My Wonderful Students

So, this post is not showing an activity that we complete in the classroom, but the wonderful students that brighten my day. These are only my morning groups. In the afternoon I have preschool and kindergarten. Throughout the day in my room I have students that come in and out and stay awhile to complete work at their own level. We all know that special education can be stressful at times with the paperwork, deadlines and being monitored by the state. I look forward to the students in my room that make me laugh which is all of them and make me forget the times that are hard. I just wanted to share some pictures that I have took!

 

Getting some Ipad time!

 

One of my awesome paraprofessionals that help me cut out my laminating. I love to go onto teacherspayteachers.com and find the wonderful education games.

Working with blocks. Each block has a letter of the alphabet. We are working on the letters of the alphabet. He loves tracing the letters and then building towers with the blocks.

My students loves to erase the smartboard after we get done doing our writing. This little girl is very tiny and small. She was cracking me up by trying to erase the board. She kept jumping up and down. I finally had to take pictures of her trying. Some of them are a little blury from when she was jumping.

 

Getting some air off the ground! LOL

 

Hope you enjoyed!

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building Sentences

We have been working on how to build a sentence that includes a subject and a verb. We've also been working on making sure the sentence makes sense, has a capital letter and has an end punctuation mark at the end. The biggest trouble I find with my students is that they struggle with making sure the sentence makes sense. Currently, I'm using a program called, "Fundamentals of Writing." It's a Kanasa Strategy Instruction Model program. I really like how it starts out easy and contiues to build harder. I also like to have games that are fun, build team work and another way of learning about sentences. I have a couple different boxes that have cards in it that you can build sentences with. The first box, which is what we started out with has pictures along with words. This is the one I will be showing you today. There are 250 cards in the box. I took them all out and layed them upside down on the floor. Each student took 2 cards and moved to the carpet. They worked together to form a sentence. The trick with this is, they sentence had to start with a capital letter, but if they had more then one capital letter that they picked, it could not be used for the middle of the sentence. This make it tricky, because it may have not made sense to use it at the beginning, but may have made sense to use it in the middle of the sentence. They could use the picture cards anywhere in the sentence and not just at the end of the sentence.

Once they did have a sentence together, which they did not have to use all the cards, I would count up how many cards they used and we would write the number on the board. Besides having to form correct sentences we also kept track of points. With this game, you could form teams to see who could make the longest sentence.

Laying out their cards to see what everyone had.

 

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

Sight Word Bowling

Here is a fun game for any student. It brings the sport of bowling and learning all at the same time. You are not actually bowling, but the picture are of a bowling ball, the scoring sheets are an actual score sheet you would see at a bowling alley. There are different levels of this game, so if you have students at different levels they do not feel hesitant when having to practice saying a word. This game also includes math. The object of this game is to get the most points at the end of the game. Each time you pull out a bowling ball, you say the word. If you get it correct, you count the points on the bowling ball. If you are unable to say the word you would score a 0 also known as a "gutter ball."

The way I set this game, is with different containers that have the different level of sight words. I also clipped the bag I stored to cards to the inside of the container so that way the students can see which level it is. Also, after they are done with the card they are to put that card back in the correct container.

With the worksheets, each worksheet has different amount of players along with how many innings they want to play. My students enjoy this game and it's one of the first games they pick when they are moving from one activity to another and have a little down time.

 

You can see in this picture the numbers in the corner of the letters. The squares remind me of playing scrabble.

 

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mystery Message Math!

I'm always looking for things fun that still work on different types of skills when the students are in between activities or if they have some down time. I came across these worksheets on teacherspayteachers.com that are math worksheets that include, addition, subtraction, place value, division and multiplication. On the worksheet there are two columns broken down into the problem, answer and then ?. Once you have solved the problems, you then have to find the letter that associates with that answer. When you are done with that, at the bottom of the page is a place for you to put the letters in place to build a saying.

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

Math Scavenger Hunt

I'm always looking for new ways to get my students up and moving around the classroom. I have found that the more you get the students up and having fun, the more they seem to learn. I'm a huge supporter of teacherspayteachers.com (my husband would agree). They have awesome things that are free and for a small price. We have been working on money and came across this awesome scavenger hunt. There are different sets of cards that are different colors. Each set has 6 cards along with a riddle sheet. I hide them around the room and then give each student a set of cards to go serach for. Once they have all their cards, they bring them back to the table and with this one it was a money one. They start to count the change on the card and then find that amount on the sheet. On each card, there is a word that is part of the riddle. They write that word under the amount. Once they are done, it will answer the riddle. The students sure get a kick out of the riddle and the answers.

She loves to have her picture taken! LOL

Working hard!

 

Go and check out teacherspayteachers.com! You will be surprised at the awesome things you will find on there! Also, there is a spot that if you can't find what you are looking for to request materials and someone will contact you that is interested in helping you by making it.

 

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

Wall Pop Dry Erase Stickers

I'm always crusing Pinterest for new ways to make learning fun or a different way of doing things. Last year, we used the white boards a lot and I was constantly getting up and sown to get the white boards and markers for students to practice math, spelling or other activities we are working on.

I was on Pinterest and came across this idea for taking Wall Pop Dry Erase stickers that you put on your wall to putting them on your table you work at. I found mine at Target, but there is an actual website you can buy them on. They come in many different colors. My students love these and especially if they are waiting their turn. It allows them to write or draw quietly while I help another student and not disturb the other students.

They come rolled up, but are very easy to put on. I had to adjust mine a couple of times to make sure I got the bubbles out.

I put one in the middle where I sit, so I had access to one when showing examples.

 

You are able to wipe them off, but they do get to where you have to use the white board cleaner. I will be honest and you will have to scrub them a little. When I clean my tables with the Disinfecting wipes, I use them on the dots too.

 

All in all, I would highly recommend using these. I believe they are a great tool!!

 

Happy Learning,

Shannon

 

Back to School!

Well......it's that time of the year to start getting ready to go back to school. If your a teacher you are getting your room put together and getting ready for the new bunch of kids and if your parents, it's school supply shopping.

I spent the majority of my day in my classroom. I organized and made my bulletin board.....by the way took pretty much the whole day. Every year, I look for a new idea instead of using the same old bulletin boards. I found an idea on Pinterest and ran with the idea. They used balloons, but I didn't have an helium to make the balloons stand up. So, I cut out 49 circles to make the body. I love to craft and so I got out my Camo and found an apple that had a bite mark taken out and used different papers to make design the apples.

It took me a long time today to finish putting the apples together, connecting the circles, laminating and the cutting it all out.

Here are pictures of putting the bulletin board together....

The start of the caterpillar.

 

The final outcome!

 

Hope your enjoying the last few weeks before school starts!

 

Happy Learning!!!

Shannon