Does anyone use silent signals in their classroom? I was watching a video on The Teaching Channel, in which the third grade teacher demonstrates her use of "silent signals." This video got me to thinking about what types of silent signals I have used in the past with my younger students.
One that we used very often was the "silent celebration" - if we were excited about something, instead of cheering and yelling, and disrupting the class next door, we pumped out arms up and down in the air, opened out mouths wide like we were yelling and in some cases, we jumped up and down while doing it. I would preface any big announcement with "Are you ready for a silent celebration?" which told the kids what type of response I was expecting. They all understood, even at their young ages, the importance of not disrupting the class next door. (We had a shared kitchen area so we could always hear back and forth between the classrooms.)
My school taught sign language in a few of the classrooms. It started out with colors, added in the alphabet, and kept going to add other signs down to the toddler level. Silent responses seemed a natural progression.
This short two-minute video shows some easy signs that even our young students can remember:
Silent Signals in the Math Classroom
Other signals I would use are: "thumbs up if you agree" "thumbs down if you have a different answer." I'd have a student come to the white board and solve a problem. If you think they are right or wrong, then you give me the appropriate thumb signal. Sometime I'd break the students into small groups of 2 or 3 students, and work together to sort or pattern on the board. The remaining groups would have to decide all together if the group was right or wrong, and the group would have to give me the thumb symbol.
Another silent signal I'd use is "put your hand on your head when you are done" so I could quietly walk over to the student and check their work. To see if they were paying attention, with my older students (Kindergarten) I'd mix it up and give them a different action. If I didn't mind some disruptions, or to keep things light, I'd make the signal really silly.
Anyone care to share some signals you use?
Kathy
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Adorable Preschool or Kindergarten Math Game
I was perusing around Pinterest this morning and found this adorable game. I put in the title Preschool or Kindergarten, but it really can be used for older students as well.
Fun fine motor math game
It in from the site called "Pre-K Pages" and I so wish I was in the classroom right now to try it.
What little ones would not LOVE this?? By squeezing the tennis ball, the student is strengthening those all important hand muscles needed for fine motor activities and writing.
Fun fine motor math game
It in from the site called "Pre-K Pages" and I so wish I was in the classroom right now to try it.
What little ones would not LOVE this?? By squeezing the tennis ball, the student is strengthening those all important hand muscles needed for fine motor activities and writing.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Shoe Challenge
I've been facebooking a shoe challenge I gave myself 12 days ago and today someone suggested I blog this activity of mine. Reminded me I had not been here in a few days, so thought I'd stop by and say hello!
My traffic has quieted down quite a bit this past week, I see, and I am not sure if it is lack of interest in what I am blogging about, overall busy-ness of teachers during the school year, or my lesson ideas are that boring that no one wants to come read them!!
So I have two questions for those of you stopping by:
1) shall I continue my teaching blog even though I am not actively teaching this year, to share with other teachers my activities and ideas?
and
2) shall I blog about my shoe challenge instead?
LOL
So my challenge is this: I decided one day that I needed to sweep the floor of our coat closet. This closet also holds the majority of our shoes. Even though we try not to, "stuff" finds it's way inside (grass, mulch etc) so the floor was kindof messy. Plus it's tile, so it gets dusty too. I took all the shoes out, cleaned, then as I was putting them back, started thinking about how many of my shoes I had not worn in AGES. Like a few years for some of them. I have a shoe shelf that has 15 slots; I had them all filled, with many holding two pairs of flip flops, plus shoes all over the floor in front of it. I wish I had taken a before picture.
I asked my Facebook friends how long they keep shoes when they have not worn them, and does style REALLY matter that much? Based on our discussions I decided that starting that day, I would wear a different pair of shoes every day until I had worn each pair once. This is not easy, as I started it after Labor Day, so the white shoes were technically unwearable. There are days I don't leave the house too, so what do I do on those days? I put myself out for the challenge and today is day 12. The entire challenge will take a little over a month. Each day I post a picture of the shoes I wore, and some commentary about them.
