Teacher Team Work- Cute Story I found to inspire you.

The Story of the Geese, a lesson for all of us flapping and honking through life to make a difference.Lesson 1: The flapping of each bird’s wings creates uplift for the geese that follow. By flying in a V formation, the entire flock has a 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew alone.

If we share in a common direction and sense of community, our going may be quicker and easier because we are traveling on one another’s thrust.

Lesson 2: Should a goose fall out of the V formation, he will suddenly feel the resistance and the drag of flying alone. If you keep watching, you will see him get back into the V formation, to take full advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front.
If we have as much sense as the goose, we will keep in formation with those who share our vision, who are headed where we want to go. We will be willing to accept their help, and give our own help to others.

Lesson 3: When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back into the formation and a new, fresh goose flies in the lead position.
As with the geese, we are interdependent upon one another.
It is helpful to take turns at the hard tasks and share the burdens of leadership.

Lesson 4: The geese aren’t honking without cause. They honk, honk, honk up to the lead goose to congratulate him for flying fast and strong.
We need to make certain that all of our honking is encouraging and never something else.

Lesson 5: If a goose gets ill or injured during flight and descends to the earth, another goose will follow. He will remain with the fallen bird until it is well again.
If we have as much heart as a goose, we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.
As educators, we will fly down and help our children soar to the learning sky.
To be an educator is to carry the energy of the journey of life and to find ways to help children learn to their potential.
Remember, you can do this.
You can do anything.

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Helpful RtI Websites

Fellow Teachers,  I have come across some websites that can be helpful and informative for you and your staff when working towards fine tuning your RtI aproaches. 

http://www.rti4success.org/

http://www.florida-rti.org/

Marshmallow Math

In March and April we used marshmallows to help learn about angles, vertices and sides.  We also use the marshmallows along with toothpicks and fruit loop cereal to discover and practice the 100's, 10"s and 1's column.  It was a lot of fun.

Angles, shapes and vertices

100's, 10's, 1's place value and writing

numbers in expanded form

Autism Awareness is in April

As some of you know I have a special place in my heart for Autism.  April is a month that the wonders and curiosity of Autsim is talked about more in the media.   Here a link to learn more or to donate for research.  http://www.autism-society.org/about-us/national-autism-awareness-month/

Butterflies and Chickens! Which came first, the egg?

This is the time of year when our classroom has an influx of wildlife.  Every year we watch the butterfly cycle from caterpillar to adult butterfly.  We've already read many stories about this so the children will be excited to see it come to life inside our butterfly cage.  I ordered the caterpillars online and they should be at school soon.

Chicks, chicks and more chicks.  We will also start our Egg to Chicken experiment.  A local mom and grandma donate eggs and the incubator for our kiddos to start the 21 day journey. 

These two activities are a great way to discuss our Earth and Conservation.  I love this time of year.

Butterflies were ordered from www.insectlore.com .

Who Took the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?

Alas we have come to the time of year when I bring out the popular story "Who Took The Cookie From The Cookie Jar". Spring is around the corner and animals are coming out of hibernation.  The story has many. This cute story has so many opportunities for Math and Science teachable moments as well as all the Language Arts aspects as well.


We will use the poem to discuss sentence conventions and structure.  The rhythmic pattern of the poem is perfect for emergent readers.  We know that memorization is a building block to fluent readers some day.  

I have a large cookie model I made from canvas. We will use this for our vocabulary words and math activities this week.  Educational researchers tell us that children's brains best remember and learn when we give them a visual way to compartmentalize the information.  Simply by displaying and interacting with manipulatives on the cookie will help them to make the needed connections of the concepts we teach.

Monday: I will start the lesson by placing pictures of all the characters from the story in front of the children; a raccoon, snake, beaver, frog and ants. Next I will show them the front cover of the book and read the title. Then each child will get to make a prediction using tally marks (math integration) of the animal they think took the cookies.  We will "picture walk" the story and then read the story.  This lesson will be  a spring board for the week's lessons of sequencing and comprehension as well as sight word and rhyme word reading.  I'm looking forward to it.  At the end of the week we will make some cookies...healthy..gluten free, whole wheat..of course! :) .

Dr. Seuss Week

Dr. Seuss' Week was a lot of fun.  We had  a week in honor of this author and illustrator.  I will share the week with you through pictures and daily descriptions.  I have also found great websites for parents and teachers.  I may even create a separate section on this blog devoted to Theodore Geisel.

Monday: We read Hop on Pop.  The kids used this book to discuss rhyming words.  Teachers and parents all know the importance of learning to rhyme.  It helps us to be better readers.  The students made a list of rhyme words they heard from the book.  Next we played a game with the rhyme words.

Tuesday:   We had a lot of fun today.  We watched Cat in the Hat short film and then read the book.  We compared an contrasted the two while I read the story.  The kids would put a thumbs up if the book and film matched and thumbs down if it didn't.  We practiced -at words and wrote a summary of the book.  I will post the pictures of this at the end of the week.

Wednesday We read "There's a Wocket in my Pocket".  We discussed how Dr. Seuss uses nonsense words and rhymes to write his stories.  We are writing our own story called 'There's a Wazoom in our Classroom.  Each child has a page that reads " There's a _______ running around the _______". each student chooses a object from the classroom.  We find a fun rhyme, non sense word to match it.  Next we filled in the blanks. Example:  There's a Lobe running on the globe.  Each child will illustrate their fictional character.  After P.E they will make a model of their character with some art supplies I need to use up.  It should be a lot of fun. Our booklet is hanging in our hall for everyone to read.  It's really cute.

Thursday: Today we read Yertle the Turtle.  We discussed what the "Main Idea" was.  We decided that Yertle was "greedy".  We participated in a cloze activity to practice our high fequency words.  It read, "We learned to not be greedy from Yertle the Turtle.  Being greedy means to only think of yourself.  In the end, all Yertle had left was mud.  Next we made paper plate turtles.  Once the glue dries we will stack them to see how many it takes for them to fall.  Today was fun.

Friday: To wrap -up our week we read Green Eggs and Ham.  We also had a field trip to the local library where they had a speical reading hour.  The libraroan read many of Dr. Seuss' books as well as gave us a little history about ed Giesel's life.  A very creative mom sent a Green Eggs and Ham snack for us to enjoy.  Two pretzel sticks (ham) with green modeling chocolate and a yellow M&M on top.  It was cute!