Hello Fabulous Readers! So, as you know, this year has been SUCH a change for me! I know, I know change is good. How do you promote writing in your classroom? How do you differentiate among grade levels and abilities? Here are some of my ideas, but I would love to hear yours also!
I try to set my schedule up during the day where I work with 1 to 3 students at a time. This way I can really have a productive mini lesson. I still have large group lessons, but really focus on the areas of IEPs in my small group settings (for those just joining... I teach children kinder-5th grade with different abilities)
Last week I had one of my small groups choose a topic. Coming up with an idea to write about is hard, and I hope with practice will get easier! On Tuesday I gave each student a pencil and a sticky note. We brainstormed together over the topic. Students could draw a picture, write a sentence, or just write a word, as long as it stayed on the topic. On Wednesday and Thursday we worked on writing correct sentences using our brainstorming ideas. This is where we really talked about capitalization and punctuation. We also talked about rough draft. On Friday we put it on our blog (now, I don't know if that is going to change... because I don't know if I like how it looks there) I am excited to see my students writing grow over the year!
So, this is what I do with just one group. As a whole group we have been tweeting. Be sure to follow us @mrskellersclass to see what we are doing! My next blog will be over how we are using twitter in our classroom!
Hope to hear from you and what you are doing to increase rigor and writing in your class!
Our district is in the second year of using the Unique Learning System Curriculum, and I LOVE IT! Being a teacher with students with multiple abilities it makes it tough sometimes to lesson plan. Unique covers the different bands of curriculum, but has it modified for different levels of learners. Each month focuses on a different theme. I am beginning to make different independent work stations for my classroom. Each month there are also spelling words. At the first of the month we begin to go over these spelling words. For my students that are non-verbal I have an voice output device that I use with the per-recorded words. I have the support in place for my verbal students depending on skill level. The alphabet station has a copy of the words and an alphabet board. The station also includes directions on how to complete the center that I produced in boardmaker. Students are invited to go the station and place each word with the correct letter it begins with.
I am excited about some of the other stations that I am setting up! Stay tuned! Oh, and guess what.. my students tweeted today. What a great way for students to think about what they have done! More on that later!
Wow! I am in my 10th day at my new school. On the first day of school I was so loved and received a cookie bouquet from my fabulous friend Shawn and an edible bouquet from "The Men in My Life" (ie. husband, brother in law, and 2 great friends Paul and Scott) It was a wonderful way to start the school year! I started the day off with putting these magnets into everyone's boxes. The goal was the first day of school, but it didn't happen. Thanks to Googly Eye Crafts in Irving I always get the BEST ideas! I LOVE email (and I am sorry to the people that I have not got back to yet-I promise it is on my to do list!) but I love regular mail even more. Nothing is better than getting packages in the mail with goodies!
My parents always send me the best goodies! This year has been no exception :) I received some snacks for my classroom along with information about West Texas A&M University to add to my door. We are Elliott University where everyone is going to College! What a great way to start a day with that statement! One of the coolest things in my package was these AWESOME Peace signs. Stevens Floral Company in Canyon, Texas always has the best things. What a GREAT add on to my class that the theme is Peace, Love, and Bumblebees.
My other WAY cool thing that I received was from IR Great Innovations LLC. If you have followed my youtube videos for awhile you know that I made one over creating your own interactive whiteboard. I get to test out their new product which is a rear projection unit that students can walk up to! Don't worry there will be a video up soon! If you want to check out any of my other videos head over to www.youtube.com/ilovechefwilliam
I will close this post with the quote that I gave all teachers with their magnets today and my new youtube video of my classroom set up! More blogs to come over all of the cool Unique stuff, some new data collection ideas, center ideas, and of course the new Wiimote Whiteboard information.