Any interest out there?? I need comments please, either way. I see the traffic I get but hardly anyone comments; I was hoping to get some discussions going but I feel like I am just talking to myself most of the time. :( Blogging takes a lot of my time, and if the interest is not there then my time can be spent doing other things.
So what do you all think?
My traffic has quieted down quite a bit this past week, I see, and I am not sure if it is lack of interest in what I am blogging about, overall busy-ness of teachers during the school year, or my lesson ideas are that boring that no one wants to come read them!!
So I have two questions for those of you stopping by:
1) shall I continue my teaching blog even though I am not actively teaching this year, to share with other teachers my activities and ideas?
and
2) shall I blog about my shoe challenge instead?
LOL
So my challenge is this: I decided one day that I needed to sweep the floor of our coat closet. This closet also holds the majority of our shoes. Even though we try not to, "stuff" finds it's way inside (grass, mulch etc) so the floor was kindof messy. Plus it's tile, so it gets dusty too. I took all the shoes out, cleaned, then as I was putting them back, started thinking about how many of my shoes I had not worn in AGES. Like a few years for some of them. I have a shoe shelf that has 15 slots; I had them all filled, with many holding two pairs of flip flops, plus shoes all over the floor in front of it. I wish I had taken a before picture.
I asked my Facebook friends how long they keep shoes when they have not worn them, and does style REALLY matter that much? Based on our discussions I decided that starting that day, I would wear a different pair of shoes every day until I had worn each pair once. This is not easy, as I started it after Labor Day, so the white shoes were technically unwearable. There are days I don't leave the house too, so what do I do on those days? I put myself out for the challenge and today is day 12. The entire challenge will take a little over a month. Each day I post a picture of the shoes I wore, and some commentary about them.
Any interest out there?? I need comments please, either way. I see the traffic I get but hardly anyone comments; I was hoping to get some discussions going but I feel like I am just talking to myself most of the time. :( Blogging takes a lot of my time, and if the interest is not there then my time can be spent doing other things.
So what do you all think?
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Sorting aka K.MD.3
So we are up to the last part of the Measurement and Data domain: K.MD.3.
Classify objects and count the number of objects in each category.
Explanation: classify objects into given categories; count the number of objects in each category and sort the categories by count. Keep it to 10 or less.
Seems pretty simple, right?
My young students loved to sort objects; my older students seemed to think it was boring. Glad this one is only one standard. The bear families we just used for the Three Bears story come in handy here for sorting; you can use color, size, or a combination of both.
But isn't it more fun to sort real things? Give the students a challenge by giving them less obvious objects to sort. Need your collage drawer organized? Perfect opportunity to use as a learning experience for this standard. What about bringing in a literacy connection? Are your book baskets getting a little disorganized? This age can easily separate fiction from non-fiction just by looking at the pictures.
Grab a bag of buttons from the craft store. Let them come up with ways to sort them.
3 Little Firefighters from Amazon
Go outside on a rock hunt; bring them back and let the students explore then sort. Same thing with leaves, if you live somewhere that the seasons change like I do.
Liz Sorts It Out from Amazon
This relatively boring standard can turn into a really fun adventure. Get creative!!! Of course, once you have your items classified into groups, you can move on to the second part and have them count each group, and place them in quantity order.
Kathy
Classify objects and count the number of objects in each category.
Explanation: classify objects into given categories; count the number of objects in each category and sort the categories by count. Keep it to 10 or less.
Seems pretty simple, right?
My young students loved to sort objects; my older students seemed to think it was boring. Glad this one is only one standard. The bear families we just used for the Three Bears story come in handy here for sorting; you can use color, size, or a combination of both.
But isn't it more fun to sort real things? Give the students a challenge by giving them less obvious objects to sort. Need your collage drawer organized? Perfect opportunity to use as a learning experience for this standard. What about bringing in a literacy connection? Are your book baskets getting a little disorganized? This age can easily separate fiction from non-fiction just by looking at the pictures.Grab a bag of buttons from the craft store. Let them come up with ways to sort them.
