Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Sunday, 27 November 2016
Christmas Resource Fun!
The month of December is filled with a multitude of activities in the classroom. Keep your students busy with Math and Literacy Stations. Offering choice activities and providing task cards and lapbooks is always a good approach to keeping your students engaged. Here's a sample of the things that I have tried in classes from grades 3 to 6:
Christmas Writing Folder
This interactive folder is a great springboard to assist your students with three writing forms and a bonus Wanted Poster. You will find a descriptive task called Open the Doors to Christmas. With this four door book, students will use 4 of their senses to describe the Christmas season. A procedural writing task is included. Students will write about how to ready their place for Santa. A letter writing activity is included. This is a choice with students deciding on who they would like to direct the letter to at the North Pole. Various letter writing choices are provided. A fun task is to have students create wanted posters for jobs at Santa's workshop. A sample is provided to encourage descriptive details and drawings to make this poster task a fun one.Templates, rubrics and folder assembly instructions are included. All you need is a regular sized folder.
Idioms Word Work
This unit has expressions on word cards ready for cutting and laminating. Students will be provided with a blank template and task cards filled with an expression related to a Christmas theme. They will then be asked to sketch a situation using the idiomatic expression on the card and then write and sketch their interpretation of it. This is a great addition to your Word Work Station or can be used as an extra activity for early finishers.
Christmas Writing Task Cards
Christmas Math Stations
Keep your students engaged in fun math activities with a Christmas theme. Activities include: construction of a Gingerbread House based on money amounts, December calendar math activities involving patterning and operations, completing a hidden picture using decimal operations and playing a Race to the Gingerbread House game based on odd and even sums.
The Gingerbread House construction and Race to the Gingerbread House game may be differentiated. Game boards, instructions, answers and number cards are included.
Christmas Memories Recount Writing
This is a great home-school connection or addition to your literacy writing station. Students are encouraged to write about their special Christmas memories. A helpful planning sheet is included for your struggling writers. This writing activity will encourage writing at any grade level.
Christmas Writing Paper
This package includes Christmas letter writing paper and lined paper for emergent and established writers. Art work created includes a reindeer, penguin and dog. Bonus gift tags are included in this package.
Silly sentences have always been a fun way to explore sentence building and recognizing parts of speech. Students in grades 3 through 6 will have the opportunity to use subject, verb and complement cards to build and simplify silly sentences. Challenging verb cards are included with this unit as well as nouns associated with the Christmas theme, a blank sentence building template, display and label cards and a synonym chart. This is a perfect activity to use in your Word Work Stations or as an extra project for early finishers.
Christmas Part Part Whole Number Cards
Christmas Roll a Story
Students will be prompted to tell or write story with a Christmas theme. This unit includes a story prompt sheet, graphic organizers, word lists (Christmas & transition words), rubric and specialty writing paper with full and half lined pages.
Free Downloads
Christmas Writing Choice Board Freebie
This writing choice board freebie is a great addition to your Writing Station or a useful activity for early finishers. Eight writing options plus a free one are included.
Free Clip Art
Christmas Frames
Friday, 25 November 2016
Sunday, 13 November 2016
Supporting English Language Learners in the Classroom
If you are a teacher who has an English Language Learner in your classroom, then consider yourself blessed. I have had countless students enter my classroom mid year with an excitement to learn, fear of the unknown and this look in their eyes that screams "hope". It's an absolute joy for me to be able to watch a student see his or her first snowfall, tie skates for the first time or make friends who are caring and nurturing.
When I'm unsure if I can meet the needs of a student learning a new language, I ask myself "What would I do if I were placed in a country where English was not the first language?" "How would I navigate around the classroom?" "What would the expectations be?" What are the cultural norms?" It often stops me and I say, "What can I do to support this little person?"
I become a detective, looking at ways to foster the emotional, social and pedagogical practices best suited to this child. Get to know this student. There are great ways to do that if they have little or no English. Begin by using picture books with families, draw things out, act things out or find a student in the school who speaks the same language. Allow the student to bring in some photos in or treasures from his or her homeland to show the other students. Let the class become culturally aware.
Finding a "student match" in the school will definitely provide a comfort zone for the student. If that is not the case, think of other things. Often, a multicultural support worker or interpreter is available to you. Some districts have community centers or welcome centers that can support this.
One of my former students had little English skills. I kept thinking of ways to support her. She loved music. She danced beautifully and would pic up lyrics from songs. She loved pictures too. I often dabbled in my own art for her, creating images on my ipad to explain things better. Then one evening, it hit me. TEACH THE ALPHABET SOUNDS THROUGH PICTURES! I remember staying up most of the evening to make sure I would finish this for the next day. It was a flip strip booklet, targeting alphabet sounds with pictures, and repetition.
When I'm unsure if I can meet the needs of a student learning a new language, I ask myself "What would I do if I were placed in a country where English was not the first language?" "How would I navigate around the classroom?" "What would the expectations be?" What are the cultural norms?" It often stops me and I say, "What can I do to support this little person?"
