Here is a quick tip for teachers when speaking with the parents of primary age children who seem to have difficulty sharing with their friends. Hope it helps!
Genius Hour
Laura and Kristin encourage all teachers to commit to one hour per week for Genius Hour. This is a time for students to research about their passions!
Good Morning Greeter
Rachel sets the tone of her classroom by greeting each student. She also shares a classroom job that reinforces a caring environment. Thanks Megan Gidcumb for submitting this video!
Technology Tip
Everybody likes things that are free. Today's tip is about free apps!
Here's a link to subscribe to "Educational Apps For Kids". They email daily with app recommendations and email the "Free App Fridays" list every Friday. Each Friday morning, lots of apps are free to download and others are offered at reduced prices, but only for about 2-4 hours after the email is sent. Also, they provide a new list every week.
http://app.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=953444
Enjoy!
Student white board tip
Cortney has a tip to keep students focused while they use white boards during her math block!
Help students “pop” (sound out) the first sound of a word
Teacher Tip: Here is what I saw…
1st grade students were sitting on the carpet. They were told the title of the book they were going to read and were asked to use their lips to find the first sound in the first word. All read alouds for the week were lined up on the ledge of the white board located across the room. Nearly all students were excited to pop that sound because they wanted to be chosen to go across the room to get the read aloud. Then the teacher chose a student who needed the body break to walk across, practice the skill of finding the title with the first sound, and bring the book over to the group.
This tip was great on so many levels!
1) All students were engaged practicing that first sound skill.
2) She embedded academic vocabulary with words like, “first,” “sound,” and “title.”
3) She embedded BICS language with the words “across” and “on.”
4) She gave a student a body break!
5) She got students anticipating the read aloud!
Way to go teachers who embed simple and wonderful ideas into literacy instruction!
Seating Options to Help Students Focus
Katie offers many suggestions to help students focus on their school work by using various seating options. Thanks Katie!!!
Students interrupting another student telling a story
TEACHER PROBLEM: Student is excited to tell a personal story and is getting interrupted by friends. What could a teacher do?
TEACHER TIP: Here is what I saw...
Billy was excitedly sharing about his computer game. Many students started to interrupt him with their own computer gaming stories. The teacher responded with, "I am so glad you all have a common interest. That is cool, but let's try to let Billy finish first."
What a wonderful way to build the classroom environment with camaraderie, create a common interest, give Billy space to finish, and respectfully ask students to please not interrupt. WOW!
Thanks for all of the amazing work you do!
Teacher productivity
Megan offers a great tip to help teachers use their time wisely!
Relationships with students
Kathy, a 7th Grade teacher, reminds us that a relationship with your students is the foundation for learning!
Quieting a class
Laura has a fantastic tip to quickly quiet down a high energy classroom!
Writing tip - word choice
Molly presents a great tip to help students with word choice in writing.
Welcome to my blog!
First Blog
Welcome to a celebration of the craft of teaching! Any true skill has artisan tips which improve the talents of the craftsman. One hope of this blog is to learn practical and interesting ideas from fellow teachers. I believe sharing each others' simple ideas will help us all to more easily focus on our students' learning. My goals when writing the blog will be efficiency when reviewing, interest, brevity, and application for various grades. Each blog will offer a photo which attempts to symbolize the post. Videos will always be less than one minute and written tags or posts will be kept to the bare minimum.
Happy reading and please feel free to contact me with an idea you would like to suggest in the Contact section. You can sign-up for the blog on the Blog Sign-up section. Thanks!