3 Little Firefighters from Amazon
Go outside on a rock hunt; bring them back and let the students explore then sort. Same thing with leaves, if you live somewhere that the seasons change like I do.
Liz Sorts It Out from Amazon
This relatively boring standard can turn into a really fun adventure. Get creative!!! Of course, once you have your items classified into groups, you can move on to the second part and have them count each group, and place them in quantity order.
Kathy
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Literature Connections: Fairy Tales part 3
Another great fairy tale to use with different sizes is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I originally was not planning on blogging about this story, as everyone knows this one and figured it would be pretty obvious.
You can even buy a set of "Bear Family" plastic bears. There are many places out there to get story pieces for this, tons of versions of the story, but then I figured why not? New teachers may not think this so obvious as those who have been around for a long time. SO here goes!
Goldilocks is probably the perfect story to practice matching by size.
Bear Family Counters This is an example of just one of the sets out there.
The set I owned came with all sorts of activities and pattern cards and work mats...games, bowls for sorting...Learning Resource Bears
Look at all the great stuff it comes with for not that much more money! I need to get myself into a creative mood and try to make some of these things for TpT. I am still learning what is copyright infringement and what is not. :)
Anyway, this is the perfect story to give the kids practice sequencing 3 items by size.
So after choosing your favorite version of The Three Bears (I think there are a million of them!!) I like to use...dun dun dun...
Yep, you guessed it. The flannelboard is out again. I have a few sets of these; came from multiple places round the net and curriculum guides. If you have a keen eye you may have noticed a spoon missing; I have no idea what happened to it!! So I copied these on cardstock, colored them in, and laminated for durability. On the back of one set is magnet tape; I find that hot gluing felt to the back of the plastic laminating material does not last. So anyway, we use these patterns to tell and retell, just like in the other stories previously posted. We sequence all the items from the bear's house, we match the sizes to each other and to the right bears. It's a great co-operative activity as well as center. I love purposely matching the wrong bed to the bear - the kids get a real kick out of it.
Kathy
You can even buy a set of "Bear Family" plastic bears. There are many places out there to get story pieces for this, tons of versions of the story, but then I figured why not? New teachers may not think this so obvious as those who have been around for a long time. SO here goes!
Goldilocks is probably the perfect story to practice matching by size.
Bear Family Counters This is an example of just one of the sets out there.
The set I owned came with all sorts of activities and pattern cards and work mats...games, bowls for sorting...Learning Resource Bears
Look at all the great stuff it comes with for not that much more money! I need to get myself into a creative mood and try to make some of these things for TpT. I am still learning what is copyright infringement and what is not. :)
Anyway, this is the perfect story to give the kids practice sequencing 3 items by size.
So after choosing your favorite version of The Three Bears (I think there are a million of them!!) I like to use...dun dun dun...
Kathy
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Literature Connections: Fairy Tales part 2
One of my favorite big & small stories is Jack & the Beanstalk. Can't get much more of an obvious size difference that this one!
To start, I needed a giant, a Jack and a beanstalk! KidsSoup has a set of characters; this giant is from there. My beanstalk is simply a laminated piece of construction paper that I drew a squiggle on, then cut after it was laminated. I have one part as a hook to keep it on my flannel board or white board. There is magnet tape on the back of this set - my white board on wheels was the perfect size to drape the beanstalk down, but since I am at home I had to use the flannel board to show you.
The Jack came from a curriculum book I photocopied from the library. If I can find the title I will edit the post.
Using the patterns from KidsSoup, we would tell and retell the story, and talk about the difference in sizes of big and small things. This is a repetition of the other big and small lessons, just with a different story.
The science connection made it an essential fairy tale to use. We planted some seeds (after comparing their sizes) and tracked their growth. I just brought in some leftover seeds from home; we planted a couple of each, This does take some time, I admit, to allow for growth but it's fun and by the time the plants are tall enough to measure with a ruler, we've moved onto standard measurement, so I look at this lesson as prep for that one!