I become a detective, looking at ways to foster the emotional, social and pedagogical practices best suited to this child. Get to know this student. There are great ways to do that if they have little or no English. Begin by using picture books with families, draw things out, act things out or find a student in the school who speaks the same language. Allow the student to bring in some photos in or treasures from his or her homeland to show the other students. Let the class become culturally aware.
Finding a "student match" in the school will definitely provide a comfort zone for the student. If that is not the case, think of other things. Often, a multicultural support worker or interpreter is available to you. Some districts have community centers or welcome centers that can support this.
One of my former students had little English skills. I kept thinking of ways to support her. She loved music. She danced beautifully and would pic up lyrics from songs. She loved pictures too. I often dabbled in my own art for her, creating images on my ipad to explain things better. Then one evening, it hit me. TEACH THE ALPHABET SOUNDS THROUGH PICTURES! I remember staying up most of the evening to make sure I would finish this for the next day. It was a flip strip booklet, targeting alphabet sounds with pictures, and repetition.
She would say and touch the picture, word, repeat the sound twice and then say the letter. During independent reading, she often reached for her flip book. I printed it on cardstock and laminated it for her. She wanted to take it home. As the sounds registered for her, she would then pick up the words. When she saw an "ant", she knew what it was.
The booklet became a treasure for her. Soon, other students were telling new students about it. I made several copies and it has become a "go to" resource for new students.
When the flip strips became worn down, I decided to print them into a booklet format. That way, they wouldn't tear away so easily. She took the booklet home over the summer.
Friday, 11 November 2016
Classroom Community - Create a Jar Full of Blessings
Are you looking for a great way to build classroom community? This jar is a great way to create a positive classroom community and give thanks. Everything but the jar is included in this bundle. You will find a label, a patterned grid to decorate the jar and a blackline master of "Today's Blessing" forms to use. This is an excellent way to celebrate additional holidays as well. Students will read the blessings as a way to say "thank you" to one another and to those who have enriched their lives in some way.
A Blessings Jar
Sunday, 6 November 2016
Thanksgiving Activities in the Classroom
With Thanksgiving around the corner, it's time to find some fun engaging activities for students to use at centers or as a whole class theme. Below are some of my activities plus a free download at the end:
Thanksgiving Roll a Story
Students will be prompted to tell or write story with a Thanksgiving theme. This unit includes a story prompt sheet, graphic organizers, word lists (Thanksgiving & transition words), rubric and specialty writing paper with full and half lined pages.
Celebrate Thanksgiving with your class by writing about it. Included in this bundle are five activities. You will find 5 quick task writing cards and 5 writing templates for an Acrostic Poem, A Text Message Template, An Invitation, a Friendly Letter and a Word & Sentence Generator activity, word list and specialty writing paper. These tasks are perfect for a bulletin board display or even a big class book.
Silly Sentences have always been a fun way to engage readers in developing grammatical knowledge and reading skills. Fluent readers appreciate creating silly sentences using challenging words. This unit contains subject, verb and complement cards with a Thanksgiving theme. Students will be able to create their own silly sentences while exploring verbs that are not used frequently. Increasing familiarity with these verbs will in turn add some zest to students’ writing skills. These verb cards will make a wonderful addition to a “wow” word wall.
Thanksgiving Roll a Story
Students will be prompted to tell or write story with a Thanksgiving theme. This unit includes a story prompt sheet, graphic organizers, word lists (Thanksgiving & transition words), rubric and specialty writing paper with full and half lined pages.
This product is made up of a fun turkey glyph, a turkey trots to 12:00 math game and a turkey three in a row multiplication game. The turkey glyph comes in two variations: the first one is based on American spelling of the word "color" and "favorite"; the second one is based on Canadian spelling of the word "colour" and "favourite". Turkey Trots to 12:00 encourages students to follow directions based on telling time to 5-minute intervals. The first person to land on 12:00 is the winner. Triple turkey looks at products generated from multiplying numbers 1 through 10. The first person to cover up three products is the winner.
This package includes Thanksgiving letter writing paper and lined paper for emergent and established writers. Art work created includes turkey, leaf, acorn, pumpkin and cornucopia images.
Part-part-whole cards are designed to assist students in computation of number sums. This unit of 25 part-part-whole cards will allow students to practice sums from 2 to 10. The unit includes 2 variations for the numbers 2 and 3 and 3 variations for the numbers 4 to 10. With numbers hidden with flaps, Students can then justify what the missing part is and lift the flap to verify their answers. Cards may be used during a number talks, during guided math groups or for individual assessments.
Decorate your resources with these clip art images that include 10 color and 8 black and white images of things related to Thanksgiving. Each image is 300 dpi and in a png format. Below is a listing of what you will find in this pack: apple, brown leaf, cornucopia, orange leaf, pie, pumpkin, pumpkins, turkey character 1, turkey character 2, yellow leaf.
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