Fall Snapshot

The Kindergarten class burst into the building, in their usual, squiggly, squirmy line.  Cheeks rosy, jackets bought with room-to-grow hanging on their wiggly little frames, some with hoods or collars accidentally tucked in at the neck. (No one had their coat on upside-down, or inside-out this time, thankfully…)  After a fall nature hike on the Outdoor Learning Center trails, they were clutching clumps of yellow, brown and red leaves in their little fists, thrusting them out towards me, like proud suitors with bouquets of roses. 

“Look! Look, Mrs. S! Look at my leaves! Aren’t my leaves pretty? Look at these, they’re yellow! Mine are red, Mrs. S.! We went for a walk, and got these!”

The excitement was palpable, as I smiled and exclaimed over the beautiful fall bounty.

I chuckled to myself, as the substitute teacher herded the happy children into the classroom to put their leaves in their backpacks.  Parents will be finding dry, brown leaves crammed in the bottom of book bags a week from now, when they have become crumbly, forgotten treasures.

In these days of rigorous instruction, Common Core Standards, and near-constant assessments, it’s nice to take a break for a nature walk now and then, and relish being five years old in the fall.

Fun With Beginning Sounds

I just completed 9 rounds of centers with the Kindergarten cuties that I work with.  I usually do two centers in my room, and the K teacher I work with does the rest in her room next door.  After nine days of doing the same activities, I have to say I'm ready for something new! We start fresh Monday.

Here are the beginning sounds centers that we've been doing:

ABC Mystery Box and Letter Stamping
Oh, but this one was a hit! I scrounged a Gladware container from the depths of my cluttered kitchen cabinet, and by some stroke of luck, actually found a lid that fit.  Then, I went on a scavenger hunt around my house to find little objects to add to my new Mystery Box.  I found a Lego (heh, with a 9 year old boy in the house, you can't take one step without finding a Lego, or two! Ouch!), a shell, a key, a puzzle piece, a domino, and several other random little objects.  Then, I went back to my kitchen, and filled the rest of the box most of the way with rice.  (I ran out of white, and had to add some brown, too.  That just adds to the fun, right?)  Then, I squirted Elmer's glue onto the lid in the crevice where it fits onto the container.  I wasn't sure how this would hold up, but I have to say I'm quite pleased.  After being used by 28 little people, the lid hasn't come open once!  I decorated the box with some crafty sticky letters I had, and voila! ABC Mystery Box!

Anyhow, I had the kiddos take turns shaking the box to find objects.  When something was found, we identified the beginning sound of the object, and then we found the matching letter stamp and stamped the letters on big pieces of paper.  I heard lots of comments of "This is fun!" and "I love this center!",a nd we learned some new sounds, as well.  ( I had put a checker in the box, so we learned about /ch/ and /sh/ for shell.)

My other center was...uh....interesting.  I needed a more independent activity for this station, so I dug out some beginning sounds matching cards from our closets.  I share a room with the Resource teacher, and she has all kinds of interesting stuff in there.  The cards were pretty simple, kiddos drew lines between pictures with the same beginning sound, or identified what letter the pictures began with.  I really should have looked closer at these cards before I decided to use them-some of the pictures were...ummmmm.....old fashioned.  I later discovered that this set was made in 1976, which explains a lot.  There were many pictures that kids of the 70's or 80's would have known right away, but kids of today just aren't familiar with.  (Nurse with huge afro in white nurse hat, radishes, goofy looking sailor in white hat, seeds in the form of pine needles and one of those 'helicopter' dealies, among others.)  There were also a few things that were identifiable, but not really considered appropriate for school these days.  (Rifle, an ax from a rock and stick that looked just like a tomahawk, etc.) Anyhow, we just rolled with it, and it worked out, but I did get a few giggles from it!

I've got some more CVC centers to tell you about that my Kindy/First group have been working on, but this post is getting long enough, so those will have to wait!

I usually have to rush around to have time to get any pictures taken, plus, I'm not comfortable with posting their faces online, so I'm always trying to hurry and snap a quick picture before they turn around and start hamming it up.  In other words, sorry my pictures are so bad!!

Remember Me?