I know that standard measurement is NOT part of the Kindergarten Common Core Standards; I see it is not really brought in until 2nd grade now. But this is something I can't ignore when the kids are totally capable of reading a ruler.
Hands on activity for this fairy tale: walk outside to compare GIANT to BIG to SMALL. We talked about the difference between something that can be called giant versus something we would call big. It is so important for young students to understand the language of math. Great opportunity to introduce TINY as well.
Now, these are all lessons I did with my three and four year olds, minus the measuring the plants with a ruler. They would use non-standard items like cubes. The CCS are so easy for measurement that this would be doable with your Kindergarten classes and be aligned perfectly.
Art connection: my youngest students got their own Jack and beanstalk, and practiced cutting on the lines. They "grew" their beanstalk by picking up the center piece (and bounced it up and down a few times) then I would tape it hanging to the wall, cabinet or table (to spread them out) and they got to move their Jack up and down the beanstalk. Our positional vocabulary of UP, DOWN, TOP, and BOTTOM was reinforced during this time.
Next time, yet another fairy tale!!
Kathy
To start, I needed a giant, a Jack and a beanstalk! KidsSoup has a set of characters; this giant is from there. My beanstalk is simply a laminated piece of construction paper that I drew a squiggle on, then cut after it was laminated. I have one part as a hook to keep it on my flannel board or white board. There is magnet tape on the back of this set - my white board on wheels was the perfect size to drape the beanstalk down, but since I am at home I had to use the flannel board to show you.
The Jack came from a curriculum book I photocopied from the library. If I can find the title I will edit the post.
Using the patterns from KidsSoup, we would tell and retell the story, and talk about the difference in sizes of big and small things. This is a repetition of the other big and small lessons, just with a different story.
The science connection made it an essential fairy tale to use. We planted some seeds (after comparing their sizes) and tracked their growth. I just brought in some leftover seeds from home; we planted a couple of each, This does take some time, I admit, to allow for growth but it's fun and by the time the plants are tall enough to measure with a ruler, we've moved onto standard measurement, so I look at this lesson as prep for that one!
I know that standard measurement is NOT part of the Kindergarten Common Core Standards; I see it is not really brought in until 2nd grade now. But this is something I can't ignore when the kids are totally capable of reading a ruler.
Hands on activity for this fairy tale: walk outside to compare GIANT to BIG to SMALL. We talked about the difference between something that can be called giant versus something we would call big. It is so important for young students to understand the language of math. Great opportunity to introduce TINY as well.
Now, these are all lessons I did with my three and four year olds, minus the measuring the plants with a ruler. They would use non-standard items like cubes. The CCS are so easy for measurement that this would be doable with your Kindergarten classes and be aligned perfectly.
Art connection: my youngest students got their own Jack and beanstalk, and practiced cutting on the lines. They "grew" their beanstalk by picking up the center piece (and bounced it up and down a few times) then I would tape it hanging to the wall, cabinet or table (to spread them out) and they got to move their Jack up and down the beanstalk. Our positional vocabulary of UP, DOWN, TOP, and BOTTOM was reinforced during this time.
Next time, yet another fairy tale!!
Kathy
Monday, September 17, 2012
Literature Connections: Fairy Tales
Here are some more literature connections to the Kindergarten Common Core Standard for Measurement. We are still working with K.MD.1 and K.MD.2.
I will be honest with you, I often have a hard time finding a "good" version of fairy tales. One that will be appropriate to read to a two-year old as well a a Kindergartener. But I am sure most of you do not have to deal with teaching that varied of an age group, so it's not a problem for most. I find that fairy tales can be inappropriate in their language for today's generation. So I most often ad lib while reading, giving my own interpretation of the story, which is what a fairy tale is anyway, right?
