Classroom Password

Thanks for coming back for another installment of...

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. Now I want to show you how I reinforce my sight words. It's the Classroom Pass Word.

Ok so this is not a great pic because there are no words there, BUT as you can see it is just a piece of scrapbook paper with a Pass Word coversheet on top of it. Click on the link to get a freebie for yourself. It is that simple. Mine is laminated so I can write the passwords with dry erase marker, or you can print out, laminate and sticky tack your words on the sheet daily.

Other teachers in my school keep these words on a ring and just flip them over daily. Others just write the words on die-cuts and tape them, or cover them in contact paper on their doors. No matter how you do it, the point is that the kids don't leave the room without saying the words on their way out. It is their "password out" Or you could do "password in" up to you.

An extra little tip... for my Kinder kids I have them touch the word(s) on their way out, so I can see if they know, aka informally assess, them daily.

Hope this is something you can use.

Enjoy!

Teaching in the hallway

Obviously I didn't made it back in time for Teaching Tip Tuesday. I had a another crazy long day where I got up early to go and vote before work, then put in a full day, plus had 2 hours of non stop parent conferences before I got to go home at 6:15. So today you get a Post Election day Teaching Tip.

Before I start I want to thank everyone for their vote.

I am really excited to share today's tip. I like to take advantage of every moment I have with my kids. This includes time in the hallway. I mean why waste 5 valuable minutes of possible instruction time? Especially if like me your dropping off and picking up kids all day long. 

So here is what I do with my kinder kids to help practice handwriting. Honestly, I don't have a lot of time to practice handwriting. It is not really part of my curriculum, but I just can't NOT address it. So it is something I have to squeeze in whenever I can. This is one way I do it. My school has a No Noise in the hall policy. That means no talking by the kids and very little from the teachers too. So when I pick up my kids I quickly (whisper) share the letter we will practice. I have previously pre-taught that they are to use their walking time thinking of how the letter is made and getting ready to make the letter.

When we get to our room, right outside my door I have a 8.5x11 sheet of paper with some blown up handwriting lines, on top of a scrapbook paper sheet. Both of these are laminated. See below.

When we get to my door, I quickly hope no one is looking and I review our handwriting strokes. The kids are reminded to practice this by using "air writing". They can air write the letters on the walls, floor, or ceiling as I write it on the handwriting lines.

 

Once this is done we walk into the room, but not before the kids finger trace the letter one at a time before they cross the threshold. Side note, I use a permanent marker, so when the kids trace it the marker doesn't rub off.

This gives me a quick look at who is still struggling with the letter formation, or it also gives me a little bit of time to talk with the kids as they walk in. You all know how they love to tell you stories when they first see you. This is a great time for it.

Total time is 5 minutes. Granted when we started it at the start of the year it was a little bit longer, but once they learn the routine it goes by pretty quickly. That is it! Easy right?

I have something different that I do with my 1st graders and other things I do on the way back to their Gen Ed classrooms but I think that I am a bit too tired to share all of that now. Know that I will be back with those.

 So next time your in the hall think of how you can take that time and use it for your benefit.

Student Recognition Boards.

Hi everyone,
Sorry this is late on Tuesday. Today was a long day for me. At 8:00am I was sitting in an ELO: "ELL Learning Opportunity" professional learning community. By noon I was back at work preparing to see my 1st graders. At 3:00pm I was in my buildings PLC/Data gathering groups talking about Math and Kinder kids. But that was not the end of it. Then from 4:00 to 5:00 I was siting in on two SAT (student assistance team) meetings. Then went back to my room for 20 min longer to get some goodie bags ready for my kids tomorrow. I finally gave up. I was not done but I just couldn't do it anymore. I hit a wall.

So my brain is not at all on right now but I am super glad I was able to have enough left to log on and share. This is something I have wanted to share for a long time now. So without further ado...

Thanks for coming back for another installment of...

Today's teaching tip is something that has been really big in my building/ school this year.

Student Recognition

There has been some research somewhere that I can't think of right now cause I can't think coherently, that says that student recognition does WONDERS for student achievement. Oh wait, I think I remember something about Marzano, I love Marzano, and Classroom Instruction that Works. If you haven't read it put it on your summer reading list it is a MUST. Also pick up Classroom Instruction that Works with ELL.

I digress, I was talking about what was specifically going on in my school. So every grade is doing something different and I plan to snap pictures of each one, but tonight I only have what the Kinder teachers are doing. They are calling it their "Recognition Rectangles". Can you tell they just taught shapes. :P

Here is what it looks like.

 It is so simple and truth is we all already do it in some way. All they did was attach an objective to it. It is posted in the hallway and everyone that walks by can see it. Now as I walk by I can easily see if my ELL friends have met their goal and give them some encouragement.

Here is another shot.

Because we have a reading and math goal they did two but you could do it just specifically for topic/ subject.

I will be working with my ELL team leader to make one for our ELL kids that moved up a level at the end of the quarter.

Do you do anything similar to recognize your students achievements?

FYI I had some great collaborations this morning at my "ELO" and have a fab freebie to share with you on Friday. Keep an eye out for that. I am off to go eat something and pass out. Enjoy the rest of your night.

Teaching Tip Tuesday: ELL Students Stuggles

Hi everyone,

As I was reading a professional book, I found some great info about ELL kids. Considering I am an ELL teacher and writing a blog about ELL kids, I thought I would share some ELL tips. Well not so much tips but some insight into what an ELL student would struggle with.

Here are some challenges an ELL student may have in...

*The Language Arts Classroom:
-Idioms and figurative language.
-Pronouns and anecdotes.
-Word order and sentence structure.


*The Math Classroom:
-Possible lack of experience with the standard measuring system.
-May use entirely different algorithms for those customarily used in US classrooms.


*The Science Classroom:
-A huge vocabulary load to lern. Many of which are used differently in the scientific context..
-Many ELL students have no experience with the inquiry method of learning so making predictions may be totally new to them.
-Multiple step directions.
-Students come to the science classroom with naive understanding and misconceptions. (Not just ELL kids.)


*The Social Studies Classroom:
-Little knowledge of the U.S. history, government, and geography.
-Limited skills in determining what is important in text, lectures, and discussions.
-Extrodinary amount of content covered in each lesson.

Hope some of these help you while planning for these kids. 

This information was found in Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners.

by Paula Rutherford

Now I will leave you with some pictures of my students fancy new watches from...

Phonics Watches, Color Watches, Sight-word watches.

They are just over the moon for them.

 When I told them I was going to take their picture they all stuck their arms in my face.

 Found out yesterday that my iPhone 4s has the panorama feature so next time I'll be taking these panorama style. :)

 They are just so excited it makes me happy.

See you in a couple of days for Thursday Resource. :)

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.