     Well, after abandoning this blog for a long while, I'm back!  I'm working as an RTI Interventionist/Classroom Assistant, and keeping busy.

      I've been working with a sweet bunch of 12 first graders and 2 kindies who are grouped together due to their need of improvement with nonsense word fluency, per DIBELS.  I also help a kindergarten teacher by planning and running two of her daily  language arts centers for her.  Soon, our resource teacher, special education assistant, and I will be joining forces to work with our SPED and RTI 3rd and 4th graders for half an hour a day-we are going to look at some test data, and create center group rotations.  I'll also be leading a group of rambuctious second grade boys for half an hour a day.  When I'm not with my groups, I'm doing lunch duty with "my" kindergarten and first grade cuties, helping in classrooms, recording data for RTI documentation, creating RTI plans, attending meetings, or wishing there were two of me! With all of this going on, I thought I'd come back to the blog from time to time, and share some of the things I'm working on with my groups of kiddos at school, in case someone is looking for ideas for working with small (and not so small!) groups. I will also pop in from time to time with some funny anecdotes, education news, and what-not.

     For my current Kindergarten centers, the classroom teacher asked me to plan some activities with beginning sounds for this rotation.  One group is playing a beginning sounds board game with me, while the other group is doing a sound match up game.

• Sound Match-up Pocket Chart Activity-I prepared a pocket chart with 6 letters cards, each with a picture beside it with the corresponding sound.  Children take turns pulling a picture card from a little bag, and putting it on the chart next to the letter that it begins with. 

 

 My Kindergarten/First grade SST (Student Success Time) group is working on CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.  After spending a few minutes as a whole group, practicing letter sounds and sight words, and blending some words together, we are breaking up into centers.  I only have 3 centers for this week, but next week, I'll have 5 going. (Phew! This half hour goes FAST!)
Here they are:

• SMART Table CVC activities-we are lucky enough to have a new SMART table in our room this year, and I am excited about using this great resource-the kids are, too!
• Alphabet Arc-this is my "guided" center-the kiddos match letter tiles to the letters printed on their mats, and then we spell cvc words by pulling the needed letters down from the arc.  We might start with something like "at", then I'll have them change it to "mat", and then to "man", then to "fan", and on to "fin".  Some friends have trouble when it comes to changing middle and ending sounds, so we'll count the sounds we hear on our fingers, and then say one sound for each finger to see which one is different.

• FCRR CVC cards-this is an activity from the FCRR (Florida Center for Reading Research) website.  We use this amazing resource often at our school.  In this particular activity, students use laminated CVC word cards with corresponding pictures.  They have to write in the missing letter on the word card with a dry erase marker, and then write the word on a record sheet.

That's it for this week.  I've got some fun ideas rolling around in my head for next week's groups, that I'll share soon!  Thanks for sticking around!

Math Games for Your Kids

When working on math (or anything, really) with your children at home, try to keep it fun. If you look at it as a chore, so will your children! I've decided to share some math activities that I've done with my own children at home. Most of these games are probably best suited for the elementary aged child, but some could be adapted for younger or older kids, as well. Be creative!

