Free Online Grade book, Lesson Planner, and More!

        In a couple of weeks I will being teaching 5th grade. I am super excited about this, but decided I was in need of some new ideas for classroom management and was looking for a different way to keep students engaged. I started thinking about music and what keeps people interested. When we know the words and can interact with the songs, watching a concert for hours goes by in an instant. Googling various words and looking extensively on Pintrest, I found whole brain teaching. This idea is phenomonial, easy, and best of all it looks like most of their information of how it works is online and FREE! I love free stuff :)
     

        Their website with further information can be found at http://www.wholebrainteaching.com/


        I am going to try this with my fifth graders this year! I will be posting how it goes. I am excited to see the results and hope that it is a fun way to keep my students engaged and results it them being able to remember the information.


        If you are interested here are a couple of videos of whole brain teaching in action. The first two videos are how to get started with WBT. Teaching the students the rules and procedures for it. The last two videos is it being used in actual lessons. I love how enthusiastic the kids are... looks like so much fun!



       I have a rock star theme in my classroom so I have created posters of the procedures, rules, and the two score boards.  



Click Here to download the posters in the Rock Star theme!

The graphics I used came from thistlegirldesigns.com



Happy Whole Brain Teaching!

Rocking Out Our Whole Brain Classroom

        In a couple of weeks I will being teaching 5th grade. I am super excited about this, but decided I was in need of some new ideas for classroom management and was looking for a different way to keep students engaged. I started thinking about music and what keeps people interested. When we know the words and can interact with the songs, watching a concert for hours goes by in an instant. Googling various words and looking extensively on Pintrest, I found whole brain teaching. This idea is phenomonial, easy, and best of all it looks like most of their information of how it works is online and FREE! I love free stuff :)
     

        Their website with further information can be found at http://www.wholebrainteaching.com/


        I am going to try this with my fifth graders this year! I will be posting how it goes. I am excited to see the results and hope that it is a fun way to keep my students engaged and results it them being able to remember the information.


        If you are interested here are a couple of videos of whole brain teaching in action. The first two videos are how to get started with WBT. Teaching the students the rules and procedures for it. The last two videos is it being used in actual lessons. I love how enthusiastic the kids are... looks like so much fun!



       I have a rock star theme in my classroom so I have created posters of the procedures, rules, and the two score boards.  



Click Here to download the posters in the Rock Star theme!

The graphics I used came from thistlegirldesigns.com



Happy Whole Brain Teaching!

Back to School Community Building Face to Face and Online

I am currently taking a class on how to teach students in an online environment. The class is taught through a program called Moodle, which if you have been in college the last ten years, is like Blackboard, but free. Many public schools are now utilizing Moodle. It is a very easy to use and many of the same good teaching practices in the traditional classroom, hold true in the virtual classroom as well. One of the most important things I have learned in my teaching experience is that of community building. Students that feel safe and included perform so much better because they are more willing to take risks and help each other.

So start your year off right with fun community building activities and when students seem to be struggling to get along, pull some out throughout the school year as well.

Here are some activities to get you started:

Traditional Classroom

Sentence Circles - Split your students into groups of 5-6. Give each group a piece of sentence strip paper and a pencil. On your signal, the first person in the group writes one word on the strip and then passes it to the left. The second person then writes the second word of the sentence. The writing continues around the circle - with no talking! When the sentences are complete, the students share their creations with the class. Do this a few times and have them notice how their collective sentences improve each time around.
 
Trivia Card Shuffle - Come up with 5 questions that you would like your students to answer about themselves. Write them on the board for all to see. These questions can be about anything, ranging from "What is your favorite food?" to "What did you do this summer?" If it is later in the year, try questions that they might not know about each other like, "What was your favorite toy when you were a baby?"
Give each student an index card numbered 1-5 (or however many questions you are asking) and have them write their answers to the questions on it, in order. Also fill out a card about yourself. After a few minutes, collect the cards and redistribute them to the students, making sure no one gets their own card.
Have the students get up and mingle as they chat and try to figure out who wrote the cards they are holding. After they know who their person is, they sit down at their seat (remind students still standing that students at their seat may still be the one on their card). Continue until everyone has figured out who was on their cards. a variation on this game if you are not comfortable with students walking around is when you have time pull out a couple of cards and read them and have students guess who the card is about.

A Picture about Me -
Draw pictures that "describe" yourself. For instance, on my picture I would draw a guitar, a computer, lots of books, and more. Invites your students to guess from the drawings what your favorite interests might be. Then I give students drawing paper and ask them to tell about themselves -- using only pictures. Break into small cooperative groups, and tell each group describe about the people in the group based on their pictures.

Online Classroom

While building a community of online learners maybe a bit trickier, it can certainly be accomplished. If your online environment enables an avatar or personal picture encourage your students to choose a picture that represents them and their interests. Always allow time in the beginning of the course for some ungraded assignments that are focused around the individual learner so they can express themselves, but also get used to working in an online environment with which they might not be familiar. Build your assignments around discussions and encourage/require students to respond to each other with questions and their own insights. Also make sure you lay ground rules at the beginning of the course, such as appropriate responses and how to disagree with someone with out being offensive. Another idea is having students complete an online personality test and if they want to sharing with the class their personality. This might also help students learn more about themselves!

Have a fun and successful start!

Smart Goals Poster

Smart Goals Poster

As part of my graduate research, I focused on goal setting and self-reflection. I found a goal setting acronym called S.M.A.R.T. goals from a colleague in my Master's course. I created a poster for this that I will enlarge and place by my classroom door. Students will write their "SMART" goals on post-it notes and place it on the poster and replace them after they have met their goal. This way their goal is visible and they will see it often and I won't have to remind them of their goals. I am also hoping that students will encourage each other to meet their goals!

If you would like a copy of this poster in pdf format click below.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE SMART GOALS POSTER

Rock Star Classroom Decor

This year I am decorating my room in the Rock Star Theme! It seems fun and I think it will definitely draw the kids in. Also, since I play the guitar, it works on that level as well.

I found this site that has great ideas for the theme:

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/Rock%20Theme.htm

I found some of the items she used at oriental trading company, so I put an order in there. I will be doing the Rock Star of the week and the kids bios to hang up for back to school night.

I went to Hancock Fabrics and Michael's and scored on some great items for my classroom decor! The fabric was on clearance for $1 a yard and the ribbon was all on sale for between $1 and $1.99. The cute guitars are push pins that were $1.99. I am going with neon green, blue, and pink colors that coordinate with the baskets and desktop items I got in the dollar section at Target. The solid colors are to cover my bulletin boards and the pattern is for a curtain and to recover the cushion on my rocking chair (that now is getting very thread bare!)

I love the ribbon that says Rock Star! I also got from Michael's an ID holder that has VIP on it with stars. We use a program called First in Math at our school and there is a player of the day. I am going to use the VIP ID holder for that next year.

I also ordered the Rock star bulletin board set from Carson-Dellosa that you can find here:

http://www.carsondellosa.com/cd2/Products/CarsonDellosa/PID-110150.aspx?CM_VC=10001

Here is the curtain I made:

So super easy to make! I cut down the center of two yards of fabric (my window is 48 inches wide). Hemmed the two ends and bottom, then folded down the top 4 inches and sewed the bottom of that to leave a large enough hole for the curtain rod. Then I just used fabric glue to attach the ribbon. Took me half and hour tops.


I found great graphics from http://www.thistlegirldesigns.com/ to use!




I bought the Kiddie Pop graphics and am using them for decor and on my school web page. I've already had some other teachers at my school comment on how cute my new web page looks with her graphics.