Repurposing Shaving Cream

This is a really fun way to practice cursive letters, printing letters, multiplication facts, etc. It can be used as a whole class activity or as a literacy center. We had so much fun with this lesson.

While the students were out of the room, I sprayed shaving cream all over each of their desks. When they came back in, we did one cursive letter of the alphabet at a time, starting with A. The shaving cream allowed their little hands to move fluidly on their desks, as needed to create cursive letters.

As a bonus .... the desks had never been cleaner!!

Teaching About Warm and Cool Colors

Sadly, the art teacher from the school I work at passed away last year from cancer. She was an amazing woman and wonderful art teacher. While she was sick, the classroom teachers in our school agreed to take on teaching art so that she could continue to receive her pay through the end of the school year. 

During that time, I spent countless hours in the library researching art lessons for 3rd graders. Here's one I came up with to teach about warm and cool colors. I used Shamrocks because it was March and thought it was a good way to tie in a St. Patrick's Day craft. 

All you need is a shamrock tracer, white or manila card stock and markers.

I traced the shamrocks onto the card stock for my students, but they cut them out themselves. They began by tracing their hands and forearms across the side of the shamrock. Then they alternated colors in a pattern using warm colors (reds, yellows, oranges) for their hands. Run one color all the way around the hand in a single line. After filling in the hand, they used cool colors (blue, purple, green) to fill in around the hand. I suggest having the students begin their lines around the hands first.

For younger students - do the two pieces separately and glue the hand onto the shamrock. 

New Name!

Confident Little Readers is now Confident Little LEARNERS. That way I can post about all things teaching!

Teaching Symmetry

One of the lessons in math I teach each year is on symmetry. It's a very basic concept, but I like to have some fun with it so I come up with an art project for the students to do to illustrate symmetry. Below is a fun one we did last year.

Materials:

A photo of each student - student must be facing the camera as straight as possible, smiling, printed in black and white
White card stock
glue stick
pencil


Start by cutting each photo down the center of the student's face. Make sure it is exactly half. Hand each student half of their face (they will think this is hilarious). Ask them to glue the half-picture onto the card stock, as far to the edge as possible.

Using a pencil only, students should draw the other half of their face on the blank side of the page, using as much symmetry as possible.

My Classroom

As you may remember from my previous posts, I am taking a year off from teaching because I had a baby (3-month-old Joseph) in October. He joins my little family of my amazing husband Wesley and my spirited 3-year-old son Frankie.

Taking the 2011-12 school year off has taught me one important thing so far: I LOVE BEING A TEACHER! I just can't wait to get back to teaching in September. I have so many fresh and creative ideas for classroom design and lesson plans, as well as interactive bulletin board displays. I simply can't wait to try them out.

I wanted to post some photos of my 3rd grade classroom at my school in Gloucester, MA. Here you can get an idea of what my style of teaching is. My goal for this September is to take wider photos of the entire classroom so you can see the desk and bulletin board set up.

The community supplies are in a central location and clearly labeled. These bins were purchased at Dollar Tree, they came in lots of colors. However, I am toying with the idea of having supplies for each table group instead of the whole class. This may make transitions easier and quicker.

Calendar and birthday wall. 

We keep track of how many days in school with this place-value pocket chart.

Interactive "Celebrate America" Social Studies board.  I put three books into pockets and wrote questions below . I left space on the right for student to post their answers.

In third grade Science, we chart weather patterns, so we keep track of  the daily weather. In addition, I used the language of Science - "observation" and "prediction" to remind students that they are indeed scientists!

Book baskets (from Dollar Tree). After testing each student,  I determined their reading levels and used those levels to make book recommendations which I weekly put in their book baskets. During Reader's Workshop, students needed to use a book from their book baskets. Each label has the student's name and the level books they are allowed to choose from.

Reading corner: I like to put books on display that correspond with a particular theme, season or unit. Below,  books are sorted according to level.

More classroom supplies and math manipulatives. Each bin is clearly labeled. The milk crates have clip boards, white board and blocks. I don't like the look of this so it will be more organized next time you see it.