• Guess the Number-My kids, 2nd grade and 4th grade, love this one! Think of a "secret" number, and give them a range: perhaps between 1-200 for a second grader, and maybe between 200 and 1000 for a 4th grader.  The child has to guess the secret number.  Give clues like "higher" or "lower" until the child guesses the correct number.  Some kids may need help with the reasoning involved to narrow things down.  You can model this by periodically saying, "Ok, now we know that the number must be between 34 and 54", or whatever.  If your child has trouble playing this game mentally, make a big number line to use.
• Figure the Tip-More appropriate for the 4th-6th graders, my boss always has her nieces and nephews figure out the exact tip amount for the waiter when she takes them out to eat.  20% of the bill for standard service, more for superior service.
• Mental Math-This is a great car game.  Give a problem such as 43+52.  Explain how to mentally add the 40+50, and then the 3+2 to get 95.  The first person to get the answer gets a "point".  If necessary, take turns giving your children their own, ability appropriate problems to get their "points".  try this with subtraction and multiplication, as well.
• Find the Numbers-Another great car game, especially for road trips! The little kids can play along, as well.  Starting with one, compete to be the first person to find the number.  Work your way up as high as you can go.  You can make your own family rules, of course, but in our family, our rule is that when we get to numbers like 10 and 12, the two digits of the number can be IN another number, say 23104 or 125, but they must be in the correct order.  (So, not 23014 or 215).  Try playing this with the alphabet, as well.
• Heads or Tales Fact Families-My son needed some work with addition and subtraction fact families.  I got out some pennies, and called him over to the table.  You can begin with any amount over 3.  we started with 4 pennies.  I had him shake the pennies in his palm like dice, and then put them on the table.  He counted the amount of heads, 3, and then the amount of tails, 1, followed by the total, 4.  I modeled how to make the number sentence 3+1=4.  We repeated the process to get the other addition facts for 4.  Then we did subtraction sentences in the same way, before moving on to using 5 pennies, and so on.  My son actually had a lot of fun with this, and gained a better understanding of how addition and subtraction are related.  This is great for math fact practice, as well.
• Computer Games-do a Google search for "Math Games", and you'll find quite a few.  Our favorite is this one.  There's even a website to play Guess the Number here!  From the same website, there's even an interactive 100's chart to practice skip counting and multiplication tables.

Please share some of your own math games!

School Pride

Set your DVRs for Saturday October 15 at 8:00.  NBC is premeiring it's newest reality show, School Pride.  You can read what NBC has to say about it here, but basically, it's Extreme Home Makeover with schools! Community members will work together to improve and refurbish their schools and rebuild community spirit and involvement. I'm really excited about this show-I hope it lives up to the hype!

Having grown up and student taught in suburban schools in Indiana, and then teaching in a poverty stricken area of Mississippi, the differences between the "haves" and "have nots" were staggering to me.  In my school in Mississippi, carpeted classrooms, paper towels and soap in bathrooms, and even daily cleaning  of classrooms were considered "luxuries".  Our window screens were torn, there were bugs and mold growing in my classroom, and much of our equipment was broken or in disprepair.  It's a sad fact that many of our nations poorest students often go to schools that are in poor condition.

I hope this show takes off-it's only a tv show, of course, but think of all the lives it will touch if it is successful!  Kudos to NBC!

IPS Considering Year Round Schedule

Indianapolis Public School system is our state's largest school district, and is also one of the poorest performing districts when it comes to state test scores.  IPS has many struggles: declining enrollment, poor student attendance, a high drop out rate, graduation rates under 50%, a severe lack of parental involvement, disruptive student behavior, decaying infrastructure, and of course, money.  Most IPS schools consistently fail in reaching their AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) growth under the No Child Left Behind Act.  As poverty and crime rates rise in Indianapolis, IPS is working to combat it's many struggles.

To address some of these needs, IPS is considering a year round school schedule that would add 20 days to the current traditional calendar of 180 days.  Students would likely attend school in 9 week blocks, with 2-3 week breaks in between, and summer vacation would be cut from it's current 9 weeks,  to just 5 weeks.  Many parents support the idea of year round school, and I foresee this new schedule being put into place within the next year or so.

Would I want my children to go to a year round school? Honestly, I don't think so.  I value having my children home all summer.  With my husband and I having conflicting schedules, those long summer days afford us more time to spend together as a family.  I know that my kids enjoy the break as well-summer is just long enough for them to relax and recharge.  Just before they get bored, school starts again, and they are ready to go.  We are fortunate to live in a suburban area, that is somewhat affluent.  Our local schools consistently perform well on state tests, and parent/community involvement and support is high.  For these reasons, I don't think year round school is vital for our particular community.

However, I do think this is a great plan for IPS.  Students would have less time over the summer to forget what they had learned, which would cut down on the extensive amount of reteaching that must take place at the beginning of school.  IPS struggles every year to get students to show up on the first day of school.  Often, a large percentage of students don't arrive until school has already been in session for days or even weeks-a problem that I think would be less likely with this schedule.  Students would be in school more, and on the streets less.  Also, those students who depend on the free breakfast and free or reduced lunches served at school for their only meals, would be fed on a more regular basis.  Will year round school solve all of IPS's issues? No.  But it's a start.

What do you think of year round school calendars?