California Regions

This week my class wrapped up our learning of the four main regions of California by making these bean maps.  My grade level does these every year. We used rice, pinto/kidney beans, split peas, and popcorn kernels to represent the coast, mountain, central valley and desert areas.

 

~Enjoy

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I'm Sunshine Spreading: The Power of Positive

Here's to the power of positive!

On Task Behavior

I loved the self regulation idea I ran across on Empowering Little Learners.  It called to me because I have at least 3 students who have difficulty realizing when they are off task. I'm hoping this cue sheet will become a magic bullet to help them self monitor their choices. I'm willing to give anything a try. Today was my first day giving it a spin, and all 3 students were able to honestly tell me what level they felt they were at when I asked them. I posted a mini version on each of their desks. Enjoy this revised version of the original.

Join The Wise and Witty Teacher Linky for more ideas!

~Enjoy

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Let's Say Thanks with American Pride

A patriotic activity I use every year is the "Let's Say Thanks" site sponsored by Zerox. You can have your students send a postcard of their choice to show appreciation and support of our military and country.  All the free postcards are designed by kids as seen by this sample from the site. This is such an easy, but powerful way to validate the sacrifice of our country's armed forces, especially with the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 upon us tomorrow.

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Addition Properties Task Cards

My class is learning about the 3 properties of addition: Commutative, Associative and Identity.

I made up a worksheet to review what these big 'ol words mean. For commutative I discuss the meaning of the word "commute" or change. I also call it the flip flop rule. You can change the position of the numbers but the answer stays the same.  For associative rule I relate it to talking in a group (associate). It doesn't matter who you talk to first.  The identity rule is the easiest which is the zero rule.  Grab your copy of the property worksheet here. I also have a set of task cards for the properties too.

Grab the task cards HERE 

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Compass Rose Fun - Cardinal and Intermediate Directions

My absolute favorite part of teaching geography is when my students create their own compass rose
Prior to sending this project home we've spent time in class learning about both cardinal and intermediate directions. I even do a PE Compass Rose Relay game. I set up directional signs in a circle formation, throw colored circles around and relay teams race to follow cue cards that says various things like:

Skip and pick up a green circle. Put it in the Northwest hoop.

Crab crawl and pick up a yellow circle. Put it in the South hoop.

High knee run and pick up a blue circle. Put it in the East hoop.

Once students have a solid foundation for their directions my grade level sends home this compass rose project

Here are some samples:

~Enjoy

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A is for Assessments: Fun Ways to Evaluate Student Learning

I'm sharing my bag of tricks for great assessment ideas for the classroom.

Here are some of my favorites:

 

Grade the Teacher 

 

This is by far my absolute favorite way to assess my students in the classroom.

It is so versatile and engaging and can be used for any subject. Plus it builds critical thinking and reasoning skills. Students get to "grade" the teacher's work, which is purposely filled with errors for them to find. It's great for an exit ticket and error analysis. Plus, students don't even realize they are doing ALL the work by correcting and reteaching the teacher! It is such a hit with the students. Grab it at my TPT store.

 

Carousel Writing

Create a set of questions related to a topic of study. Write them out on chart paper. These questions will be used as brainstorming sheets for a pre lesson assessment, and then again for a post lesson assessment.  Group students at one of the chart questions and have them discuss and record ideas. Upon a designated signal pass the charts to a new group and continue the same process. Each group will respond and add to all question charts.  The neat part of this is if you do the same questions as a post Carousel Writing you can see growth in ideas.  The samples below were for a science unit on Living Things. The pre lesson Carousel brainstorming was in red and the post lesson was in green.

Stoplight Vocabulary

This idea comes from the book Getting Into Words by Shira Lubliner.

Use this web link printable to color code vocabulary word familiarity in stoplight colors:

Red: If you don't know the word
Yellow: If you have heard the word, but not sure of its meaning
Green: If you know the word and can use it in a sentence

What are some fun ways you assess students?

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Place Value Activities and Games to Build Number Sense

My first unit in math is on place value and I made these place value windows that 

are just so handy and help reinforce place value number sense in a fun way.

I hang them on my white board and during lessons can easily ask students to help write and represent numbers in the correct place value position. They can be used to show standard place value form and you can write the expanded place value form underneath for a challenge.

I have a bundle of place value activities and games in my store if interested.

~Enjoy

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SLANT Focusing strategy

Do you need some Hocus, Pocus for some focus in your classroom?
I make use of this SLANT strategy cue card for some of my students that need help with redirection and on task behavior. I tape it to the corner of their desks. All I have to say is, "Show me SLANT" and they know they need to get back on track.  More information about SLANT  can be found {at this link}. 

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A Key Idea

As I was cleaning and reorganizing my room for the first day of school I ran across my key cup.
Here's a little background. A dear friend and previous classroom aide of mine witnessed on a regular basis my "loss of key moments".  I think she got tired of hearing me say to my kiddos, "Has anyone seen my keys? Help me find them." and made me this cute little ol' key cup.  I am not a lanyard wearing teacher, so this cup has come to my rescue ever since she gave it to me. Yippee, no more lost keys for me, only if I remember to put them in the cup!  Sidenote:  My worst "lost key" episode was when I laid my keys on the table in the staff room and a substitute teacher accidently picked them up and kept them in a pocket thinking they were his!  All day long I was searching everywhere for my keys and asking everyone if they spotted them. I even dug in the staff trash can.  I thank my lucky stars that  I asked the above mentioned sub on his way out for the day about my keys. He pulled them out of his pocket in surprise, and then proceeded to show me his own keys from his backpack that looked almost EXACTLY like mine.  So a word of caution to all of you this school year, watch out for key stealing subs. HA HA!