For each fairy tale I retell, I have a set of flannelboard or magnetic story pieces to go along with each. This way I can retell the story on the board, and when I have a version with good illustrations, I can show it after telling that portion. Plus, it prevents the little smart-alecs who can read from yelling out "that's not what the story says Ms. Kathy!" LOL
Fairy Tale: The Three Billy Goats Gruff
For this fairy tale, the CCS connection is with the different sized goats. I use this tale to discuss ordinal numbers - which size goat went first, second and third? We reinforce our positional vocabulary with over and under the bridge.
My public library has TONS of versions of the story, as I am sure does yours. This way you can pick the version you like the best.
The resource I use is: Early Childhood Units for Favorite Tales
This links you to the book on Amazon; I got it as part of a set of 3 or 4 similar books at some point in the past. Maybe at a book fair? Can't remember.
I claim no ownership of the following images nor do I profit from the posting of them here.
Using patterns from this book I made a slightly larger set of the characters from the story for my white board. By attaching a small piece of magnet tape, I am ready to go.
Here are my story pieces.
Not the best picture but you get the idea. After we have told and retold the story, the kids have had a chance to participate in the retelling, and we have practiced using our math vocabulary words, the students get their own set of characters. Depending on their age, they either get a "coloring" sheet, where they practice following directions like "color the first goat gray." Getting a bunch of assessments done at once. I can walk around and jot down a quick note for the kids who struggled with the request. The older kids get the chance to cut out the pieces and make their own grassy fields for the goats to go from and to.
This is pretty old; it was in my "redo" pile for this school year. :) All images came from the above shown curriculum book. I also have one with just a bridge; we can retell the story in other ways with different animals/characters. This is saved for a workstation. I forgot something important to mention - the above book also comes with a MINI-BOOK for the students to color and put together. If you missed my blog post on using "book boxes" you can find it here: Book Boxes
Enjoy! Kathy
I will be honest with you, I often have a hard time finding a "good" version of fairy tales. One that will be appropriate to read to a two-year old as well a a Kindergartener. But I am sure most of you do not have to deal with teaching that varied of an age group, so it's not a problem for most. I find that fairy tales can be inappropriate in their language for today's generation. So I most often ad lib while reading, giving my own interpretation of the story, which is what a fairy tale is anyway, right?
For each fairy tale I retell, I have a set of flannelboard or magnetic story pieces to go along with each. This way I can retell the story on the board, and when I have a version with good illustrations, I can show it after telling that portion. Plus, it prevents the little smart-alecs who can read from yelling out "that's not what the story says Ms. Kathy!" LOL
Fairy Tale: The Three Billy Goats Gruff
For this fairy tale, the CCS connection is with the different sized goats. I use this tale to discuss ordinal numbers - which size goat went first, second and third? We reinforce our positional vocabulary with over and under the bridge.
My public library has TONS of versions of the story, as I am sure does yours. This way you can pick the version you like the best.
The resource I use is: Early Childhood Units for Favorite TalesThis links you to the book on Amazon; I got it as part of a set of 3 or 4 similar books at some point in the past. Maybe at a book fair? Can't remember.
I claim no ownership of the following images nor do I profit from the posting of them here.
Using patterns from this book I made a slightly larger set of the characters from the story for my white board. By attaching a small piece of magnet tape, I am ready to go.
Here are my story pieces.
Not the best picture but you get the idea. After we have told and retold the story, the kids have had a chance to participate in the retelling, and we have practiced using our math vocabulary words, the students get their own set of characters. Depending on their age, they either get a "coloring" sheet, where they practice following directions like "color the first goat gray." Getting a bunch of assessments done at once. I can walk around and jot down a quick note for the kids who struggled with the request. The older kids get the chance to cut out the pieces and make their own grassy fields for the goats to go from and to.
This is pretty old; it was in my "redo" pile for this school year. :) All images came from the above shown curriculum book. I also have one with just a bridge; we can retell the story in other ways with different animals/characters. This is saved for a workstation. I forgot something important to mention - the above book also comes with a MINI-BOOK for the students to color and put together. If you missed my blog post on using "book boxes" you can find it here: Book Boxes
Enjoy! Kathy
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