines and procedures. I know this is part of why my ELL kids do well on a day to day basis. They know what is coming next and are not scared because they are in a predictable environment. 

After my meeting I created a reflections sheet. Some of us just jot down notes in our plans, others want something more. So if this is something you can use, enjoy!

So the teacher tip for the day is, figure out what is going right, and do more of it. LOL :)

I'll leave you with pictures of my students with their Firefighter hats on. We created these when we studied Fire Fighters, during out community helpers theme. They LOVED it.

Teacher Tip Tuesday: ELL Levels

Today's Teacher Tuesday is courtesy of my schools Curriculum night.

 

All students in the English Language Learner program study speaking, listening, reading, and writing throughout an integrated approach that uses content as the vehicle to meet ELL language goals and standards.

Level 1

Student with no or very limited English language skills.

Students use observational skills and are dependent upon visual cues, and simplified language for comprehension. Level 1 students function well when following a routine. They may feel safest in the ELL environment and take more risk practicing language amongst their peers. They can easily feel overwhelmed with the language and should participate in varied activities that allow them to manipulate objects with their hands and change activities often.

Level 2

Students at the beginning level of English language skills.

Level 2 students rely heavily on visual cues and non-verbal language but are more confidant in their social skills. They will often imitate conversation to meet personal needs or get information. Level 2 students feel the importance of needing English to learn social language and academic content.

Level 3

Students at the intermediate level of English language skills.

Level 3 students gave a strong command of conversational English. This may give students and/ or staff a false sense of language proficiency. Social acceptance by peers and participation in popular culture is very important to students at this level. Students often have a limited awareness of the skills needed to acquire academic language. However, they possess skills and language structures in English that are much more advanced than the previous two levels. Teachers play an important role in motivating these students.

Level 4

Students at the intermediate-advanced level of English language skills.

Students in Level 4 will find school more challenging as they discover the academic demands placed upon them. These students may become frustrated and require support with skills and strategies to help them in the classroom.

Level 5

Students at the advanced level of English language skills.

Level 5 students may read and write at or near native level but require refinement in these areas. These students are confidant in their ability to compete with native-English-speaking peers. They perform very well on daily assignments and projects in the classroom but may have difficulty performing well on

Teaching Tip Tuesday: Visual Directions

Back for another addition of...

This week I am here to share a wonderful tip several of you already know about. Picture icons!

For several years I struggled with this objective on the ELL rubric/exam...
-Student can read and follow directions.
I always thought they have to read the sentence that tells them what to do on a particular assignment. Sooo, umm, if you don't know I teach K and 1 ELL kids. Several of which are straight from the jungle in Burma. Many of them have trouble still writing their names at the end of the year. This is a big thing for them to be able to do. Now I don't want to give you the wrong impression. My kids eventually can read and perform at grade-level or above but it takes some time.

Let's set my struggles aside, because I really want to share these picture icons. You can use these picture directions with not only K and 1 kids but students of all grades who struggle to read. Actually, it is helpful to ALL students. Like I was saying I thought it meant the students had to read the WORDS, but another teacher clued me in, a few years ago, that reading picture cards was totally ok.

A few years ago several of these "Visual Materials Cards" popped up. I just love them. I first saw them on Hadar's blog, Miss. Kindergarten Love,back when she was Outfitted and Inspired. You can read about them here and here.

 This one is actually Angelica, from Extra Special Teaching, creations.

They are all freebies.

What I love best is that all I do is put up the cards on the board and my kids can just look up real quick to see what comes next. For my older kids I am adding the word next to the picture so that they can associate the two and hopefully build that text language. (Is text-language even a word?)

I even bought this wonderful sight word book this summer for my kinder kids that ALSO has the picture directions included.

 That is all for Teacher Tip Tuesday. I want to share some resources with you tomorrow. Let's see if I actually get to do it.
Hope this helps!