Making Mental Pictures

As we all know, we each learn in our own unique way. Many children think visually-that is they need to see it to understand completely. They use shapes, movement, colors, diagrams, charts and spatial relationships. A great way to see if children are comprehending what they are reading is by having them visualize what they are reading in the story and describe it. Then, as an enrichment activity, ask him to illustrate the story. 

Strategy: Visualize and Form Mental Images

This is a great strategy for older kids - upper elementary (3rd, 4th and 5th graders). If your child is having difficulty forming the mental image - prompt him with the following guiding questions/commands:

1. What does the character look like?

2. Imagine that this story is a movie - what does it look like to you?

3. Describe the setting - where the story takes place.

4. Make a sketch on scrap paper of the characters and settings of the story.

Another way to help a child who learns visually is to use graphic organizers. Graphic organizers are pictures which allow you to organize in writing the information from the text. Some are very simplistic and others are more complex, increasing in complexity with the information in the stories as well as the age group using them. It is very easy to create your own organizers, but it is even easier to type what you're looking for into a search engine. The problem becomes knowing which was is the best one.

Some common graphic organizers include story maps, Venn Diagrams, sequence charts, compare/contrast and description charts. Below, I have included samples of each of these. They are easy to create if you're not able to print them.

Try some of them and report back how they worked or if you have questions!

This is an example of a cause and effect chart.
It is mainly used to identify the problems of
a story and the effects of those problems.

This is an example of a sequence
chart. Use these when your
child is having difficulty remembering
the events of a story in order.

A story map is used to organize the literary
elements of a work of fiction. This really
shouldn't be used for non-fiction
unless it reads like a novel. 

A Venn Diagram is used to compare two things/characters. On the
left side you list one item's characteristics, on the right side you
list the other item's characteristics and in the middle you
list what they have in common.

Book Walks

It's been quite a while since I have written! We've been a little busy around here. We welcomed our second son, Joseph Jahyr (JJ) about 8 weeks ago. My husband, son Frankie (3.5 years) and I are so in love!

But time to get back to business - you all have children who you want to see become confident readers. After doing some research, it seems most of my followers are parents of younger children, not quite in school yet or in pre-school. Although it is wonderful if your pre-school child is reading, this is not expected by teachers, schools or the Department of Education. However, "reading" is very subjective. I consider any child who is looking through books to be "reading." Early reading begins with illustrations.

Emerging and struggling readers often use the illustrations in a story to help them with comprehension and context. Although this is not a good strategy to use in the long run, it is important that children know how to look through a book, understand that the illustrations help tell the story and that the text on a page is directly connected to the illustrations.

Strategy: Take a Book Walk

Often, at bedtime, my 3-year-old will request to "read" to me. The way he does this is by looking at the pictures and telling me what he thinks is happening. Some of our favorites are the Curious George stories by H.A. Rey. The illustrations are very clear and simple for my son's age group. He looks at the pictures - in order - and puts his own story together. This is called a "Book Walk."

As we look through together, I ask him open-ended questions such as, "what is happening here?" "Oh no! What is happening?" "why do you think this happened?"  These questions are the beginning of a reader forming conclusions. He is taking clues from the pictures and applying them to his own experiences. This is a very important learning tool. Book walks are used with readers of all ages and developments, but you can start this with very young children.

As a bonus, this is fantastic one-on-one time with your child. In my experience as a teacher, the parents who spend more time with their children often (but not always) have better readers. I believe this is because they speak more to their children - which is a promoter of vocabulary, and they spend time reading stories together. I highly recommend that reading at least one story at night become an integral part of the bedtime routine. The results of time spent will make you very happy!

Getting back to the book walk, here is a list of activities you can do with your child with books BEFORE they learn to read text.

1. Parts of the book - this is a good opportunity to teach your child the parts of a book. Cover, back cover, title, author, title page, etc. When they're young, don't teach them these parts all at once. Do one at a time - start with the cover.

2. Left to Right - young children don't know their right from left yet, but you can start teaching the way text flows in a book. Use your finger under the text as you read it. Children will pick up the way the pages turn (to the right) and that text is flowing that way as well.

3. What do you think is happening? - Have children go through all the illustrations in a story and ask them to tell you what they think is happening on a given page. Children should use clues from the illustrations to form their own story. Eventually, they will learn how to form a story with a clear beginning, middle and ending.


Try this strategy tonight and report back!!